Q&A: Plumbing the Mind of Rupert Murdoch

It's been a tumultuous few weeks for News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch. What better time for a look Inside Rupert's Brain, as Paul LaMonica's new book purports to go? I chatted with LaMonica yesterday about the coming News Corp. succession, Murdoch's ongoing love affair with newsprint and why Fox Business could be a bust.

MIXED MEDIA: Let's start with the most important question: Murdoch's hair color has been all over the map lately. On the cover of your book, he's a very dignified silver. Significant?

PAUL LAMONICA: That honestly was not my decision there. We went with whatever the art director at Penguin Portfolio decided they wanted to go with. Now, if they had put devil horns growing out of the top of his head, which a lot of people might have thought appropriate, I might have said something.

MM: Your fellow Murdoch chronicler Michael Wolff told Ad Age that last week was Murdoch's worst week ever, between Peter Chernin's departure announcement and the flap over the New York Post's chimpanzee cartoon. You agree with that?

PL: It might be overstating it a little bit, but it definitely was not a good one. The last chapter of the book I devoted partly to whether or not Chernin would stick around once the contract expires in July, and I did have a lot of people talk about the fact that there's not necessarily a great degree of confidence in James Murdoch just yet, so there was definitely a hope that if Rupert threw a lot of money to Chernin that he would stick around. I think there are a lot of people in the entertainment and investment community that saw Chernin as a level-headed foil to Murdoch. For every outrageous statement that [Murdoch] makes, Chernin seems little more diplomatic in terms of trying to solve problems without being blustery.

MM: How do you see the timing of Chernin's exit affecting the News Corp. succession?

PL: I do get the sense from pretty much everything Murdoch has said throughout the past couple years that even though News Corp. is a publicly-traded firm, it is something he views as a familial right. Lachlan had been groomed for the CEO job for the last couple years before he went off on his own. Elisabeth Murdoch, there had been talk of her as a possible successor, too, but and with her also now off doing her own venture, that really does leave James, who's not really seen in the investment community as being ready to inherit Chernins's position just yet. While he's had a lot of experience on international side of the business, he doesn't have the kind of Hollywood chops a lot of people would want to see from someone in that role.

I'd be stunned if he eventually is not promoted to a position that would indicate even more strongly than everyone expects that he will eventually succeed his father as CEO. Whether or not it's immiment that he'll be promosted to COO, Chernin's position...I would be very surprised if Rupert viewed it as necessary to put another caretaker-type person in that position.

MM: There's been some talk that James is more liberal than his father. Do you see the political alignment of News Corp.'s outlets shifting once Rupert retires?

PL: It may be possible. Clearly, there hasn't been any evidence that James cares as much about the kind of conservative ideology, if you will, that certainly comes across in the Fox News Channel and the New York Post and a lot of the British tabloids that he owns. I don't get a sense that James is by any means highly left-leaning. I can't imagine News Corp. post-Rupert would go from something that has a very conservative, right-wing mantra -- or at least that's the accusation -- I don't see that changing drastically.

I think there have been some subtle changes with Rupert at the helm that I James has been a part of. News Corp. has been talking the talk, at least, of being a little bit greener, and that's something that has the hallmark of James talking in his dad's ear.

MM: You describe Murdoch has having almost a kind of attention deficit disorder -- he gets obsessed with something for two or three years, then forgets all about it and moves onto something else. Recently, he's been taking a lot of criticism for his fixation on newspapers. Is it just a phase?

PL: That one I think is going to be a little more difficult for him to outgrow. Clearly he did kind of have that phase with satellite television and with online media...but with newspapers, simply because it is a business he grew up in, it may be a little harder for him to let go that infatuation, especially since The Wall Street Journal is something he's hungered for for at least two decades. Anything that's a kind of ego-driven type of media business, which in many cases books and newspapers are, it may be difficult for him to give that up even if it's not fiscally a growing part of his business.

MM: There's long been talk that he'd like to buy The New York Times, and now there's speculation that he might buy the Los Angeles Times. Do you see either of those deals happening?

PL: I wouldn't be completely surprised if he tried to do at least one of them. Given the heightened amount of attention on him right now, partly because of the cartoon flap with the New York Post, I think he would face a lot of resistance in in trying to pull off a deal for the New York Times, since he already owns the Post and the Journal. I think there would be some legitimate concerns about market concentration. That said, he clearly has shown a desire to be in the classic newspaper business. That's what his father founded, that's what he grew up in, and even though many people get this sense that the newspaper industry is in a very tragic demise right now, he still is enamored of that industry, and he's enamored of anything that's viewed as a very respectable publication.

MM: Fox Business Network: Will Murdoch prove the doubters wrong again, or are the odds just too long this time?

PL: I think the odds are too long. It's somewhat ironic or paradoxical that obviously this is time where there is intense interest in financial news, so I think it's kind of interesting that a network such as his would not be succeeding at this time, but part of the problem is because the economy and the markets are always in the news, it's really not just facing competition from CNBC, but from CNN and MSNBC and Fox News and all the major networks, too. It would've been one thing to launch a business network if the market was doing well. But because the economy is in such poor shape, he faces the dual challenge of trying to supplant CNBC as well as his own 24/7 news network. Fox News is obviously not going to cede interest in an economic story just because there's Fox Business.