News Flash: Rupert Likes to Buy Things, Got Drunk

Written by R. Scott Raynovich - Light Reading

Monday, December 1. 2008 at 10:05 AM EST 1 comment

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I've been grazing on the news coverage about Michael Wolff's coming book on Rupert Murdoch, The Man Who Owns the News, which will be released tomorrow. And I hope the book is better than the news coverage -- because most of it has been free of any grand revelations.

This is Rupert Murdoch, after all, one of the world's most powerful and controversial media moguls. In an "exhaustively researched book" on him, I expected something juicy -- maybe that he's going to freeze his brain after his death, or that he's had plastic surgery, or that he collects his own urine. Or... something. But so far... nada.

From what I've read, the book covers the terrain you would expect -- Murdoch's upbringing in the newspaper world Down Under, his insatiable hunger to acquire large media properties to build his empire -- and reputation -- including the saga of buying Dow Jones.

Wolff was on CNBC this morning, and his spin was that, after the 50 or so hours he claims to have spent with Murdoch, Rupert's just a newspaperman -- the City Editor.

ZZZZZZZZ...

C'mon Michael, give us more than that! Like, what's up with the wife who's 40 years younger? His estranged children? The dysfunctional news personalities on Fox News? Maybe Wolff's just being coy, and it's all in there. But the reviews say otherwise. 

Marketwatch columnist Jon Friedman doubles down on the newspaperman spin, buying into Wolff's depiction. 

Bloomberg gave the book a lukewarm review, saying Wolff was too smitten by Murdoch to do any real damage. The most scandalous thing mentioned here is that Murdoch dyes his hair. Big deal. 

Wolff argues that he wasn't too coy -- he was just trying to paint an accurate representation of the man. In a Reuters interview, Wolff says that Murdoch is angry about the book, claiming many errors.

Leave it to a paper from Murdoch's homeland, Australia, to come up with more interesting stuff. The Aussies focus on the funnies and the booze. The Age leads with the story, "The Joker and the Drinker." The book says that Murdoch got "blind drunk" on the day that Princess Diana died and had to be carried to a meeting with bankers, reports the paper.

That's slightly more interesting, but still not revelatory. A drunk Australian newspaperman? Certainly we can do better than that.