Of opinion with how this war began . And a great observation that history county archives, and can you actually determine what the facts are based on available information or shall we always be disputing these issues . Theres not much to be discovered in the archives. A lot of german high command archives in the Second World War, the russians took some back to moscow, and have not been thoroughly explored yet. And elements within the soviet government knew what was going on and great and discovered caches of documents but i dont think we will come to an agreement, viewpoints keep changing but it is such a complex event. The Second World War is so much clearer. They wanted or prepared to risk war. And first of all, it is such a complex correction of events, and what they will keep on doing is deepening the context so so we know much more about European Society at the time and very interesting studies done, education. What were people learning in their schools and it is something about what they think about themselves and their place in the world we know more now about what men per since, lot of interesting work on notions of honor and masculinity and dealing so i think we will keep one perhaps shifting and gathering more information but i suspect our descendants will be sitting here a hundred years from now looking at the we will be as far from agreement as ever. I cant think of a better way to end this. I want to thank you again. The piece available for purchase outside. Robert massie and his latest work catherine the great. I am david andelman. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] we would like to hear from you. Tweet as your feedback, twitter it. Com booktv. Now on booktv npr media correspondent David Folkenfilk talks about the rise and near fall of Rupert Murdochs news corp. And how mr. Murdoch was able to survive the recent bribery and phone hacking scandal in england. Have to make noise so we know you are there because right now we cant tell. I get to introduce davids the bear with me while i read what they wrote for me. Or did you write it for me . And 11 has been media correspondent since 2004. Comedienne andhe has been a frequent commentator on the packing scandal in the u. S. And u. K. His new book is murdochs world, the last of the old media empires. Good to have you. Thanks for having me here. Back in southern california. Before we try to answer the question did Rupert Murdoch save journalism, you try to answer the question. That is why you are here. Journal is mashed egg. Host lets set the stage a little bit. You covered the media for ten plus years before npr and the Baltimore Sun and it means covering Rupert Murdoch, covering u. S. Media. Rupert murdoch and company did not cooperate in this book project. How far did they go to stop you if at all . Guest nothing reprehensible. They decided after taking months to think about my inquiries and requests, almost a year ago now decided not to participate, and they said no thanks, they cited a number of reasons, criminal proceedings in london that are pretty will, and top former lieutenants, which we can get into and they offer great access, lively magazine writer Michael Wolff with usa today and the guardian, and concerned about the wake of the hacking scandal, in terms of there were a number of executives of various arms and outlets in the larger murdoch realm. We did like to talk to you and word comes from the big dogs and set up a talk with one of the most Senior Executives in the corporation and within 24 hours of our long planned interview with got a call, you cannot do this. And having done a lot of stories, a reservoir of knowledge of interviews, and people at the reporter level to the Top Executive ranks, able to talk to me but rather patiently walk through a lot of key moments in the story i tell in the book. For the most part your pets are still alive so that is a good sign. You make the case that Rupert Murdochs impact on media cant be overstated. Most people are familiar with it but what is the short region. Why should we care about Rupert Murdoch . Pretty unquestionably at the moment, last several decades been the most influential and Important Media figure in the englishspeaking world. You have a guy it is split in two but it is a publicly traded company has run but he runs it like a family concern with a reason. Restructured in such a way that his children essentially control almost a pure majority of votes in such a way it is impossible to hold them in check but they have holdings the stand six continents, the Company Controls 65 to 70 of major newspaper circulation in australia until the control of 40 of National Newspaper circulation in the u. K. Which is a National Newspaper market that is down to 38 but that is in american minds quite astonishing. The most powerful private broadcaster in the u. K. Fox news here, that acts, the simpsons, the list goes on, wall street journal, the New York Post, he shakes politics and Public Perception particularly through his newspapers and fox news at high and low level, massmarket tabloid weaken talk more about that reflect his populist centerright reagan democrat sensibility and the way in which he reachedes Decision Makers and influence through papers like the wall street journal and the times of london and australia so he is playing a sophisticated game to influence public policy, to show the connection that he has to make money and also keep making money by influencing people in powerful positions to help them on his more lucrative side, the foxes of the world. You had some colorful characters to work with, none more colorful than rupert himself. He is bigger than any one country, he has citizenship here so that he could get involved in television here, and he is a man of the world but still motivated but seems like he is motivated a lot by past and present allegiances to family. Is yet daddys bullet or mommys boy . He is his own man. Family is important. Families hugely important to him. In some ways beyond borders. He is the creator. He saw opportunities and cookies weaker television stations and these markets and strong them together at a time when people thought they werent valuable, into a network that became the most popular in the country for many years. He did a similar thing in britain where he was awarded one of the early first Satellite Television channels for britains so he beamed up the satellite from studios in looks and borg and beamed it down from a different set alight in the sky getting people relatively inexpensive satellite dishes they could put in their homes and the brits blue their mind. We didnt say you could do that, i dont care. That is one of his hallmarks, he creates, innovate through circumvention and it is admirable. Offering much better in both countries as a result but the fine observance in regulation is not his finances, strong suit. He likes to tweak authority. That got it exactly right. Very respected political journalist in australia, he was the guy who revealed if you recall the movie in the days when we were allowed to like mel gibson movies it was about this terrible illfated campaign in world war i where british commanders sent new zealand troops to the slaughter and his father wrote a missive to the leading australian political figures say when it happened the australians have been betrayed by their colonial overlords in doing this and this helped forge a sense of identity as australia worked its way to independence and nationhood. He got some of the details wrong but it propelled keith murdoch, his father, to fame and murdoch many years later formed a Production Company to make sure the movie got made in ways to cement his fathers reputation with the young regeneration but he always had the sense his father would never give a the credit he was due and he called his father had been essentially screwed out of his holdings before his fathers death in the 50s and murdoch made his way, you might think he was a wealthy young man, his father was a knight and his mother lived in a huge estate just outside mel bourne. Team made its way by being given only a daily paper, is essentially forgotten city on the Southern Coast of australia. He nurtured this sense that the elites, the powers to be behind closed doors were screwing him and his family over and this drove him, propelled him to show he understood newspapers better, understood, and australian better, connected with them. He wasnt going to be elitist about what they should be reading. As long as they wanted to read something in the newspaper was a Public Service to provide it. Used that sense of grievance and connection, what he felt was the common man at simples, his own gut instinct. Host the sense of being motivated by the feeling of being disrupted throughout the book, you say murdoch and executive in his company define themselves by who they think their enemies are what did they really are their enemies, the bbc or unions or whoever. Very distinctive culture with his company. It comes from him. A strong sense of australians first, australians throughout top positions. Built on things like experiences during world war ii and prison camps basically where the australian guys often risk their own lives to save one another. And they also defined on who is inside the circle and who is outside the circle. You can see that, in britain he went and turned failing newspapers, the news of the world and the sun in to very successful brawling, combative, center right publications. And they called him the dirty digger. It was way of diminishing him as an australian. It has a scandal monger. There are other tabloids there as well. He thought, oh, these are locking me out. Again, hes a guy that went to oxford. His father it was a night. Hes a pneumonia proprivater. He forces his way to the top ranks by buying the time of london which has never made him a cent. Even though Prime Ministers are coming to meet him half way across the world. He dines with World Leaders all the time. He thinks the elite are against him. Its a crucial thing. Its not exact lay rose bud moment. Its a crucial them from early whereon he feels that he and his fellow australians basically are never going to get the time of day. Were they right about that . Indont think thats correct at all. I think if you look at the way in which power has been to him. He seized that the establishment is against him. He created his own. He has the former head of spain on his corporate board. The former substantiate attorney general to bush on his panel. Meets with michael bloomberg. A centrist. Another billionaire to talk about Immigration Reform and Charter School reform. This is not a guy shut out of things. Its nas nateing to watch. Human gestures means so much. 1995 tony blair, flies to a small island off the coast of australia. Caymans island and theres a retreat for news corp. He flies there. The opposition leader. Wants to throw out the conservatives and the elections that are going happen two years later. He flies there and makes no promises. Instead of making murdoch at one of his properties had e flies 10,000 miles to say, sir, im going to be able to do business with you pen and hes gene yous with the paper. Unlike the telegraph or the new york times. You dont always know where theyre going end up. They toggle between center left poem tickses, centrist, not pure liberal but centrist figure at left with conservative figures on the right. With toggling back and fort. They have hope they might get the support. And he supported Hillary Clinton when he ran for senate 2000. A centrist grand of democrat he felt he could do business with. You have written about theres five myths we have about murdoch. One of them is that. Hes really not a per son age of the far right. Hes much less conservative than the most striding voice on fox news. Hes more conservative than roger. And more conservative than the the wall street journal editorial page prior to his acquiring the the wall street journal. I talked to reporters and say we kind of got a break on the main streament media leftwing because the editorial page is so conservative it gives us cover. But he, you know, he, for example, in 2007 announced he would make news corp. Carbon neutral. And he would have the fiveyear deadline do that. They beat the deadline. On the other hand, on twitter he makes clear he has no patience for Government Intervention to force certain kind of taxation or other policies that mandate reduction. He believes in it. Said theres been violent swings in the climate in australia thaw you cant simply ascribe to chance. And yet his news organization, if you read his australian papers. They absolutely blood sugarrened the centrist left of center labor government for taking some steps to do more than just sort of embrace corporate voluntary action. You know, there were some Carbon Emissions policy seen as relatively some taxation and consumption issues. Similar to how we dealt with it two decade ago. But they pillar i ared him. Similarly on fox news you can see a rough equivalence of people that talk about Climate Change existing or casting significant doubt on the existence. And the scientific community, as most people know by now. But that knowledge is shaped very much by what we see in the main stream press. You know, there is fundamental agreement that it is occurring. Theres disagreement about how its going play out and what it means. T not the debate as it is played out in the murdoch press. His evolution is interesting. Inhope well come back. I want to ask about the other myth before we lose the idea. One of them was that he only cares about profits. And really you say thats not the case. Well, he doesnt only care about profits. The new york excuse me the times of london has never made him a cent. The New York Post which hes own since 1977 never made him a cent. He created its like a little bit of myth. He created the day liberalized. Which is a tabletonly experiment. At lough people who really understand Digital Media and how people consume media and social media thought it was misgot from the start. I thought there was some real mistakes. Statement i thought its like bell lab. Hes trying something. That was something he lost many tens of millions of dollars on and shut it down as a geeze chiewr to shareholders he understood that he couldnt just do erg he wanted. He had to figure out how to do things. They ultimately werent able to figure out whether they wanted it a Walled Garden that would be like a magazine that you couldnt do more than physically hand to somebody else. Or whether would be a way to share it online to try to dpraw people in. If you need to charge somebody, you need to charge them for it. A confused presence to me. I didnt know whether i read or not. People inside were desperate to create a way you could share on twitter and do others. Literal tweets theres cool thing my boyfriend wrote on the daily. Sorry, you cant tread here. T to the actually a great advertising pitch. [laughter] so one of the other myths. People tag him with the idea hes been bad for journalism. And you say that, you know, he doesnt destroy Good Journalism or hasnt. And, you know, these were myths. He had to construct them in a way as it seemed you were destroying them entirely. I wouldnt say he uniformly destroys good journalist. Actually, if you look at the the wall street journal, its not clear to me. I think something in the order of 7 to 800 journalists on the editorial side. And i continue think that it has a ban kroft continue to control dow jones publicly traded company you can have that many journalists there. I think it has sophisticated report that is more ambitious than what proceeded his proprietorship there. I think hes more interested in politics. The headlines headlines are paunchier. The graphics are more engaging and the journalist, really, i think charming but something as a holdout in archaic look. That said, even at the journal, you know, i found several dozen instances where the two top editors. Several dozen . E. These were offered as sort of representative samples rather than the full cat log of the best hits. But, you know, there are inassistances in which they said gosh hes pulling us to the top editors one in australia and other the editor in chief formerrer times of london columnist and editor are pulling touts right each time on the stories by raising questions. Some of the questions are smart ones, but theyre never doing it ever pulling it to the left. Theyre never pulling the democrat higher in the story. Theyre never asking the question about whether are ties with the republican to sphri. Its one direction always. At certain point it felt to a large number the reporters and editors, many of whom their report was being pulled toment right. Whether they meant they were in the center or being on the right is a matter of despite between dispute between the editors and the reporting staff. Let chift shift over across the pond. The opening scene you have mor doj dock in the Luxury Hotel Room apologizing and claim this is, you know, hes humbly apologizing to the parents of milly. This is murder victim in england. 13yearold. Apologizing really for his journalist having hacked to her phone message and erases some of the messages before some of the police could see them. Why was the scene key to you . How you start the book. I thought it was a Pivotal Moment for a variety of reasons. Gets the family. It gets the question of, you know, this was the thing that he testified. It was made him the most the most humble day of my life and, you know, he was essentially apologize together nation and to the parliament during the testimony. In this private momen