http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch
"Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KCSG (born Melbourne, March 11, 1931),
usually known as Rupert Murdoch, is an Australian-American global
media mogul. He is the major shareholder, chairman and managing
director of News Corporation (News Corp). Beginning with newspapers,
magazines and television stations in his native Australia, Murdoch
expanded News Corp into the UK, US and Asian media markets. In recent
years has become a leading investor in satellite television, the film
industry, the Internet and media. News Corp is based in New York.
According to the 2008 Forbes 400, Murdoch is the 109th-richest person
in the world, with a net worth of $8.3 billion. He was made a Grand-
Officer in the Order of St. Gregory the Great by Pope John Paul II."
Political activities
Australia
Murdoch's shattering experience with Thomas Playford in South
Australia (see above: "Start of Business Career") and his early
political activities in Australia were to set the pattern he would
continue to use around the world.
Murdoch found a political ally in John McEwen, leader of the
Australian Country Party and governing in coalition with the larger
Menzies-Holt Liberal Party. From the very first issue of The
Australian Murdoch began taking McEwen's side in every issue that
divided the long-serving coalition partners. (The Australian, July 15,
1964, first edition front page: “Strain in Cabinet, Liberal-CP row
flares.”) It was an issue that threatened to split the coalition
government and open the way for the stronger Australian Labor Party to
dominate Australian politics. It was the beginning of a long campaign
that served McEwen well.
McEwen repaid Murdoch's support later by aiding him to buy his
valuable rural property Cavan and then arranged a clever subterfuge by
which Murdoch was able to transfer a large sum of money from Australia
to England to complete the purchase of The News of the World without
obtaining the required authority from the Australian Treasury.
After McEwen and Menzies retired, Murdoch transferred his support to
the newly elected Leader of the Australian Labor Party, Gough Whitlam,
who was elected in 1972 on a social platform that included universal
free health care, free education for all Australians to tertiary
level, recognition of the People's Republic of China and public
ownership of Australia's oil, gas and mineral resources.
Rupert Murdoch's flirtation with Whitlam turned out to be brief. He
had already started his short lived National Star newspaper in America
and was seeking to strengthen his political contacts there.
Asked about the Australian federal election, 2007, at the News
Corporation annual general meeting in New York on 19 October 2007, its
chairman Rupert Murdoch, once an Australian and now a citizen of the
USA said, "I am not commenting on anything to do with Australian
politics, I'm sorry. I always get into trouble when I do that."
Pressed whether he believed Prime Minister John Howard should be re-
elected he said: "I have nothing further to say. I'm sorry. Read our
editorials in the papers. It'll be the journalists who decide that -
the editors."
United States of America
Murdoch's publications worldwide tend to adopt conservative views.
During the buildup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, all 175 Murdoch-owned
newspapers worldwide editorialized in favor of the war. Murdoch also
served on the board of directors of the libertarian Cato Institute.
News Corp-owned Fox News is often criticized for a strong conservative
and anti-liberal bias.
On May 8, 2006, the Financial Times reported that Murdoch would be
hosting a fundraiser for Senator Hillary Clinton's (D-New York) Senate
reelection campaign. Murdoch's New York Post newspaper opposed
Clinton's Senate run in 2000.
In May 2007, Murdoch made a $5 billion offer to purchase Dow Jones,
owner of the Wall Street Journal. At the time, the Bancroft family,
who controlled 64%% of the shares, outspokenly declined the offer,
opposing Murdoch's often-used strategy of large employee cuts and
"gutting" pre-existing systems. Later, the Bancroft family confirmed a
willingness to consider a sale--aside from Murdoch, the Associated
Press reported that supermarket billionaire Ron Burkle and Internet
entrepreneur Brad Greenspan were among other interested parties. On
August 1, 2007, the BBC's "News and World Report" and NPR's
Marketplace radio programs reported that Murdoch bought Dow Jones; the
news was received with mixed reactions.
In a 2008 interview with Walt Mossberg, Murdoch was asked whether he
had "anything to do with the New York Post's endorsement of Barack
Obama." Without hesitation, Murdoch replied, "Yeah. He is a rock star.
It's fantastic. I love what he is saying about education. I don't
think he will win Florida...but he will win in Ohio and the election.
I am anxious to meet him. I want to see if he will walk the walk."
United Kingdom
In Britain, he formed a close alliance with Margaret Thatcher, and The
Sun credited itself with helping John Major win an unexpected election
victory in the 1992 general election. However, in the general
elections of 1997, 2001 and 2005, Murdoch's papers were either neutral
or supported Labour under Tony Blair. This has led some critics to
argue that Murdoch simply supports the incumbent parties (or those who
seem most likely to win an upcoming election) in the hope of
influencing government decisions that may affect his businesses. The
Labour Party under Blair had moved significantly to the Right on many
economic issues prior to 1997. Murdoch identifies himself as a
libertarian.
In a speech in New York, Rupert Murdoch said that the UK Prime
Minister Tony Blair said the BBC coverage of the Hurricane Katrina
disaster was full of hatred of America. Murdoch is a strong critic of
the BBC, which he believes has a left wing bias.
In 1998, Rupert Murdoch made a failed attempt to buy footballing power
Manchester United FC. He offered £625 million. It was the largest
amount of money anyone had offered for a sports club. It was rejected
by the United Kingdom's Competition Commission, citing that the
acquisition would have "hurt competition in the broadcast industry and
the quality of British football".
On June 28, 2006 the BBC reported that Murdoch and News Corporation
are flirting with idea of backing Conservative leader David Cameron at
the next General Election. However in a later interview in July 2006,
when asked what he thought of the Conservative leader, Murdoch replied
"Not much".
In 2006, the UK’s Independent newspaper reported that Murdoch was to
offer Tony Blair a senior role in his global media company News Corp.
when the UK prime minister stood down from office.
He is also accused by former Solidarity MSP Tommy Sheridan having a
personal vendetta against him and of conspiring with MI5 to produce a
video of him confessing to having affairs - allegations which Sheridan
had previously sued News International over and won. On being arrested
for perjury following the case Sheridan claimed that the charges were
"orchestrated and influenced by the powerful reach of the Murdoch
empire"
Personal life
Murdoch has been married three times. In 1956 he married Patricia
Booker, a former shop assistant and air hostess from Melbourne, with
whom he had his first child, a daughter Prudence Murdoch, born in
1958. Pat did not like Adelaide with its extremes of weather and where
she had few friends and Rupert was frequently away building the
foundations of his future empire. They divorced in 1967. In the same
year, he married Anna Tõrv, an Estonian-born cadet journalist working
for his Sydney newspaper The Daily Telegraph.
Tõrv and Murdoch had three children: Elisabeth Murdoch (born in
Sydney, Australia August 22, 1968), Lachlan Murdoch (born in London,
UK September 8, 1971), and James Murdoch, (born in Wimbledon, UK
December 13, 1972). Murdoch's companies published two novels by his
then wife: Family Business (1988) and Coming to Terms (1991); both
were seen as being vanity publications. Anna and Rupert divorced
acrimoniously in June, 1999.
Wendi Deng MurdochAnna Murdoch received a settlement of US$ 1.2
Billion assets. Seventeen days after the divorce, on June 25, 1999,
Murdoch, then 68, married Chinese born Deng Wendi, later changed to
Wendi Deng. She was then 30, a recent Yale School of Management
graduate and newly appointed vice-president of STAR TV. Anna Murdoch
was also remarried, in October 1999, to William Mann.
Murdoch has since had two children with Deng: Grace (born in New York
November 19, 2001) and Chloe (born in New York July 17, 2003).
Murdoch's eldest son Lachlan, formerly the deputy chief operating
officer at the News Corporation and the publisher of the New York
Post, was Murdoch's heir apparent before resigning from his executive
posts at the global media company at the end of July 2005. Lachlan's
departure left James, chief executive of the satellite television
service British Sky Broadcasting since November 2003, as the only
Murdoch scion still directly involved with the company's operations,
though Lachlan has agreed to remain on the News Corporation's board.
After graduating from Vassar College and marrying classmate Elkin
Kwesi Pianim (the son of Ghanaian financial and political mogul Kwame
Pianim) in 1993, Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth, along with her husband,
purchased a pair of NBC-affiliate television stations KSBW and KSBY in
California on a $35 million loan from her father. By quickly re-
organizing and re-selling them at a $12 million profit, Elisabeth
emerged in 1995 as an unexpected rival to her brothers for eventual
leadership of the publishing dynasty's empire. But after quarreling
publicly with her assigned mentor Sam Chisholm at BSkyB, she veered
out on her own as a television and film producer in London, where she
has enjoyed independent success in conjunction with her second
husband, Matthew Freud.
It is unknown whether Murdoch will remain as News Corp's CEO
indefinitely. The American cable television entrepreneur John Malone
was for a time the second largest voting shareholder in News
Corporation after Murdoch himself potentially undermining the family's
control. In 2007, the company announced that it would sell certain
assets and provide cash to Malone's company in exchange for the
cancellation of their stock. Murdoch in 2007 issued his older children
with equal voting stock perhaps to test their individual interest and
ability to run the company according to standards he has set.
Rupert Murdoch is the 2008 gala honoree for Endeavor (nonprofit), a
non-profit organization that supports high-impact entrepreneurs in
emerging markets."
