If you thought everything about Rupert Murdoch had already been written, think on.
A new book by Australian academic Sally Young is titled Media Monsters: The Transformation of Australia’s Newspaper Empires. But the focus in an extract published by The Conversation, is clearly on Murdoch.
And there’s always something new to learn – or perhaps to relearn.
The extract tells the background to the Adelaide Sunday paper war – in which Murdoch had to defend his decision to launch a new masthead in the then News Limited heartland. If the outcome was a draw, he was happy to declare it a victory.
And there are also insights into the growth of Murdoch’s Perth Sunday Times, to which he travelled weekly to optimise the editorial focus. Murdoch had acquired its publisher, Western Press along with Saturday publication called the Mirror and 20 country newspapers.
There’ll be more I shall look forward to learning.
Peter Coleman