Journalist Michael Wolff, speaking at the London School of Economics Thursday, recounted an angry phone call from Rupert Murdoch, whose biography he had just finished writing.
"Whoa there Rupert!" Wolff claims to have interjected. "You want to be nice to me because when the end comes I will be the first person they call."
Wolff now claims Murdoch is approaching an end of sorts and so too it has proved that his biographer has indeed been first in the queue to offer comment at any given opportunity.
"I think the whole house of cards has come down," said Wolff. "Rupert Murdoch has held power longer than anybody else in our lives. Businessmen and politicans fade, Rupert doesn't. Until now."
Totally bogus
It is worth remembering Wolff has made a career out of being good with words. These are also largely his opinions and his reading of the situation. He also has a book to sell and an incredible shop window in which to sell it if he can weave himself inextricably into the debate around Murdoch's current predicament. And make no mistake, it is Murdoch's predicament, argues Wolff, refusing to entertain suggestions the 80-year-old was somehow oblivious to what was going on at his papers.
"That's totally bogus," Wolff claims. "Everybody in the company is doing what they think Rupert wants them to do. It all flows down from not just trying to please Rupert but from the way that Rupert wants things done - especially the newspapers."
Curiously, given such strong words, Wolff displayed an odd affection for Murdoch when asked what he thought of the man behind the scandal, with whom he had spent many hours while writing the biography.
"I like him. Very much," said Wolff. "He is incredibly human, he is a man without pretence. He is a man who's done what he wants to do. There is a warmth. You kind of have to dig around for it a bit. And if you turn around he's going to stab you in the back of course."
Punish and reward
Given that latter admission, you'd think Wolff might choose his words more carefully but he also believes Murdoch's powers - built on a model of "punish and reward" - are far from what they used to be, not least because even those he promised to reward no longer crave, or feel comfortable receiving, his endorsement.
"Even if MPs haven't discovered ethical values, they have discovered Rupert is toxic," said Wolff.
Similarly, it is near impossible for Murdoch's papers to hold others to account, or dish out the "punish" side of the equation while the organisation stares down the barrel of a deepening scandal.
And this, argues Wolff is why Murdoch will not recover from the wounds inflicted upon him and his family name.
Pushed for a prognosis, Wolff concluded: "I think this is the endgame for the Murdoch family's relationship with News Corp. In the next...90 days we'll see that play out."
I found Wolff a pretty interesting character in the flesh. Elements of the unreliable narrator, though that might just have been the specs.
Posted by: Shona Ghosh | Jul 28, 2011 at 23:36