Murdoch May Have Killed Story on Wife

Rupert Murdoch may have muscled an Aussie mag into dropping a profile of his third wife, Slate's Jack Shafer speculates. Good Weekend suddenly jettisoned a 10,000-word piece on 38-year-old Wendi Deng last month, after paying writer Eric Ellis $25 grand for the heavily-researched story.

As Murdoch salivates over the Wall Street Journal, Shafer ponders the mogul's journalistic ethics. The Chinese-born Deng is a VP at News Corp, which owned 7% of Good Weekend's parent at the time. And Murdoch is obviously touchy about his helpmeet: His people still fulminate about a seven-year-old exposé in, of all places, the Journal. (More Rupert Murdoch stories.)