[applause] booktv is on facebook. Likes to enter act with booktv guests and viewers. Watch videos. Facebook. Com become tv. And now on booktv, npr media correspondent David Folkenflik talk about the rice and near fall of rue bert Murdoch News Corp and how mr. Murdoch was able to survive the recent bribery and phone hacking scandal in england. This is a little over an hour. [applause] thank you. Thank you for coming. Just turn the lights up. You have to make noise every now and then and well know youre there. Right now we cant tell. I get to introduce david so let me just bear with me a minute while i read what they wrote for me. Did you write it for me . David folkenflik has been nprs media correspondent since 2004. He previously covered media and politics for the Baltimore Sun and edited the 2011 book page one, inside the New York Times and the future of journalism. He was covered murdoch extensively and has been a protect commentator in the hacking scandal. His new book murdochs world. Last of the old media empires. Good to have you. Back in my home. Before we try to answer the questions, did Rupert Murdoch save journalist thats before you try answer the question thats why youre here journalism hash tag. You covered the media for ten plus years before npr and Baltimore Sun, and covering the u. S. Media means covering Rupert Murdoch. Rupert murdoch and company did not cooperate in this book project. How far did they go to stop you, if at all . Nothing rev reprehensible, they took a few months and decided not to participate. I asked to speak tore mr. Murdoch and his family members members and they said no thanks. That cited a number of proceedings. Criminal proceedings in london that are real and some of their top former lieutenants there. Which we can get into. A book in which they offered great access to a magazine writer michaelwolf, and they felt burned by the extend to which they revealed. Thes to him. And they were concern what would look like in the hacking scandal. So there were a number of executives at various arms and outlets in the larger murdoch realm said, wed love to talk to you, we cant. The word from the big dog. I set up to talk with minute of the most Senior Executives within the corporation, and within 24 hours of our longplanned interview, he got a call from one of murdochs top aides and said you cannot do this. Luckily, having walk this beat for a while, not only had a reservoir of knowledge and interviews banked and i also persevere evidence with senior figures and people from the reporter level up to the Top Executive ranks and was able to get them to talk to me and rather patiently walk me through key moments, your pets are still alive and all of that. Yes. Thats always good a sign. You make the case in the book that Rupert Murdochs impact on media almost cant be overstated. Most people here are familiar but what is the short version . I think that murdoch is pretty unquestionably, at the moment, and for the last several decades, been the most influential and Important Media figure in the English Speaking world. You have a guy who whose holding decision its a publicly traded company that he has run and yet he runs it like a family concern, with reason. He structured it in such a way where he and his children essentially control almost a pure majority of votes in such a way where its impossible to hold them in check. But they have holdings that span six continents. The Company Controls 65 to 70 of major newspaper circulation his native australia. Until the scandal they controlled 40 of National Newspaper circumstance nation the uk, which is a National Newspaper market. That is now down to 3638 , but still in american minds quite astonishing. The most powerful private broadcaster in the uk, and what is called sky or fox news here, fx, the simpsons this list goes on and on. Wall street journal New York Post. He shapes politics and Public Perception at both a high and low level. Mass market tab tabloids that reflect his pop list center right, reagan democrat sensibility, and the way in which he reaches elites and decisionmakers and thoughtinfluencers through papers like the wall street journal and the times of london. So he is trying to influence Public Policy to show the connection he has to keep making money by influencing people in powerful positions to help hem on his more lucrative sides, the foxes and skies of the world. You had some colorful characters to work with. He is bigger than any one country. He has citizen ship here so he can get involved in television here. And he is mad at the world but still kind of motivated a lot by past and present allegiances to family. I think he is his own man. But i would say this family is important. Humanly important to him. He hugely important. In some ways beyond borders. He is a creator. Saw these weaker television stations and took them and trunk them together at a time when people thought they w. Valuable, into a network that became the most popular in the country for many years. He did a similar thing in britain where he wasnt aired awarded one of the first early satellite channels for britain, so he beamed up to a different satellite and got people inexpensive satellite dishes and britts blue their mind. Said we didnt say you could do that and he said, i dont care. So he innovates through sir culp venges, and itsed a the fine observe yapses of the law is not his strong suit. Likes to tweak authority. Need the elites. Where does that come from . You mentioned family and that has to be right. His father was respected political journalist in australia. And he was the guy who revealed that you recall the movie gallipoli when you were allowed to like mel gibson movies, about this terrible illfated campaign in world war i where british commanders sent australian and new zealand troops to slaughter, and his father wrote this missive saying what would happen if the australians were betrayed in this helped forge a sense of identity as australia worked towards independence and nationhood. He got some of the details wrong, as he later acknowledged, but propelled his father to fame, and murdoch many years later formed a Production Company to make sure that movie was made in a way to september meant his fathers reputation. He had the sense his father was never given the credit he was due felt his fair had been screwed out of his Holdings Just before his fathers death, and murdoch made his way. His father was a knight and his mother philadelphia a huge estate, but he had to make his way by being given only a daily parent in adelaide, a forgotten city on the coast of australia, and he was sort of nurtured in the sense that the elites, the powers that be behind closed doors were screwing him and his family over and this drove him, propelled him to show he understood newspapers better, the command australian better. He connected with them. Wasnt going to be elitist about what they should be reading. As long as they wanted to read michigan in the newspaper it was a Public Service to provide it. And he used that sense of grievance and that sense of section with what he felt was the common man and his gut instinct. The sense of being motivated by the feeling of being disrespected runs throughout the book. You say that murdoch and i guess more the executives in the Company Defined themselves by who they think their enemies are, whether its the bbc or unions or whatever. Its a distinctive culture for this company. Comes from him. Its a strong sense of kind of australians first. The australians throughout top positions. I think david hill, fox sports and helping to really lead this new fox sports 1 competitor to espn out here in l. A. He is an australian, paul allen, the head of the New York Post is an australian Robert Thompson the head and ceo of news corp, the slimmed down newspaper branch of the familys holdings, who was before that the top editor the wall street journal. He is australian, and you have some brits in as well and its an interesting mix. I sort of talk about this under the makeship, an australian notion of fraternity that transcends anything at college. Where you look out for your mate. If your fight is in a brawl, you help. Built on things like experiences during world war ii and prison camps where australian guys risked their own lives to save one another. And. Also defined on his inside the circle and who is outside the circle and you can see that in britain, murdoch turn failing newspapers, the news of the world and the sun, into very successful brawling combative, center right publications and they called him the dirty digger and a way of diminishing him as being an australian, a tabloid scandal monger, even though there were other tabloids there. And he thought these guys are locking me out. This guy went to oxford him father was a knight. A newspaper proprietor, forces his way into the top ranks by buying the times of london, which has never made him a cent, and the sunday times, but still somehow even though Prime Ministers are coming to meet him halfway across the world and he goes and dine with World Leaders all the time, he thinks the elites are against him and its a crucial thing, not exactly a rose bud moment but a crucial thing from very early on where he feels that he and his fellow australians are never going to get the time of day. Are they right about that . I dont think thats correct at all. If you look at the way in which power has bent to him, he has essentially seep that the establishment is against him but he created his own establish. If has the former head of spain on his corporate board. He has the former assistant torn general under president bush on his board, and joel cline, former assistant attorney general anywhere president clinton is one of his Top Executives in educational division. He meets with michael bloomberg, centrist liberal republican mogul, another billionaire to talk about immigration preform and Charter School reform. This is not a guy who is shut out off things. Its fascinating to watch. Human gestures mean so much. 1995, tony blair, flies to a small island off the coast of australia and theres a corporate retreat there for news corp, and he flies there, the opposition leader, wants to throw out the conservatives and the elections that going happen two years later, and he makes no promises but instead of meeting murdoch at a property in london, he flies ten thousand miles to say im going to be able to do business with you, and murdochs genius with his papers is that unlike, say, the tell gravel for the wall street journal or New York Times you dont know where theyll end up. They toggle betweenster left politicians, centrist, not pure liberals, centrist figures of the left and conservative figures on the right, and by toggling back and forth, politics hope they just might get that support, and he supported Hillary Clinton when she ran for senate in 2000, centrist bran of democrat he felt he cuckoo business with. Theres five myths we all have about Rupert Murdoch, and one of them is that. He is really not a personage of the far right. He is much less conservative than the most strident voices on fox news and less conservative tom roger ails and the wall street journal editorial page prior those acquiring the journal. Reporters at the journal say we got a break on this whole Mainstreet Miami ya is left wing bus the page is so conservative it gives us cover. He, for example in 2007, announced he would make news corp Carbon Neutral and he would have a fiveyear deadline to do that and they beat the deadline. On the other hand on twitter he makes clear he has no patience for Government Intervention to force certain kinds of taxation or other policies that would mandate reductions, but he believes in it. Violent swing necessary climate in australia you cant simply ascribe to chance. And yet his news organizations, if you read his australian papers, they absolutely bludgeoned the centrist but left of center labor government for taking some steps to do more than just sort of embrace corporate volunteer tear action. There were car been emission policies that were sense as sensible, taxation, similar to how we dealt with acid raid under president george w. Bush president george h. W. Bush but you can see equivalents talking about Climate Change casting doubt, and the scientific community, as most people know by now, that knowledge is shaped very much by what we see in the mainstream press. Theres fundamental agreement that it is occurring and theres real disagreement how thats going to play out and what it means means and thats not the debate in murdoch produce and fox news. His evolution on that is interesting. I want to ask about the other myths. One of them was that he only cares about profits, and you say thats not the case. Well, he doesnt only care about profits. The times of london has never made him a cent. The New York Post which he has owned since 1977, has never made him a cent. He create a little bit like one of the other myths that things turn to gold. He created the daily, tablet only experiment and a lot of people who really understand Digital Media and how people consume media, thought this was a mistake, and that there were mistakes how they approached it and at the same time i thought, look, its like bell labs. He is trying something. Even as he has print products hes trying a daily newspaper only available on tablet. Give him credit for that. That was something he lost many tens of millions of dollars and finally shut it down as a gesture to shareholders that he understood that he cooperate just do everything he wanted. Why do you think the daily didnt work . I think they ultimately when youre doing that and it happens to occur at an incredible crash in advertising and print ask digital, thats a problem. The recession was a problem. He had to figure out how to do things. They ultimately werent able to figure out whether they wanted it a completely Walled Garden that would be really like a magazine you cooperate do much more than physically hand it to somebody else or be a ware to share it online to try to draw people in. They didnt really want to do that because murdoch is off the belief youre going to charge somebody you need to charge them for it, and very confused presence to me. I didnt know whether i could read it or not. Thats the problem. And the people inside were desperate to figure out a way to create a mirror site that you could share on twitter and do other things and you would see tweets seeing, theres this really cool thing that my boyfriend wrote on the daily and, sorry, you cant read it here. And thats not actually a great advertising pitch. So. One of the other myths, people tag him with the idea he has been bad for journalism, and you say he doesnt destroy Good Journalism or hasnt. These were myths. Had to construct them in a way so it seemed as though you were destroying sacred cows. I wouldnt say he uniform hill destroys Good Journalism. I if you look at the wall street journal its not clear to me i think something in the order of seven hundred to 800 journalists on the editorial side, and i dont think that had the bank crofts controlled dow jones, you could have that many journalists there i think he sustained the journal. It has a sophisticated and Smart International report that is more ambitious that what preceded him. I think he is more interested in politics. The headlines are purposeyer and graphics more engaging and use of photographs the journal was charming but something of a holdout, an archaic look and he brought it along. That said, even as the journal, found several dozen instances where the two top several dozen. Well, these were offered to me as representative samples rather than the full catalogue of the best hits, but there are instances in which reporters said, gosh, he is pulling two top editors and one theyre pulling us to the right each time on these stories by raising questions, and some of the questions are smart oneses but theyre never doing it ever pulling at the left. Pulling the democrat up higher in the story. Never asking the question about whether there are ties with the republican to industry. Its always in one direction, and a certain point it felt to a large number of the reporters and editors, many of whom still work there, their report was being pulled to the right, and whether that meant they were in the center, they always said they were, or actually ended up being on the right, is a matter of dispute between the editors, the top editorsed and theyre reporting staff. Lets shift over across the bond a little bit. The opening theme in the book, murdoch in a luxury hotel room, apologizing, and claiming this is he is humbly apologizes to the Parent Office milly dower, a murder victim. 13yearold. Apologizing for his journalists hacking into her phone messagings and reracing some of them before the police could see them. How you start the book. I thought it was a Pivotal Moment for a variety of reasons. Gets the question of family, and ill explain why gets the question of this was the thing that he testified, the most humble day of my life, and he was essentially apologizing to the nation and the parliament during the testimony, in this private moment with people in the room involved, himself anded an adviser, will lewis, mark lewis no relation, the lawyer for the family of this murdered girl, and the sister and the parents of the murdered 13yearold in 2002 it was a national story. If you think of how Kaylee Anthony and Casey Anthony chewed up much of cable news, similarly tabloids thought about this young disappeared 1yearold who had vanished after school, and 13yearold who vanished after school and set off an intense scramble for coverage. The thing that amazed me about it, Rupert Murdoch for all his connection with the common man, almost never meet with him or her. Has no sense of the daytoday life and the people he doesnt go down to the pub and have a pint. Not so much. He is on the phone with whatever time zone its morning he is on the phone with the editors to see how theyre doing. Thats how he spends his free time. It was a moment at which he was seen in seeing in person people who have south no celebrity, have no power, just everyday people, and he is having to confront the impact of the journalism at his prized possession, and something that i think the book argues, is in many ways a consequence of the culture he created, and not that he ordered this in any way but it is linked to who he is and what those tabloids are like, and that is not a constant front addition he gets to do. In that moment, mark lewis, the lawyer for the family, says, you know, i know you know a lot about me but i know a lot about you, fashion its a very interesting interesting introduction to a rebuke on the victims behalf. He just learned, although not yet public, the news of the world paid for private investigators to follow him, the lawyer to see if they could find dirt on him too discredit him, and they had been seeking to make the case and made the case in court that he had been having an affair with another lawyer for another set of victims and, therefore, he should be disqualified and they were seeking to target him because he was the most effective, although up nope guy before the case, the most effective lawyer in england on this topic. Fearless bus he knew as long as he didnt care about what they published about him in print he was invulnerable. The moment he started caring he would be vulnerable. Theres no proof he did have this affair but that didnt matter. They were trying to make a case in court. He said i know you know about me. Meaning i know you have been following me and my family. But i know about you, too, and your mother would be ashamed. Now, his mother, who was over 100 years old, the most venerated person in australia. A dame of the realm, and she is considered the biggest benefactor of the murdoch millions in the city of melbourne and possibly the country. When she died it was a state event for the state of victoria where melbourne is. And murdoch interestingly doesnt rise to the bait. He says, well, my father, my father would be ashamed. Its clear to him this is what matters to him most, the respect of his father, a loving but much older figure who died when he was a young man, and that for him this was all bound up in family and he is sitting across from the parents thinking about the loss of their child, and for him it is a brief moment of connection with people who could not be more universes apart. You take us through the difficulty that Rupert Murdoch felt in dealing with this cascade of charges that kept coming out over what came to be called hackinggate, and one of those was closure of news hoff the world, newspaper that was fundmental to his operation in the uk. You write that for much of the scandal, the key thing his people were trying to do was protect a certain executive, rebecca brooks, and they did for pa while until even she became expendible. I take it youre following her trial . An amazing trial. Rebecca brooks was showed up in her early 20s at news of the world and work her way up in short time to be unof the youngested tilt temperatures of a tabloids in the modern history in the uk. She was merciless toward her staff. You hear stories from reporters who work for her, one of the stories is that they all took essentially gatorade jars into vans when they were stuck out outside the girlfriend of some famous Soccer Player or cabinets member because they were afraid if they went to take a leak at the pub down the block and they misted the guy coming out of the apartment, that they would be so berated theyd probably lose their job. It was a great tabloid editor. Then she led the sun. She then became the ceo of murdochs newspaper empire in the uk. And she went to the pajama 0 ho Birthday Party for the wife of Prime Minister gordon brown. She wrote Rupert Murdochs toast to his own actual daughter, for her 40 in the Birthday Party. And attended Prime Minister cameron takenned her wedding, and an Oxford College classmate of the Prime Minister is her husband. She trafficked in power and influence and flattery for people who could do good things for her and for the murdoch realm, and she was so integrated in the political elite that in looking at it now, its clear that the political elites and the er particularly murdoch elites worked in each others selfinterests. First forming an alliance with the labor folks and then switching over to cameron when they thought he would be a better horse to back. But both sides, both the politicians and the journalists lost the notion of the connection with the public and what service theyre were providing there. In 1989 rupert gave a talk in scotland, the biggest industry conference in the uk, and at one point he said, you know, his sense of Public Service was any service you provide that the public is willing to pay for within the law. And for thats a different concept than youd hear from the guardian or New York Times or times of london. A different concept of what journalism is about and why many people do it. Then folks also his tab employeds lost the phrase, within the law. They just thought, any service we can provide that the public will pay for were not punished for, is a Public Service. The book, brooks is on trial for conspiracy to commit hacking. Prosecutors this very week are presenting evidence she was in constant minutebyminute contact with the news deck. She said she was in dubai so i couldnt know about the hacking. But her cell phone log she was in Constant Contact with top editors there who were aware of the hacking according to the evidence being presented in court. She assess she is on trial for hacking, on trial for corruption for conspiracy to commit corruption. Police officers took, according to the evidence that seems credible significant bribes on fairly regular basis. Small minority of police but a large number of Public Officials having done this 0, to get information that under law in britain is private, and people in other Defense Ministry and other places are accused of having participated as well. She is also on trial for conspiracy to conceal evidence. Tampering with evidence. In july of 2011, her assistant and he head of security for news international, then the name for the british newspaper, arm of the murdochs, hauled out 11 cartoon office her documents under somebody elses name and started destroying them and said we didnt realize you wanted that, and also were involved as her her husband was involved in basically trying to toss a laptop into a dumpster and got in an argument whether he had done it on purpose, and the police didnt take kindly to that. We should put out she ills not the only one she has pleaded not guilty to this and not proven and the second thing is, theres an array of people on trial with her, including andy koleson, not summon who was personally some whose would personally close to murdoch. Colson was a capable tabloid editor, on trial for both hacking and corruption. But he was required to resign in 2007 when two men went to jail for hacking into the phones thereof princes, the first legal moment at which there were consequences. News International Said we didnt know about this. Turned out to not be true. But these two guys went to jail and said well cauterize this. Andrew colson was editor but it happened on my watch and i must resign. David cameron was desperate to figure out to win the murdoch newspapers back to his side of the ledger for upcoming elections. So he brings in andrew coal colson to be the head of the p. R. For the Consecutive Party and then number 10 downing street, and think of jay carney on trial for corruption. That is a sense for howyearold it was for the british. And it was also revealed that rebecca brooks and Andrew Colson had a six year affair. Theres no evidence to suggest that continued while he was in 10 downing street as a top aide to the Prime Minister but if theres any indication of the way in which the media and political elites were working hand in glove, that liaison would suggest it. Well, for us here in the united states, is this all just sport to observe this or does it matter, do you think, in us assessing our media here . Michael wolf says murdoch has beaten the rap. Abiographer wrote a book that couple out in 2009 and writes for a number of magazines. Murdoch would say, well, we took consequence, we killed news of the world. But they created the sun on sunday which replaced it. So instead of having 40 of Newspapers Circulation they have 37 to 38 of National Newspaper circulation, and they registered the sun on sunday url within 72 hours of the breaking of the miller dower thing. So they kind of mitigated that damage. Its business as usual. Its not business as usual. Hilarious. Today on twitter there was an article in the guardian, and the editor of the sub tab employed explains its harder now. We have reporters theyve gone back to knocking on doors to get stores now that we cant hack into voice money. I said, these are extreme measures. Times are tough everywhere. Its not business as usual. Politicians arent going to race to be seen in the public eye embracing murdoch, David Cameron wins in to 2010 but gets a coalition, becomes Prime Minister. The first private individual that is nonpublic official is he greets is Rupert Murdoch, he asks him to come and leave by the back door but he wants rupert to know he is the first one he is thinking of and youre not seeing that to the same degree. Did David Cameron go to murdochs soninlaws Birthday Party after hemming and howing, he aid mitted admit this. Theyre still invested in each others social lives. But murdoch in this country hasnt had the same fallout. I think if there had been a single instance that had been proven of a 9 11 victim here who had been hacked, whether by british or by american reporters for his empire, that would have come down. But if you think about the runaway success of fox, its based on the idea that its providing stories that maybe the Mainstream Media overlooks, maybe main stream media is cbs or New York Times or my employer, my old newspaper, whatever, all these guys are ignoring stories the part of the country forgets and also so much based on argumentation, they dont have the same pressure to break tabloid stories day after day. So its built on a different model. Well, fox news is the murdoch product that we all think of here in the ute. So in the united states. So you talk about the success of fox news on the business side, and how its changed Cable Television really. You also describe i remember you were having a photo taken with roger ailes, after they surprisingly invited you to sit at their table at the white house Correspondents Dinner. What happened . Id done a story about i believe my friend chris i did a story for the Baltimore Sun that embarrassed fox news because it showed Geraldo Rivera at a site some 300 miles away from where he represented himself as being. He said he was praying over the dead bodies of american servicemen who had been killed in a u. S. Bombing. He happened to be many miles from where that happened and that was mildly embarrassing so fox news went after me and geraldo went after me and put me on a black list where nobody inside the entire company could talk to me, and they said, lets turn the page and move on. So they did invite me to the white house Correspondents Dinner as a guests the sun paid my bill, the equivalent of my ticket, and i drank and ate with them without guilt and it was a very inside joke to other reporter and very small number of people who would pick up on that as an edgy thing to do. Several years later they invite me to a party for ailes, a way in which murdoch same im doubling down on you and were going after cnbc, those guys are in the tank for leftists, which i dont think is an accusation often made but nonetheless, they felt they would bring a fox brand to financial news, and ailes is brilliant at broadcasting. So i meet mr. Murdoch and try to convince him to come on morning edition. Said i dont think youd find me very interesting. I said i think you underestimatous yourself, and then i saw roger ailes, i said, congratulations, good to see you. Said, i know who you are, youre the guy who fucked us. I said, which you cant say on npr. But i can on cspan. Its cable. I said, i really dont look at it that way. He didnt have to explain what he was referring to. I said i reported the facts. He said people like you always say things like that. I thought, people like me . Im a reporter. And i know fox has a different way of approaching things but dont you have reporters, too . It was a funny exchange and then a photographer came up and broke the mood a little bit. But he doesnt forget anything. Very combative. Things of you not as you did a story about it but you are the guy who screwed it. I didnt make geraldo do anything. He presented me with this incredible gift. So, you talk about the whole organization is combative in that sense, and i thick it was your revelation about the fox on the web, people from fox setting up aliases so they can comment on stories about fox across the web and on blogs, tell us about that. Sort of a madness that took hold. I do think there are two if you want to understand what Rupert Murdoch thinks, read the New York Post and if you want to understand what roger ales is thinking, watch fox and friends in the morning, which as happy talk as it is, they going after his targets and hitting his talking points and happy to do it. That thats pretty pure. The p. R. Department people spin, people mislead you, people cast things light, they might denigrate their competitors, but fox news is just a different world. Its completely divorced of any notion of the values that ostensibly a Media Company has to embrace in order to be seen to be serving the public even as i it makes a ton of money. So fox news guys got into a degree of frenzy for a number of year where their p. R. People had to do all the things everyone else did but late at night they had to spend their time, and offer during the day, on the blogs, rebutting every single blog posting that was negative about their shows, their take, their talent. Fine. They n they hasnt had to do that for the ones that were neutral. So they were insufficiently pleased. Then they had to go into the comment cozy didnt matter our big or small the following, they had to go into comments and one person told me she acquired 20 aliases and another p. R. Person had over 100, fake names so fox nation fans were crazy about their things and they would swarm you and they had to take measures because there was this paranoia, outrate that people would figure out it was coming from fox, so one person had to buy on her own visa or mastercard a thumb drive you plug in for wireless access to see ip address could not be traced back to a news corporate fox account. They had to use repurposed laptops so none of the equipment would say fox on it. They had to use an aol dialup account because they thought that would be tougher in the age of widespread broadband, they used an aol account. They could only post a few, then. It slowed them down. But that actually is humorous when you say it out loud. Humorous to read as well. They were called at 2 00, 3 00 in the morning by their goss, the number two p. R. Person and now is the top p. R. Person there saying why have you embarrassed me and the person who was woke up says, what have i done . And said you didnt rebut this comment, and this person says this comment is 68 on a blog that nobody reads. Whats your problem . And she said you cant let any of it go unrebutted. Much worse is what they did at times to reports who dared to do temperatures they didnt want done in 2008 you have this incredible primary season with Hillary Clinton and president barack obama, two heavy weights, and cable ratings for cnn rise and thats a story because fox had been giving everyone a drubbing since 2001. So ken does a story, and arena just essentially said you dont want to do this you. Have no idea what they can do. And he says what do you mean . She says, just dont do this. So the writes a story. Its a rate story. A dime a dozen. And the morning that it ran, he got a voice mail message from a guy who ran a web site called a gossip web site, no longer exists and said give me a call, im writing a thing about you, and within an hour and a half there was a posting that said did tim just come back from rehab . Just been treated for Substance Abuse, and here are all the ways in which people thought he was probably a drugie overtime, and for the end store the said he is doing these suckup stories on every Cable News Network in town because he is desperate for a part on tv. He is now a respected Foreign Correspondent for the anytime in istanbul, but as he told me when i was reporting on the book, five years sober. He actually had gone for Substance Abuse treatment. Nothing do with his reporting. It was a punitive effort to say you did this story about ratings, we told you not to this is what happens. And a warning to other reporters, this is the kind of thing you can do. Even more astonishings if had no idea of this when i was set taught write this chapter a guy anytime math Matthew Flynn works at a trade publication, and he set out to do a similar story, and he couldnt gift anywhere with fox. They wouldnt return his call for no comment. So, he got an email from season produce for the oreilly factor. They said i heard your digging around and youre right, its flipping people out. The ratings thing is flipping people out. Were get to to put our anchors to the side and were going to put in bill oreilly also the chief anchor for the conventions. Fox, and the strong thinking that often goes into their story selection, they have their news anchors time and again anchor their Coverage Even as msnbc had Kris Matthews and Keith Olbermann anchor convention coverage. So they said were going to have separationful. Fox has always drawn a strong line between these two things, and he said what does it mean and and i had emails back and forth and he says, fine. He goes to his boss and says i cant get a second source. The boss says, put it juvenile, not online, not in principle. A big mistake. As soon as he put it up a number of industry can bees that had full quotes from fox saying, we would never put bill oreilly as an anchor. If somebody is to believe that what kind of credibility can you ascribe to that. So he was set up. He was set up. Sandbagged. He called the woman and said, what the hell happened . And he response was, who are you . And he said, you sent me an email. She said ive never heard of you in my life. And they an email had this confirmed by people somebody who was inside fox at the time to set him up to make him publish false and try to destroy his credibility for doing a story about ratings. Before we open it up to questions, were here in los angeles. The Los Angeles Times is the owners of signal that hey would probably like to sell the l. A. Times, is Rupert Murdoch interested in the l. A. Times, and if so a sign of how its political interests and the business interests can align. Murdoch has said, think to nick james of the l. A. Times, that he would be interested but he doesnt think he regulators would allow him to do it at a time when he owns two tv stations in los angeles. A couple years since he said that. He has always been interested in doing the things he wants to do and allowing the regulators to catch up with him. So, for example in new york, he owns the New York Post and the moneylosing proposition. He was embraced by politician office both arms when he came in when the two previous owners of the post went belly up financially. So there are ways in which he is sustaining something that may not have a pure financial logic in new york. And Los Angeles Times in its smaller form has more of a logic, us just not a huge profitmaker, but he basically has two tv stations in new york as well. He was given a waiver to allow him to own all these properties in new york, and that waiver expired a while ago, and he still owns it. So, i think he has shown himself in a variety of ways to be willing to do things and allow regulators to find a path. It would be fascinating. The l. A. Times is the biggest general interest national excuse me general interest daily paper that covers the Entertainment Industry with a strong and keen eye, and for him to own that when his vast wealth ills now sustained not really by newspapers but by the entertainment wing, is complicated at best. I think that he would be able to sustain a news staff that might be larger than Hedge Fund Managers or other kinds of investors that might come in, but one of his former reporters ian johnson, for whom he permanently intervene to help get him a visa to allow him to keep reporting in china of johnson displeased authorized, nonetheless called the deal the journal struck with murdoch a faustian bargain. Said you have a guy with deep pockets and hell protect you and fight for you but youre doing it with somebody who is willing at times to compromise or affect the coverage that this news outlets put out. A good quote in the become, murdoch, the journal has become more good and less excellent. Wasnt his quote but a former Top Executive at the wall street journal who told mat to me. How do you feel about taking question . Id love to. From your los angeles audience. Now we have time to take questions from you. Theres a microphone going around. Jennifer, a couple of announcements, please say your first and last name before your question, wed appreciate it. And if you can meet us in the aisle well come to you. And jennifer has the first question. First question back here on the right. Bob sterling. You have been a terrific guest host ron reliable sources, cnn program which covers the media. Any chance you can become the permanent host of that program, and also can you tell us the background of the name folkenflik . Well to deal quick live with the first question, i think i dont know. Its been an interesting exercise and been generous of them to invite me down. Its given me new insight into what it takes to do that job and be on live television, and ive appreciated the opportunity to do that you have to ask them. Thats their call. It would depend on what it meant. Im not looking to leave npr anytime soon. Its been a fantastic home. Even at times uncomfortable is a cover my own institution, but its been a tremendous place and the fact theyve given me the latitude to do that, with full intellectual honesty and reporting, shows their values and the way i appreciate and admire. Second part. I did a story we as family havent really known. We explored it once with a professor of old germanic at yale and he came up with ideas about clouds or something. So i did a story about Baltimore Hebrew University and said thank you the president had an aide send a note to me and i came out to their archives there, and they have a book of jewish surnames and it was in there which amazed me. I think about two dozen folkenfliks in the u. S. And the book said that it meant falcons eye. And i said whether or not thats accurate, im going with it. So, thats what we did. A question up here on the left. My name is abe rosenberg. Thank you for doing this really enjoyed it. Many years ago i met a guy who knows Rupert Murdoch outside the office, outside of work, and he says to me, out of the blue, this guy murdoch is not a happy man. Not a happy guy. All about control with him. Youve met the guy. What do you think . I mean, you know, there are times where he has felt more familiarly inclined toward his newspapers than his Adult Children himself complicated cat. Not given to intro specifics or selfreflection. His kids love him and at times they hey hate him. James feels his father is 82 years old, should have given up the reins of kree e ceo before the scandal broke and james would have been out of there james had his chances to glide path to take over as chairman and ceo of news corp. Exploded in the milly dower scandal because he gave assurances pair limit no longer finds credible and he privately approved, as the guardian showed proved a secret payoff to keep the case out of court and to keep. Of it out of the public lie. So that police could continue to maintain even though some of their investigators were compromised, police could contend that was isolated to the royals. He has fun. He sees its fun when he lanes a punch in his publications against somebody he thinks deserves it. He thinks its fun to take down a celebrity a notch or two. He is the thing is he employs an army of gossip columnistsistd reporter but theres no bigger gossip than he is. He is a complicated character. Rebecca brooks, a surrogate daughter, think he probably had it when he had a closer relationship then with elizabeth murdoch, whom he kind of overlooked, and Robert Thompson has been seen as a surrogate son. He wanted hawk lynn to come back from australia and run the news corps and lachlin didnt want to do that, didnt appreciate his father did not protect him from the infighting. Set land mines for him to set off. Why did he buy the vineyard in belair . Why does he want a few acres of grapes in los angeles . It was interesting to me because the decisions he did to buy this vineyard, which i think was the price tag was in excess of 28 million, was almost to the dollar the same as the price tag he put on the yacht he used to gal vanity about the oceans with wendy with. So he said this is what i used to enjoy with my wife, who im now about to divorce. This will be a new place for me to forge a new life in my ninth decade, and so im going to joan i that there. Enjoy that there. So just a question of him wanting a fresh start and a fresh environment. On your right. My name is amy. What do you think about the reputation or criticism that fox news has in terms of their women on the news channel and showing more skin and more cleavage or shorter skirts and more legs . What do you think of that and were you able to talk to Rupert Murdoch about that . No. I wasnt able to talk to him about that in part because he just didnt want to talk to me at all. But i think roger ailes would hear what youre saying and say, yes, and . Certainly television is a visual medium and roger takes advantage of that. He likes his men confident and his women attractive. There is something theres a show called the five at five now that replaced glen beck, and its usually about four to one or three to two conservatives to liberal, and usually the main stay of liberals is the guy bob, who ran walter mondales campaign, one of the least fruitful president ial campaigns and then personally caught up in personal scandals and ailes was redeeming people on the left and would owe him. He is not a dumb guy but he is not the most forceful advocate for liberal rhythm ism or democrats. One of the thing is i learn, just didnt make the cut in the book, theres a camera they have and they im told this is absolutely true theyre sort of sort the women who are on because theres a slightly by the degree of attractiveness and attractiveness for the legs and its the seat of the front right where they have put the woman with the. Best legs there and have a camera that goes directly to the legs and they have what they call the leg cam, and that is to accentuate the sleekness of design of that particular person on air. So if youre asking whether attractiveness is part of the formula, i would say, you bet. Another question on your right. Im megan. Im curious what you think will happen to the empire post murdoch. I dont think that anybody look, when you talk to people there they say, if murdoch retires or they say if murdoch dies they dont he doesnt believe hell die, really, and they dont want to in any way indicate they might possibly disagree with the boss on this pivotal issue. Theres no spot, however, for the idea that absent rupert, that it makes sense to hold on to all these newspapers. So many losing so much money, and in australia, he is dominant there. Again, he is 65 to 75 of the National Newspaper market. So if you think, well, doesnt really matter, theyre scatter across cities. The way in which it matters is he sent paul allen, used to bed the it did for of the sidny Daily Telegraph andsent him back to australia during the general Election Campaign this fall, and it was one of the most punishing media campaigns against any political figure you have ever seen. Kevin rud was the center left Prime Minister who may well have deserved to lose and may well would have gone down without murdoch lifting a finger, but every day on their tabloids and every day in the australian, their Prestige National paper that, they found new ways to present him as immoral, ineffectual. Even though they supported hells rise to Prime Minister in 2007 and 2008. They turned against him. And went with a conservative guy. The belief in australia is that it ensured, locked the victory for tony abbott, and even if abbott won without them spending a dime, abbott is of the belief he oweses murdoch, and can murdoch fight off the government making a Huge Investment subsidizing Broadband Internet access for everyone which is an Ambitious Program under rudd and his labor allies. Things that murdoch doesnt like. It matters he had somebody in the Prime Ministers office that can make a difference. That political influence, however is not how James Murdoch looksty world. He doesnt want they newspapers. They have only been a headache, a horrible scandal in england. Cult it off and send it into the ocean. Lachlin didnt want to come back and run these things. I think that investors didnt want them to do it. One over the biggest investorrors, don, described the newspaper business as like annoys an ice cube which was melting fast. The papers have constituency of one, and i dont think that news corp will look the same as it does more than 18, 24 months after murdochs departure. A civil war within the company . The company heres the thing. You have the four Adult Children, three by his second wife who have been active, james, the old are brother, elizabeth murdoch, talented head of her own Production Company that murdoch bought just to try to get her back in the company. Who have to decide what they want the two companies 21st century fox which was spun off in june and smaller news corp. That would be a fun meeting. [laughter] we have time for one last question. Before we take the last question, i wanted it take the time to thank you for being here tonight and joining us. I want to thank Arizona State university, Walter Cronkite school of journalism for copresenting the event. Cspan for joining us. It will be rebroadcast sometime in the next couple of weeks, and also want to remind everyone skylight local book is here and has plenty of copies. And now our last question. Thank you. My name is lisa. I worked for the cnn cnbc. We used to joke that someday we would be working for murdoch in media. Im going end on a larger question, which is do you think thats the case . And the future of objective journalism, as we know it. What is your view on it . I sort of have negative view. Im hoping you have a more positive view so we can be positive going forward. A charge when he came in here to answer the question did murdoch save journalism. You can work that in as well. Its interesting. Easier for journalism now . No. Excellent reporting done at the number of his projects . Absolutely. Did he do it with philanthropist in so doing publishminded. Lesson that part of the helping to shape the conversation with elite and the public and determine sort of outcomes with top officials response very Good Journalism happened as a consequence of his own ambition and interests. And his own inintings. He loves it. When it started to bank hard left in sort of its nowhere near as profitable. It makes sense. I dont know if it mean its a admirable. You sound like you know journalism. Its a crisper paper. He understands how they work. I put them side by side and say who won. And the New York Daily News wins the headlines more than often it used to. Essentially having a guy who came up in murdoch news rooms. You you look at the New York Times and the times is liberal. Were going to be down the middle. Were going to provide a place conservative and middle america. Even they give a more honest report. It competed with the times. Now they found some juvenile ways to go about it too. Robert tampson no only had a why is that women find sensitive and film anyone men so attractive. They use a picture of the face of the head of the New York Times from the eyes down as the illustration. It was an intentional screw you. He brought it to them. I think you find executives at times saying, you know, its not how we do our business. People think were liberal. Its no what we think were doing. Prior to the the wall street journal and i think even as the digital sphere the huffington and the Andrew Breitbart to be more declarative and created space by making cable news about, you know, the feverish pitch of the opinion rather than about the most convincing for facts reported and learned. He defined, in some ways, the times have comes to terms with that because of what murdoch has done in opposition. So i think hes done more to shape the main stream media than a lot of people recognize both in tribute to and in resistance to the way hes doing it. It might be somebody like jeff who used his personal fortune to buy the washington post. Or chris who bought the always aiming new republic with the billions he made with the first guys of facebook. Its hope we see new ones as well. Thank you, david. Thank you, sir. [applause] is there a Nonfiction Author or book you would like to see featured on booktv . Send us an email at booktv at cspan. Org. Or tweet us at twitter. Com booktv