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On what would become the day of my first meeting with Murdoch, my choices were "Arms Buildup in the Middle East," "Coal Miners to Strike" or "Model Murdered in Love Nest." No question which one was most important in global terms, no question which one was most important in terms of its local impact and there was also no question which one would sell the most newspapers.

Naturally, Zell favored promoting the "Arms Build-Up in the Middle East" story. My mission was to sell papers, however, so I disregarded his directive and went for "Model Murdered in Love Nest." There were a lot of love nests in Sydney in the days before no-fault divorce, and I guessed -- correctly, it turned out -- that the story would be of great interest to lawyers and executives.

When, that afternoon, I heard a voice on the phone saying, "Rupert here. Get down to my office. Now." I first thought Murdoch might want to congratulate me on the day's increased sales -- but from the tone of his voice I sensed he was having difficulty expressing gratitude.

His office was very large and timber-lined, but seemed somehow impermanent, as though it were designed to be enlarged, reduced or moved at a moment's notice if the need arose. But I wasn't thinking about that as I made the long walk from the door to Murdoch's desk.

Zell was sitting on one side, Graham on the other. Graham winked at me behind his hand like Groucho Marx. Zell had the air of a man who had fought the good fight and emerged triumphant. Murdoch was on the phone.

I stood before him, feeling as though I were suspended in time and space. After a burst of staccato monosyllables, he hung up and, without skipping a beat, turned to me and launched into a mighty tirade about the value of good editors and the integrity of the Daily Mirror. Around News Ltd., these words had rarely been uttered together, and I was surprised. I was at the center of a hurricane that filled my ears and my brain. Just as I thought it couldn't possibly get any louder, it did. As his low, grating tone moved up the register, the pressure on the vocal cords was so great that words started to break up.

Tall and skinny as I was, I could feel my body bending like a coconut palm in the onslaught of a great force. Finally, when I thought that only crying could save me, I blurted out the only words I said to him that day: "But sales have gone up."

There was a flicker in his eyes, a momentary pause, a slight loss of rhythm in his desk-pounding -- and then he swept up a pile of Daily Mirrors from his desk and flung them at me. Newspaper fluttered all over the room. I wasn't sure about the protocol. Should I ignore the tabloid sheets fluttering around my ears? Should I pick up the papers as if he had accidentally dropped them? One sheet wrapped itself around my leg. The strength and volume of his last statement -- "Don't argue with the editor again" -- persuaded me simply to leave. I walked out with leg flapping, kicking away the newspaper.

I walked downstairs in shock. I had thought my father a master of abuse, but Murdoch was a virtuoso. His attack had an operatic quality that I almost admired. Perhaps most bizarrely, as I withstood this violent assault, I also detected a note of impartiality in his voice. If he had added "nothing personal" to his diatribe, I would have believed it. At that moment, I had been simply someone standing between Murdoch and where he wanted to go. But my ears were burning, my eyes stinging and my sense of injustice raging.

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The share price of Murdoch's company was at the time going up and down like a bride's nightdress, and at one point, it was so low that $10,000 Australian would have bought something like 1 percent of News Ltd. Rumor was the Murdoch family company was buying the shares in the face of a skeptical market.

Of course, he was right. Within a couple of years, the Daily Mirror surpassed the Sun in circulation, and a couple of years after that, he bought the other morning paper, the Daily Telegraph. The Sun folded and Murdoch combined the Daily Mirror and the Daily Telegraph. He soon had the largest circulation newspaper in a two-newspaper city of 4 million and makes some serious money out of Sydney.

This was back when Murdoch was just getting started: He now is the world's most powerful controlling owner of an international media megacorporation. The $10 billion-a-year News Corp., as it's now called, owns newspapers, TV stations, book publishing companies, cable networks, 20th Century Fox, the Fox TV network and sports teams.

Whenever I think of Murdoch I think of that day in Sydney. As I sat in my office stinging, Graham dropped in a few minutes later.

"Rupert said you did well down there and wants to offer you a salary increase."

"Christ," I said. "I thought he was going to fire me."

"Nah! Set-up for Zell's benefit. You said the magic words -- sales have increased. And he also said you picked the right story. Keep it up."
salon.com | Oct. 12, 1999

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