I admit I groaned when I heard a new volume about Rupert Murdoch had been published.
Not so much that Getting Murdoched, by “former reporters-turned journalism academics” Andrew Dodd and Matthew Ricketson and published by Hardie Grant Books was one too many, because that isn’t necessarily true.
But because the last Hardie Grant book I bought, Kasey Chambers’ Just Don’t Be a D**khead was a technical disappointment, with halftones that might have brought tears to a newspaper printer even before the wonders of offset printing.
Yes, there’s a practice of printing books on paper which is inferior to that used for newspapers; but no, that’s not a reason for failing to adjust for the inevitable dot gain. So in Chambers’ case, engaging family-album and career selfies are so glutinously filled-in that some are hard to make out.
But I digress… and I have yet to see whether prepress in the Dodd/Ricketson tome is any better. It could be. Their publicist tells me she has run out of allocated hardcopies at this stage, but may be able to send me one in July…. so I look forward to seeing it.
Notes on Getting Murdoched acknowledge the “global empire in print, publishing, film and television,” while adding, “sometimes his media outlets produce important journalism, but all too often his companies operate like an international bullying factory”.
The authors claim first-hand experience as former employees of the Murdoch-owned The Australian, of “how the business operates”. They also list other outlets for which they have worked, including the ABC, The Age and Crikey.
Getting Murdoched is the seventh or eighth tome for which Ricketson is credited, including the 2012 report of the Independent Inquiry into the Media and Media Regulation, for which he was appointed to assist QC Ray Finkelstein. The inquiry’s core recommendation of establishing a statutory body to oversee standards and complaints was effectively abandoned.
Ricketson (pictured top) has also published two editions of a guide to writing feature stories, another on writing narrative non-fiction, with Dodd has taken a look inside shrunken newsrooms with Upheaval: Disrupted lives in journalism, sharing stories from Australian journalists including Amanda Meade and David Marr on losing their own jobs and watching others lose theirs, and (with Antonella Gambotto-Burke) edited a book of Best Australian Profiles.
Getting Murdoched, “unlike any other book about Rupert Murdoch”, focusses on people it claims were targeted by News Corp publications, revealing what it says are “the tactics the company uses to bully people and twist the truth”, and looks for motivation, a release says, with chapters on US, UK and Australian markets.
“Too much of the analysis of Rupert Murdoch has focussed on power plays and dynastic intrigue and not enough on the impact of his outlets’ journalism on people, particularly ordinary people,” says Ricketson.
We’ll look forward to that review copy, and to taking an impartial view, not least of the illustrations.
Peter Coleman
Pictured: One of numerous poorly-reproduced photographs from Chambers’ book, this time with US singer Lucinda Williams