Devastating review of 'The Man Who Owns the News'

Have recently read The Man Who Owns the News, Michael Wolff's new biography of Rupert Murdoch. It is definitely a gripping read, though far from a definitive biography.

As is standard for Wolff, much of the book is a reflection of Wolff and his 'big picture' views rather than a reflection on Murdoch and News Corp.

The New York Times published a fairly devastating review of the book here.
Excerpts below. I agree with many of the criticisms, but the author of the review (David Carr of the NYT) has missed a key point: the book is a triumph in the sense that it is a biography of a business figure which is fun to read and which has a clear and unambigious point of view.

Wolff makes no pretence that his biography is an objective, disinterested piece of writing. His views and prejudices are all over it - which means that it is no Shawcross (the definitive - but very dated Murdoch biography) but it is a fun read with lots of interesting (and presumably mostly accurate) anecdotes and snippets about Rupert and the Murdoch clan.

The book is a strangely alluring artifact, with huge gaps in execution and stylistic tics that border on parody; it will nonetheless provide a deeply satisfying experience for the ­media-interested.

...

They are a pair, these two. Both adore gossip and revel in their unpleasantness, and neither gives a rip what anyone else thinks of him. Murdoch has achieved improbable business success, and Wolff has made no secret that he covets same. In a hybrid career that continues to this day — Wolff is a columnist for Vanity Fair and a founder of a news aggregator called Newser — he has somehow managed to both float above a demimonde of wealthy titans and seek to enter at every opportunity.

...

“The Man Who Owns the News” attacks its subject with casual delight, but contains shockingly few actual quotations from Murdoch himself: a snippet here and there, nothing more. He remains disconcertingly spectral, even though Wolff spoke with him for many hours over many months.

...

But the moment the reader is tempted to leave Wolff to marvel at his own de­vices, the author steps in and reminds us that his primary value is to speak the unspeakable. As he did in his delicious and prescient “Burn Rate,” an early book about the dot-com fantasia, he often just says it: “Every second working for Murdoch is a second spent thinking about what Murdoch wants. He inhabits you.”

...

Much was made of Wolff’s alliance with Murdoch, that it would lead to complicity and sycophancy, but Wolff remains true to his nature, which is joyously nasty. It is a baked-in reflex of a kind that Trollope described: “His satire springs rather from his own caustic nature than from the sins of the world in which he lives.”

Wolff takes no specific offense at Murdoch’s willingness to use his media properties to cold business ends, but depicts him as a cranky, monomaniacal newspaper hack, a con man with bad hearing, no interest in new media paradigms and no real friends to speak of. It is also pointed out that he is “a good family man — even if he has three of them.” Like the man he writes about, Wolff is a gossip who is very skilled at extracting information and sensing weakness.

...

Obsessed by newsprint and digitally clueless, Murdoch is depicted as a remarkable modern figure. The issue of succession is dealt with in the book as it is at the company: people either put their fingers in their ears or cross them in hopes that Murdoch, who was born in Australia in 1931, will live forever. His unusual relationship with a crew of very talented, able children — pull them close in business matters and then humiliate them — is artfully described in the book, as is his somewhat henpecked relationship with his third wife, who reads his e-mail messages after business hours because he doesn’t use a computer.

Should I/we/you feel dirty for enjoying a little quality time with a man who believes that giving the impression of morals is better than actually having them and whose atavistic corporate impulses are put to contemporary, acquisitive ends? Probably not. Many before us have covered their eyes and waited for Rupert Murdoch to go away. Rupert Murdoch does not go away.