2001-09-24T05:55:00.000-07:00

Virtual Murdoch
by Neil Chenoweth
Random House, Australia, 2001
Secker & Warburg, London, 2001

Neil Chenoweth begins 'Virtual Murdoch', his biography on Rupert Murdoch, with some interesting insights into the foundations of the establishment that is Rupert and his businesses. We learn of a man, who ws once a boy struggling to fit into a perception of what others thought he should be. His mother, Dame Elisabeth, creates a myth of a father that Rupert can never live up to. However, does this provide us with the very background to why a man so independent and so powerful became just that? As the story unfolds we realise that is through such challenges as these that Rupert rises to the status at which he now resides. When there is no avenue for him to find a pair of shoes available that will fit, he creates a new pair to accomodate him.

His three years at Oxford were apparently pivotal to his approach to success. When he discovers the need to have belonged to a prestigious society in order to advance, he, and a few of his collegues, creates their own. It is the inclusion of these details that I think Chenoweth has selected well in order to present a good background for the development of a character that is Rupert Murdoch, as we have known, and continue to know him today. I found the detail of such an ever-present drive extremely uplifting.

The book then goes into a descriptive account of Murdoch's financial woes, windfalls and successes. While previous Murdoch biographies have detailed nothing much past the 1990 debt crisis, Chenoweth delves into newer discoveries. Chenoweth challenges the accepted Murdoch history that Rupert bought the 'News of the World' and the 'Sun' in the late 1960s, the 'New York Post' in the mid 1970s, then in the 1980s he bought the Twentieth Century Fox, launched the Fox network, did the $3billion 'TV Guide' deal, set up Harper Collins, overturned the British printing unions at Wapping, then finally almost went brok in December 1990 because of a little bank in Pittsburgh that threatened Murdoch financial existence. For the unravelling, and therefore inclusion of new details, Chenoweth should be commended.

Chenoweth made a discovery several years ago during a computer search of New York property records. During this search he found a peculiar mortgage that Anna and Rupert Murdoch had signed on a New York apartment in October, 1987, two days after U.S. stock market crash. It is in putting the jigsaw puzzle pieces together, that Chenoweth discovers a new way of looking at the complete picture of the Murdoch history. His talent as an ivestigative reporter should also be recognised.

His probing of such detail triggered a financial investigation into the Murdoch family companies in the early 1990s. With such dedication to this cause, it is understandable as to why Chenoweth so meticulously details the Cruden Investment accounts. However, with so much of the book's attention being focused on so much, in my opinion, tedious detail of Murdoch debt, tax laws and the like, it becomes a little too much for the average person to absorb, let alone enjoy reading.

For the reader that is merely solely interested in the facts and figures that Chenoweth writes of, the book is undoubtedly a wonderful resource. On the other hand, for the reader that what's more insight into more of the realities of the PERSON that is Rupert Murdoch, they are not fully catered for in 'Virtual Murdoch'. Chenoweth seems to merely touch on major issues such as the departure of his daughter, Elisabeth, from the family business, his seemingly sudden divorce from wife, Anna, and his marriage to Wendy Deng. The inclusion of more detail to these issues would have added a little bit of colour to the biography for a lot of readers interested in allo the layers that make up the Rupert Murdoch life-story.

While these events may seem mostly irrelevant to a documentary of his life, given that the interest in his life is due to his achievements in business, their exclusion does also harm 'Virtual Murdoch' as a biography in some ways. For example, his association with Wendy Deng became an extremely contentious issue at the time, ringing the alarm bells in the ears of several News Corp executives, concerned about the security of Murdoch's future and the future of his businesses. Would she influence him to become more internet-oriented? Would she prove to be a distraction for him, taking his attentiveness away from his businesses?

Overall, Chenoweth fails to document the personal life of Murdoch with as much detail and precision as he uses when documenting his business life. Given that the two aspects are so heavily connected and interrelated for this particular character, the book, in my opinion failas as a complete account of the life of Murdoch.

Just as Murdoch took out American citizenship while assuring the Australian prime minister that he was still, at heart, an Australian, and just as he told the Federal Communication Commissioner that Fox would be American-owned, while at the same time telling the Securities and Exchange Commission that Australian-owned News Corporation was the real owner of Fox, reality is all in the way you tell it. The complete truth cannot be known if not all details are provided. Virtual Murdoch is virtually the definitive tale of Rupert Murdoch, but not completely.

Virtual Murdoch Book Review