Rupert Murdoch—the dashing, daring, fearsome and fearless press baron, the mogul among moguls—will will celebrate his 79th birthday next month. As he approaches his final years at the helm of his empire, he finds it crumbling around him.
Sure, News Corp. reported a better-than-expected $250 million profit last quarter on the strength of Fox News and Avatar, and all indications are that it has weathered the recession intact. But Murdoch's lifelong crusade has always been about more than just money—it's been about acquiring power, routing enemies, and the glorification of his own ego. And he has always accomplished those goals surrounded by a merry gang of corporate bandits, happily slitting throats and cutting deals with a vicious and entrepreneurial esprit de corps traceable to Murdoch's own tyrannical mien. It was an extraordinarily well-run company, guided by an iron fist.
No more. "It's terrible now," a News Corp. insider tells Gawker, relating the slow, Shakespearian devolution of Murdoch's fierce machinery into turmoil, factionalism, and infighting. The old man, nearing the end of his reign, no longer inspires enough fear or loyalty within his own ranks to keep the jostling for power beneath the surface, and a Lord of the Flies ugliness abounds. Roger Ailes has transformed Fox News into a highly profitable rogue political operation, jeopardizing Murdoch's most prized asset—his access to political power—with an unending stream of volatile rhetoric. His longtime consigliere and liaison to the Democratic power structure, Gary Ginsberg, decamped last year and just joined Time Warner. Matthew Freud, his own son-in-law, is lobbing bombs at Ailes in the pages of the New York Times. And Murdoch himself, though spry by any standards for a 78-year-old, is showing his age: His leadership has become unfocused, insiders say, and he's made a bizarre string of public statements, from agreeing with Glenn Beck that Barack Obama is a racist to claiming he never said that a few days later to blaming New York's political woes on Gov. David Paterson's blindness. The internal turmoil has led the News Corp. insider to commit the unforgivable sin of speaking of Murdoch in the past tense: "He had a good run."
The growing factionalism within News Corp.'s ranks as Murdoch nears the end of his days is likely to be the topic of a New York magazine story on the company, by reporter Gabriel Sherman, that is set to run next week. Sherman's nosing around has sparked considerable chatter in Murdoch-land, and insiders are said to fear that it may begin to shake loose some of the crumbling edifice of Murdoch's empire.
http://gawker.com/5480363/the-fall-of-the-house-of-murdoch
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