The great fear about Rupert Murdoch, among journalists and proper liberals verywhere, beyond even his tabloidism and his right-wing politics, is that he acknowledges no rules. He does it, without mercy, his way. If you watch him up close, this certainly seems true. He sits in his office and plots and schemes and figures out ways to get (to take) what he wants.
Although he’d agreed with the Bancroft family, Dow Jones’s former owners, to accept a strict structure for protecting The Wall Street Journal’s editorial independence, I watched how blithely he paid no attention to it. It barely figured into his plans or consciousness. Except that he seemed briefly tickled to have figured out that if he merely called his chosen editor, Robert Thomson, the publisher, then he’d have his choice. He was only slightly confounded (and a bit bemused) that it took Journal editor Marcus Brauchli four months to get the message that he was out.
Still, up close, such lack of restraint doesn’t necessarily seem so threatening. It seems, in fact … fun. There’s no artifice. There’s no bureaucracy. There’s no pretense. There’s no corporate this and that—Murdoch’s truly the anti-corporate man. It’s all determination and enthusiasm. It’s all about his passions and the effect he can have. (Of course he was going to replace the Journal’s editor. What was everybody thinking?)
It’s his adventure. Part of the reason so many of the people around him are so loyal—such true believers—is that they’re caught up in it. It’s a grand enterprise.
