Fascinating profile of Rupert Murdoch in New York magazine this week. Written by Gabriel Sherman, the piece walks through a lot of familiar soap-opera-ish territory about concerning Murdoch and his sprawling family, and focuses a lot on Murdoch's effort to put The Wall Street Journal into direct competition with The New York Times.
A few Cable-Gamey nuggets, though, are worth noting.
First, reporter Sherman details how Gary Ginsberg got himself pushed out of the News Corporation last year. It seems that Ginsberg had been instrumental in persuading Murdoch to cooperate with Michael Wolff, the smart but slimy Vanity Fair writer, who published that nasty and inaccurate 2009 book, The Man Who Owns The News, which tried to argue that Murdoch disdains Roger Ailes and Fox News. It was no secret that Gary Ginsberg disdained Ailes and Fox, and so maybe that's why he brought in Wolff, to do a hit job on Ailes. But the effort--and the credibility of Wolff's book--blew up when Murdoch did everything he could to reassure and publicly embrace Ailes, including signing him to a new five-year contract. Moreover, Ginsberg was tight with Matthew Freud, Murdoch's rogue son-in-law, who freelanced a nasty quote about Ailes and Fox in the January 9 New York Times that Rupert immediately repudiated. So Ginsberg had to go, everyone at NWS agreed.
And second, another little nugget, concerning Rupert, his eldest son Lachlan, and, yes, Roger Ailes:
Earlier this month, Rupert took Lachlan on a sailing trip in the South Pacific along with Ailes. It was Ailes and Lachlan’s first reunion since they clashed five years ago—a surprising move that reignited speculation that Rupert is trying to repair relations and bring Lachlan back into the empire.
It's interesting that Rupert is patching things up with Lachlan, but note the presence of Ailes in the far-away South Seas. Yet more repudiation of the Wolff/Ginsberg/Freud thesis about Rupert's alleged anti-Ailes-ness.
Instead, it's perfectly obvious that Ailes, and Fox, are in tight with the News Corp., now and in the future.
