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Rupert Murdoch
Born	11 March, 1931 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Occupation(s)	Chairman and CEO, News Corporation
Spouse(s)	Patricia Booker (1956 - 1967) Anna Tõrv (1967 - 1999) Wendi Deng (1999 - present)
Children	Prudence, Elisabeth, Lachlan, James, Grace and Chloe

Keith Rupert Murdoch AC, KCSG (born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-American global media executive and is the controlling shareholder, chairman and managing director of News Corporation, based in New York. Beginning with newspapers, magazines and television stations in his native Australia, Murdoch expanded into British and American media, and in recent years has become a powerful force in satellite television, the film industry, the Internet, and other forms of media.

He is one of the few chief executives of any multinational media corporation who controls the company by reason of his own stake in it, held via a family trust.

Biography

Early life and family

File:Murdochfamily.jpg

Rupert Murdoch in 1937 with his parents, Keith and Elisabeth Murdoch, and his sister, departing Melbourne for Britain, by sea.

Rupert Murdoch was born on March 11, 1931 in Victoria, Australia, and was reading Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Worcester College, Oxford University, when his father, Keith Murdoch, died in 1952.

Before his death Keith Murdoch had accumulated a great number of shares in newspaper companies, including some representing a controlling interest in News Limited, an Adelaide company publishing an afternoon newspaper called The News. He had appointed an experienced journalist named Rohan Rivett, a childhood friend and mentor of Rupert Murdoch, as editor of The News with the hope that Rupert would enter a career in journalism and that Rivett would assist Rupert in learning the required skills. In his will, Keith Murdoch instructed his trustees that Rupert should begin his career at The News "if they consider him worthy of support." At that time Rupert had written in Oxford student newspapers and had worked for a number of newspapers in a junior capacity. Some thought he had little interest in journalism though and noted his enthusiasm for gambling and making money.

At the time of his death Keith Murdoch was heavily in debt but possessed within a private family trust considerable number of newspaper shares, some of which may have actually belonged to the Herald and Weekly Times. The trustees, in consultation with Keith's widow and Rupert's mother, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, were forced to sell many of the shares and other property in order to repay debt and death duties (government taxes). Elisabeth was able to retain only the family home, Cruden Farm, and the shares in News Limited and its subsidiaries, a Melbourne magazine publishing company named Southdown Press and The Barrier Miner, a newspaper at Broken Hill, New South Wales.

Start of business career

Rupert Murdoch returned from Oxford to take up his duties as managing director of News Limited in 1953 and immediately developed an enthusiasm for the newspaper business that was not there before. His drive and energy infected the staff and the paper's circulation and advertising revenue began to grow. He began to direct his attention to acquisition and expansion. He bought a rundown Sunday Newspaper in Perth, Western Australia, and, using the tabloid techniques that Northcliffe had taught his son, made it a roaring success.

In 1956 he began publishing Australia's first and most successful weekly television magazine, TV Week, at Southdown Press in Melbourne, which also published Australia's oldest women's magazine New Idea. With the Perth paper, the TV magazine and a re-energised New Idea all providing a steady and improving cash flow he was able to obtain finance for more expansion from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, a government-owned bank dedicated to supporting Australian business development.

A defining moment in Murdoch's life was the Stuart case in Adelaide when The News began a campaign to free a young aboriginal carnival worker named Rupert Max Stuart who had been convicted of the murder of a small girl on a beach near Ceduna in the far west of South Australia during Christmas of 1958. Stuart was sentenced to hang. The News was critical of the case and investigated in an attempt to prove Stuart not guilty. This action raised the ire of Premier Thomas Playford, and after numerous deliberating, and even a Royal Commission, Stuart was spared the death penalty.

To neutralize public emotion on the issue of hanging he commuted Stuart's sentence to life imprisonment and then established a royal commission, conducted by the state's chief judge and the judge who had passed sentence on Stuart. The outcome was a confirmation of Stuart's guilt and a recommendation that The News, its editor and its managing director be charged with sedition, a form of treason based on mediaeval English law. The paper, the editor and Murdoch were each charged on three counts, making nine counts in all.

To fight the nine cases would have bankrupted News Limited. Rupert Murdoch's only chance of saving the family inheritance was an intercession arranged by Ken May, a political reporter on The News. Playford agreed to meet Murdoch in private. Murdoch pleaded his case on the basis of his youth and inexperience and a claim that Rohan Rivett had exerted influence over him. Playford agreed to have the charges dropped on two conditions: (1) That Rivett be fired from the paper and (2) that The News pay the costs of the royal commission. Unable to face Rivett, Murdoch went to Sydney and wrote a terse one-paragraph letter dismissing his long-time friend.

This humiliating experience gave Rupert Murdoch a taste of the overwhelming power of popularly elected politicians and would shape the future policies of all his newspapers. In 2002 Murdoch financed a motion picture “Black and White” which told an entirely different version of the Stuart story.

Over the next few years, Murdoch established himself in Australia as a dynamic business operator, expanding his holdings by acquiring suburban and provincial newspapers in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory. including the Sydney afternoon tabloid, The Daily Mirror, as well as a small Sydney-based recording company, Festival Records. His acquisition of the Daily Mirror allowed him to challenge two powerful rivals in Australia's biggest city and to outwit his afternoon rival in a long circulation war.

In 1964, Murdoch launched The Australian, Australia's first national daily newspaper, based first in Canberra and later in Sydney. The Australian, a broadsheet, was intended to give Murdoch a new respectability as a 'quality' newspaper publisher and greater political influence. The paper had a rocky start, marked by publishing difficulties and a constantly changing succession of editors who found it impossible to deal with Murdoch's persistent interference. Promised as a serious journal of the affairs of the nation, the paper actually veered between tabloid sensationalism and intellectual tedium until Murdoch was able to find a compliant editor who could abide with his often unpredictable predilections.

The departure in 1966 of the Liberal Prime Minister Robert Menzies saw a chaotic six years of politics after Menzies' chosen successor Harold Holt drowned, to be replaced by John Gorton and then William McMahon. In 1972, Murdoch acquired the Sydney morning tabloid The Daily Telegraph. In that year's election, Murdoch threw his growing power behind the Australian Labor Party under the leadership of Gough Whitlam and duly saw it win power. As the Whitlam government suffered a great loss of public support following its 1974 re-election, Murdoch soon turned against Whitlam and supported the Governor-General's dismissal of the Prime Minister.

In the meantime, Murdoch turned his attention overseas. His business success in Australia and his fastidious policy of prompt periodic repayments of his borrowings had placed him in good financial standing with the Commonwealth Bank and he obtained its support for his biggest venture yet, the takeover of a family company which owned The News of the World, the Sunday newspaper with the biggest circulation in Britain.

Personal life

Murdoch has been married three times. In 1956 he married Patricia Booker, a former shop assistant and air hostess from Melbourne, with whom he had his first child, a daughter Prudence, born in 1958. Pat did not like Adelaide with its extremes of weather and where she had few friends and Rupert was frequently away building the foundations of his future empire (cit. Rod Lever, a long-serving News Limited executive and friend of Pat Booker). They divorced in 1967. In the same year, he married Anna Tõrv, an Estonian-born cadet journalist working for his Sydney newspaper The Daily Telegraph (Australia).

Tõrv and Murdoch had three children: Elisabeth Murdoch (born in Sydney, Australia August 22 1968), Lachlan Murdoch (born in London, UK September 8 1971), and James Murdoch, (born in Wimbledon, UK December 13 1972). Anna and Rupert divorced acrimoniously in June, 1999.

Anna Murdoch received a settlement of some reported US$1.7 billion in assets. Seventeen days after the divorce, on June 25 1999, Murdoch, then 68, married Chinese born Deng Wen Di, later changed to Wendi Deng. She was then 30, a recent college graduate and newly appointed vice-president of STAR TV. Anna Murdoch was also remarried, in October 1999, to William Mann.

Murdoch has since had two children with Deng: Grace (born in New York November 19 2001) and Chloe (born in New York July 17 2003).

Murdoch's eldest son Lachlan, formerly the deputy chief operating officer at the News Corporation and the publisher of the New York Post, was Murdoch's heir apparent before resigning from his executive posts at the global media company at the end of July 2005. Lachlan's departure left James, chief executive of the satellite television service British Sky Broadcasting since November 2003, as the only Murdoch scion still directly involved with the company's operations, though Lachlan has agreed to remain on the News Corporation's board.

After graduating Vassar College and marrying classmate Elkin Pianim (the son of Ghanaian financial and political mogul Kwame Pianim) in 1993, Elisabeth, with her husband, purchased a pair of NBC-affiliate television stations KSBW and KSBY in California on a $35 million loan from her father. By quickly re-organising and re-selling them at a $12 million profit, Elisabeth emerged in 1995 as an unexpected rival to her brothers for eventual leadership of the publishing dynasty's empire. But after quarreling publicly with her assigned mentor Sam Chisholm at BSkyB, she veered out on her own as a television and film producer in London, where she has enjoyed independent success in conjunction with her second husband, Matthew Freud.

It is unknown whether Murdoch will remain as News Corp's CEO indefinitely. The American cable television entrepreneur John Malone was for a time the second largest voting shareholder in News Corporation after Murdoch himself potentially undermining the family's control. In 2007, the company announced that it would sell certain assets and provide cash to Malone's company in exchange for the cancellation of their stock. Murdoch in 2007 issued his older children with equal voting stock perhaps to test their individual interest and ability to run the company according to standards he has set. In the meantime, the long term future of News Corporation can only be the subject of speculation.

Building the Empire

Acquisitions in Australia

Acquisitions in Britain

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Murdoch entered Britain in 1968 with a splash that demonstrated not only the unlimited nature of his ambitions but his extraordinary business acumen and gained him a notoriety that soon produced an exclusively British nickname, “The Dirty Digger.” He succeeded in beating a rival publisher, Robert Maxwell, in securing The News of the World. In 1950 this had been the most popular English language newspaper in the world, claiming a peak circulation of 8,441,966. By 1968, the circulation had dropped to around six million and a substantial number of its shares were offered for sale by a member of the Carr family, which had part-owned and managed the company for nearly seventy years.

It was also the first time Murdoch risked the whole business he had already created on the outcome of a new venture, for he mortgaged the most valuable of his existing Australian properties to buy the paper with a promise that he would share control with the existing Carr management. Within a matter of weeks the Carrs were gone and Murdoch not only controlled News of the World but had regained full ownership of all his Australian assets.

When the daily newspaper The Sun came on the market in 1969, Murdoch went to his bankers again and snapped up what had been a money-losing upmarket broadsheet with a declining circulation and relaunched it as a cheap racy tabloid which by 2006 was selling three million copies a day.

Murdoch's biggest thrill came the day he was able to take over The Times, the paper his father's mentor Viscount Northcliffe, had once owned. The distinction of owning The Times came to him through his careful cultivation of the owner who had grown tired of losing money on the property.

During the 1980s and early 90s, Murdoch's publications were generally supportive of the UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

At the end of the Thatcher/Major era, Murdoch switched his support to Labour and the party's leader Tony Blair. The closeness of his relationship with Blair and their secret meetings to discuss national policies was to become a serious political issue in Britain particularly with regard to Murdoch's enthusiasm for the invasion of Iraq, which may or may not have influenced Blair.

From 1986, Murdoch moved to introduce electronic production processes to his newspapers in Australia, Britain and United States. This led to significant reductions in the number of people employed in the printing process through greater automation. In England, the move aroused the anger of the print unions resulting in a long and often violent dispute fought in London's docklands area of Wapping, where Murdoch had installed the very latest electronic newspaper publishing factory in an old warehouse. It was reasonably well known that Murdoch intended to launch a new newspaper from those premises but he had kept as a surprise his intention to relocate all News titles there. Union opposition in Australia caved in after the Wapping battle and now most newspapers around the world are produced by this method. It greatly increased the profitability of papers at a time when revenues were slipping.

Like many companies in the movie business, News has subsidiaries in the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, the Channel Islands and the Virgin Islands. From 1986 News Corporation's annual tax bill averaged around seven percent of profits.

Moving into the United States

Murdoch made his first acquisition in the United States in 1973, when he purchased the San Antonio Express-News. Soon afterwards, he founded "Star," a supermarket tabloid, and in 1976, he purchased the New York Post. On September 4, 1985, Murdoch became a naturalized citizen, to satisfy the legal requirement that only US citizens could own American television stations. In 1987, in Australia, he bought The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd., the company that his father had once managed. By 1991, his Australian-based News Corp. had amassed huge debts, which forced Murdoch to sell many of the American magazine interests he had acquired in the mid-80s. Much of this debt came from his British-based satellite network Sky Television, which incurred massive losses in its early years of operation, which (like many of his business interests) was heavily subsidized with profits from his other holdings, until he was able to force rival satellite operator British Satellite Broadcasting to accept a merger on his terms in 1990. (The merged company, BSkyB, has dominated the British pay-TV market ever since.)

In 1995, Murdoch's Fox Network became the object of scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), when it was alleged that News Ltd.'s Australian base made Murdoch's ownership of Fox illegal. The FCC, however, ruled in Murdoch's favor, stating that his ownership of Fox was in the public's best interests. In the same year, Murdoch announced a deal with MCI Communications to develop a major news website, as well as funding a conservative magazine, The Weekly Standard. In the same year, News Corp. launched the Foxtel pay television network in Australia, in a partnership with Telstra.

In 1996, Murdoch chose to enter the world of cable news with the Fox News Channel, a 24-hour cable news station. Following its launch, the heavily-funded Fox News consistently eroded CNN's market share, and eventually proclaimed itself as "the most-watched cable news channel." This is due in part to recent ratings studies, released in the fourth quarter of 2004, showing that the network had nine of the top ten programs in the "Cable News" category. However, in recent years, its ratings have begun to decline.

In 1999, Murdoch significantly expanded his music holdings in Australia by acquiring the controlling share in a leading Australian independent label, Michael Gudinski's Mushroom Records; he merged that with Festival Records and the result was Festival Mushroom Records (FMR). Both Festival and FMR were managed by Murdoch's son James Murdoch for several years.

Expansion in Asia

Murdoch took stakes in STAR TV (Asia) and created offices for it throughout Asia. Including Hong Kong, China, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, etc. It is one of the biggest Satellite-TV networks in Asia.

Recent activities

In late 2003, Murdoch acquired a 34 percent stake in Hughes Electronics, operator of the largest American satellite TV system, DirecTV, from General Motors for $6 billion (USD). Among his properties around the world are UK's The Times and the New York Post.

In 2004, Murdoch announced that he was moving News Corp.'s notional head office from Adelaide, Australia to the United States. Choosing a US domicile was designed to ensure that American fund managers could purchase shares in the company in circumstances where many chose not to buy shares in non-US companies. Some analysts believed that News Corp's Australian domicile was leading to the company being undervalued compared with its peers.

On July 20, 2005, News Corp. bought Intermix Media Inc., which held MySpace.com and other popular social networking-themed websites for $580 million USD. On September 11, 2005, News Corp announced that it would buy IGN Entertainment for $650 million (USD).

Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner have been competitors for quite some time. Murdoch launched the Fox News Channel to compete against Turner's CNN, dethroning CNN as the most popular news network on US cable television with CNN still having a larger viewer audience, due to its availability in airports and other public venues.

In September 2005 the subject of Murdoch's alleged anti-competitive business practices resurfaced when Australian media proprietor Kerry Stokes, owner of the Seven Network, instituted legal action against News Corporation and the PBL organization, headed by Kerry Packer. The suit stems from the 2002 collapse of Stokes' planned cable TV network C7, which would have been a direct competitor to the other major Australian cable provider, Foxtel, in which News and PBL have major stakes.

Stokes claims that News Corp. and PBL (along with several other media organizations) colluded to force C7 out of business by using undue influence to prevent C7 from gaining vital broadcast rights to major sporting events. In evidence given to the court on 26 September, Stokes alleged that PBL executive James Packer came to his home in December 2000 and warned him that PBL and News Limited were "getting together" to prevent the AFL rights being granted to C7.

Recently, Murdoch has bought out the Turkish TV channel, TGRT, which was previously confiscated by the Turkish Board of Banking Regulations, TMSF. Newspapers report that Murdoch has bought TGRT in a partnership with Turkish recording mogul, Ahmet Ertegün and there are alleged reports that Murdoch has acquired Turkish citizenship to overcome the current obligations against capital sales to foreigners.

On February 16th, 2007, Rupert Murdoch agreed to purchase Proboards, a remotely hosted forum provider from owner and founder Patrick Clinger for an undisclosed amount of money.

February, 2007, negotiations with Virgin Media. The head of Virgin Media Richard Branson accused BSkyB of "bullying" and "arrogance" after talks broke down over prices set for carrying the channels. BskyB raised the fees it charged the cable firm. Virgin Media has currently dropped the Sky Basics TV package, which includes Sky One and other channels on cable TV, Sky Travel and Sky Sports News.

On May 1st, 2007, Dow Jones & Company confirmed receiving an unsolicited takeover offer by Murdoch´s News Corp estimated around $5 Billion.

Murdoch and politics

Australia

Murdoch's shattering experience with Tom Playford in South Australia (see above: "Start of Business Career") and his early political activities in Australia were to set the pattern he would use around the world for the rest of his life. When he took control of The News at the tender age of 23, the aging Prime Minister Menzies and his loyal deputy Harold Holt treated him with barely concealed contempt and largely avoided him. They were well aware that Rupert's father had long despaired of his only son's character defects.

Murdoch found a political ally in John McEwen, leader of the Australian Country Party and governing in coalition with the larger Menzies-Holt Liberal Party. From the very first issue of The Australian Murdoch began taking McEwen's side in every issue that divided the long-serving coalition partners. (The Australian, July 15, 1964, first edition front page: “Strain in Cabinet, Liberal-CP row flares.”) It was an issue that threatened to split the coalition government and open the way for the stronger Australian Labor Party to dominate Australian politics forever. It was the beginning of a long campaign that served McEwen well.

McEwen repaid Murdoch's support later by aiding him to buy his valuable rural property Cavan and then arranged a clever subterfuge by which Murdoch was able to transfer a large sum of money from Australia to England to complete the purchase of The News of the World without obtaining the required authority from the Australian Treasury.

After McEwen and Menzies retired, Murdoch transferred his support to the newly elected Leader of the Australian Labor Party, Gough Whitlam, who was elected in 1972 on a social platform that included universal free health care, free education for all Australians to tertiary level, recognition of the People's Republic of China and public ownership of Australia's oil, gas and mineral resources.

Rupert Murdoch's flirtation with Whitlam turned out to be brief. He had already started his short lived National Starnewspaper in America and was seeking to strengthen his political contacts there.

United States

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In the US he has been a long-time supporter of the Republican Party and was a friend of Ronald Reagan. Regarding Pat Robertson's 1988 presidential bid, he said, "He's right on all the issues." Many Christian conservatives were dismayed when Robertson sold his television network to Murdoch. Murdoch's papers strongly supported George W. Bush in both the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.

Murdoch's publications worldwide tend to adopt conservative views. During the buildup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, all 175 Murdoch-owned newspapers worldwide editorialized in favor of the war. Murdoch also served on the board of directors of the libertarian Cato Institute. News Corp-owned Fox News is often criticized for a strong conservative and anti-liberal bias.

On May 8 2006, the Financial Times reported that Murdoch would be hosting a fundraiser for Senator Hillary Clinton's (D-New York) Senate reelection campaign. Murdoch's New York Post newspaper opposed Hillary's Senate run in 2000.

In May 2007, he made a $5 billion offer to purchase Dow Jones, owner of the Wall Street Journal. Thus far his offer has been rejected by the Bancroft family who have voting control over the company.

United Kingdom

In Britain, he formed a close alliance with Margaret Thatcher, and The Sun was widely credited with helping John Major win an unexpected election victory in the 1992 general election. However, in the general elections of 1997, 2001 and 2005, Murdoch's papers were either neutral or supported Labour under Tony Blair. This has led some critics to argue that Murdoch simply supports the incumbent parties (or those who seem most likely to win an upcoming election) in the hope of influencing government decisions that may affect his businesses; though it should be noted that the Labour Party under Blair had moved significantly to the Right on many economic issues prior to 1997. In any case, Murdoch identifies himself as a libertarian.

In a speech in New York, Rupert Murdoch said that the UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said the BBC coverage of the Hurricane Katrina disaster was full of hatred of America. Mr. Murdoch is a strong critic of the BBC, which he believes has a liberal bias.

On June 28 2006 the BBC reported that Murdoch and News Corporation are flirting with idea of backing Tory leader David Cameron at the next General Election. However in a recent interview, when asked what he thought of the new Conservative leader, Murdoch replied "Not much".

In 2006, the UK’s Independent newspaper reported that Murdoch is to offer Tony Blair a senior role in his global media company News Corp. when the UK prime minister stands down from office.

Criticism and Controversy

Murdoch has been criticised for being pro-establishment in his media outlets.

In 1999, The Economist reported that Murdoch had made £1.4 billion ($2.1 billion) in profits over the previous 11 years but had paid no net corporation tax. It further reported, after an examination of what was available of the accounts, that Murdoch would normally have expected to pay a corporate tax of approximately $350 million. The article explained that the corporation's complex structure, international scope and use of offshore havens allowed News Corporation to avoid tax

Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel has been criticized by many watchdog groups for being politically conservative and advocating for conservative policies and candidates in its newscasts. They state that it is not "fair and balanced" as the network's tagline claims. The network is featured in the 2004 documentary Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, which was produced and directed by Robert Greenwald.

Murdoch quotes

"News — communicating news and ideas, I guess — is my passion. And giving people alternatives so that they have two papers to read (and) alternative television channels."

"Can we change the world? No, but hell, we can all try."

"In this country, Fox News has gotten a big, big audience that appreciates its independence. There's passion there, and it's pushed. ... It has taken a long boot time, but it has now changed CNN because it has challenged them — they've become more centrist in their choice of stories. They're trying to become, using our phrase, more fair and balanced."

“I have to admit that until recently I was somewhat wary of the warming debate. But I believe it is now our responsibility to take the lead on this issue.”

"The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be $20 a barrel for oil. That's bigger than any tax cut in any country."

Asked if News Corp. had managed to shape the agenda on the war in Iraq. Murdoch answered: “We basically supported the Bush policy in the Middle East…but we have been very critical of his execution.”

Asked about liberal bias in the mainstream media, Murdoch answered: "Well, except for ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, New York Times, the Washington Post, and about another 100 newspapers, I find little evidence of liberal bias in the media."

Trivia

Murdoch's third marriage and the legal wranglings of his family were used as an episode idea for Law & Order: Criminal Intent, entitled "Proud Flesh", with Murdoch being transformed into Jonas Slaughter, played by Malcolm McDowell, a radio mogul with a strange devotion to his sons.
In the Jeffrey Archer book The Fourth Estate, the character of Keith Townsend is based on Murdoch.
Murdoch played himself in an episode of The Simpsons, where Homer and his pals burst into his sky box at the Super Bowl when nobody was around. He introduces himself to Homer as "Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire tyrant." Murdoch is also lampooned in "Behind the Laughter," when Homer needs to help an unseen man co-sign a contract, in which he crudely signs RUPERT with some spelling help. Murdoch also appears in several other episodes, including the episode "Missionary: Impossible" where he thanks Bart for saving the Fox network. Also, Mr. Burns said in the episode Fraudcast News that "one cannot control all media unless one is Rupert Murdoch" and stared into the screen smiling, with Smithers nodding. According to series creator Matt Groening, Murdoch takes these parodies of him with good humor.
Murdoch was one of the inspirations for the villain Elliot Carver (portrayed by Jonathan Pryce) in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies.
Singer/songwriter Don Henley dedicated his song "Dirty Laundry" to Murdoch.
In the novel The Hostile Hospital, in A Series of Unfortunate Events, the name RUTH DERCROUMP — an anagram of RUPERT MURDOCH — appears in a list of hospital patients.
In the novel England, England by Julian Barnes, the character Jack Pitman is based on Murdoch.
Queen drummer Roger Meddows-Taylor included an unflattering song about Murdoch entitled "Dear Mr. Murdoch" on his 1994 solo album Happiness?
Writer Dennis Potter said, during his terminal decline due to cancer, that he had named his tumour "Rupert" after Murdoch, whom he blamed for a broad decline in the general quality of television.

In the movie The Devil Wears Prada, Meryl Streep's character, Miranda Priestley, the editor-in-chief of Runway Magazine mentioned that Rupert Murdoch should "cut her a cheque for all the papers that she sells" for him, referring to the infamous divorces of Priestley that Murdoch reports on the newspapers.
In the play Pravda, the character of Lambert La Roux, played by Anthony Hopkins in the original production, is based on Murdoch.
Murdoch was once included in a Terry Gilliam animation from Episode 31 of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Notes

^ Younger, R.M. (2003). "Keith Murdoch: Founder of a Media Empire". HarperCollins.
Chenoweth (2001) p 45
Shawcross (1997) pp 69-78
Page (2003) pp 120-123
Page (2003) pp 131-135 et seq.
Page (2003) p 3, pp 253-419
Page (2003) pp 424-484
Page (2003) pp 368-393
Chenoweth (2001) pp 300-303, 87-90, 177
Fox News faces challenges from ratings, Democrats as 10th anniversary arrives
News Corp. Acquires IGN for $650 Million
Virgin slams BSkyB in TV dispute
Shawcross (1997) pp 21-24. In May, 1922, Keith Murdoch wrote to Northcliffe boasting of a remarkable circulation increase to the Melbourne Herald as a result of following Northcliff's advice to seek out a good murder story: "You remarked to me that when a sensation comes, you would get all the new readers you want. Perfectly true. I had only put on 8000 when we got a murder mystery, an unprecedented one, leading to such scenes as mounted police having to be called out to check the crowds about the residence of the supposed murderer. That left us with a steady 125,000. Then came the trial when we were averaging 230,000 or thereabouts. We are left with a steady 140,000 now and I hope for a bit more." Correpondence with Keith Murdoch : 1915-1922. Northcliffe, Alfred Harmsworth, Viscount, 1865-1922. The crime referred to was known as the Gun Alley Murder. See http://www.brightoncemetery.com/HistoricInterments/Crimes/tirtshckea.htm
^ Don Garden, Theodor Fink: A Talent for Ubiquity (Melbourne University Press 1998)
Cite error: The named reference Geneology was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
Cite error: The named reference Younger was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
Cite error: The named reference Shawcross was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
Shawcross, pp 30-39
^ Their master's voice
Murdoch's politics
Murdoch flirts with Conservatives
Murdoch set to back Blair - for a place in his boardroom
Rupert Murdoch Laid Bare
Tax free: Rupert Murdoch's zero status
^ J. Dowling, Robert (2005-11-17). "Dialogue: Rupert Murdoch". Hollywood Reporter. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
News Corp : Making of a global media business
Changing views to global warming

References

Chenoweth, Neil (2001). "Rupert Murdoch, the untold story of the world's greatest media wizard". New York: Random House.
Shawcross, William (1997). Murdoch: the making of a media empire. New York. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |publihser= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Page, Bruce (2003). The Murdoch Archipelago. Simon and Schuster UK.

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