Media News You Need to Know
More on Rupert transition; yet another Twitter alternative, or really an X alternative
Sharp, amusing, and wrongheaded, review of new Murdoch book
I laughed and didn’t quite cry reading a sardonic review of Michael Wolff’s new book on what he forecasts is the demise of Fox News and Rupert Murdoch in The Guardian by the former head of Channel 4 News Dorothy Byrne.
Byrne, whom I admire and have had a little to do with in the past, is a remarkable and brave editor but in this case, I think she gets Wolff totally wrong. She describes the book as “unattributed gossip” — as if that were a bad thing.
Another metaphor picture: a donkey and a Renault 4 in the snow
It is actually, the entire point of the Wolff oeuvre that is about the sweep of the story and he gives you the sense of being in the room with the protagonists. Sometimes he is and sometimes he isn’t. Often, I know from him, that one participant or other will feed him the “down low” — clearly from their perspective — but it’s delicious.
“As a journalist I look for evidence that what I am reading is true. But here, where I wanted sources, I got unattributed gossip. Entire conversations between the Murdochs and their apparatchiks are recorded without the reader being given supporting evidence,” Bryne writes. Yep, that is Wolff, but I don’t doubt the thrust.
The Fall: The End of the Murdoch Empire is in the spirit of Wolff’s fast-paced, almost entirely unattributed, salacious, and spot-on trio of books on the Trump presidency. Starting with Fire & Fury in 2018, Wolff exposed the dysfunction and danger in the Trump White House. Much of what we know was first in that book and enlarged upon by other writers — some more punctilious with attribution and footnotes.
He had already done the same with Rupert Murdoch having gained unprecedented and authorised access to the boss and his family and colleagues. Wolff took that hand that fed him and bit it clean off which surely counts in his favour? The fact he still has inside sources in Trump world and Murdoch world speaks volumes.
In my view, and I have mentioned to you before that I consider Wolff a friend, he is better compared to the sometimes flawed practitioners of what was once called The New Journalism - an almost novelistic approach to journalistic writing (which we have dangerously started calling “storytelling”) which puts you into the centre of the action. Truman Capote played fast and loose with detail in In Cold Blood, Tom Woolfe — a character who bears comparison with the other Wolff with in his fondness for natty bespoke tailoring, literally wrote the book The New Journalism. It isn’t the gonzo journalism made famous by Hunter S. Thompson but do we also really think that HST took down all the quotes that appear in his classic reportage?
There is room for both Wolff’s approach where the bigger story and the telling of it take precedence but still exposes a fundamental truth — the madness in the White House, the dynastic struggles of the Murdochs — and more forensic or at least publicly transparent journalism. (I know Michael to be quite forensic).
In her review, Byrne wishes for a book that holds Murdoch more to account with more facts and a greater sense of exposing what she calls his “crimes”. She’s correct that Wolff leaves the reader to decide those things. The book she probably wants is coming soon from Brian Stelter, the indefatigable former CNN media journalist who was unceremoniously fired for no good reason by the since-fired lightweight CEO Chris Licht. Brian, one of the hardest-working people in media in my experience as a former CNN colleague and watching what he did earlier at The New York Times, is about to publish Network of Lies: The Epic Saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the Battle for American Democracy That sounds more like what Byrne is after.
In that earlier thing I did on the Murdoch transition I included a few items at the end which I have since updated to include a couple of what I thought were genuinely valuable analyses.
In that earlier piece I mentioned Rupert and Lachlan both have superyachts. Rupert has had several and once sold one to Silvio Berlusconi but I hadn’t previously looked at his gorgeous and relatively tasteful latest yacht, Vertigo. I suspect he will be just fine.
Throwing stones at the X glasshouse
Pebble seems to be the latest attempt to replace a Twitter denuded and degraded by its mercurial owner Elon Musk. I am still on X, just, and I have a Threads but haven’t used it really, and a Blue Sky. I will almost certainly sign up for Pebble, to try it. Oh, yeah, I am also on Mastadon and it is very pleasant and very quiet.
However, it is all becoming a bit mean and unpleasant on Twitter, a bit dull on Threads, and at the moment it all seems a bit much to keep up with, not to mention my error in allowing notifications on my iPhone from an account on the Russian social network Telegram that sends me nasty things from Wagner Group accounts.
Quartz, which was itself once a groundbreaking media site now hollowed out without its founders’ vision and other people’s money, says Pebble is out now: How the ex-Twitter founders of Pebble plan to compete with their old employer.
“Pebble only has about 15,000 users, but that’s intentional. The co-founders of this new social media platform, known until earlier this week as T2, wanted to move slowly and build it right—not move fast and break things,” QS tells us. Yeah, right.
Thanks for checking in on this latest “episode”.
https://substack.com/@nzheretic/note/c-39386564
"Given the current problematic social media firms,
it would be so beneficial to New Zealand Mainstream Media & Local Advertisers to work with @bsky.app & sponsor a locally New Zealand Bluesky hosting service & just cut the companies formally known as Facebook & Twitter out of New Zealand market."
I've been following the development of BlueSky's AT protocol on Github & the back end.
Although it has only 1,244,697 current it has the potential for scaling beyond hundreds of millions if it can acquire a good enough income to pay for the servers & at a price per user & message below twitter if they are using newer server hardware.
If you read my above linked note you will find a rational for NZ to set up our own service federated with Bluesky through the same AT protocol.
I realise that currently New Zealand News Media is negotiating with big tech firms for a meagre share of the profits, but it could be so better for them to get together & take some control of their own digital future.
Thanks very much Anne. I tend to like underdogs and of course Rupert is just a larrikin digger doing his best against the English establishment. Er...Michael, you're right, creates an impression and - as I meant to say in that piece and may go back and insert -- he regards anything he hears in any context as absolutely fair game. I partly like him because so many snooty journalists despise him and also wish they had been even half as successful. He is a card.