Free The Man Who Owns the News by Michael Wolff Page B

before—he calls him up.
    “I’d really like to come and see you. I’ve got a lot of ideas, which it’d help to share, and at least you can get to know me, or see that I’m not growing horns,” Murdoch will later recall he said, trying to charm Elefante. But once again, Murdoch is rebuffed. Elefante rushes him off the phone—says he’ll call him back. When he does, it’s once again with a firm no: not interested, don’t want to sit down with you, thank you very much, go away. (Murdoch says he hears later, through his deep network, that Elefante and Dow Jones’ lawyers high-five each other that Murdoch has not offered a price—meaning, they believe, that it is not necessary for them to take a solicitation to the shareholders if it doesn’t come with a firm offer. Murdoch will take heed of this lesson.)
    And then something else occurs in the summer of 2005: Lachlan resigns. In 2001, Elisabeth Murdoch walked out of BSkyB for much the same reason that her brother is leaving now. Their father tempted, teased, even seemed to promise that each was the anointed, then left each looking foolish. It hurt him when Elisabeth left, and it hurts him all the more now that it is his firstborn son who is leaving—packing up and going back to Australia, which Murdoch himself has managed to get so far from (there is irony here, because Lachlan was born in London and grew up in New York and is far from Australian). When New York magazine runs a blind-sourced piece, clearly from Lachlan’s perspective, about the Murdoch family’s travails, Murdoch rails against the leaker. His closest associates don’t really have the heart to tell him that Lachlan himself was obviously telling the tales.
    And there is another development that summer: Murdoch has a crush. This is a theme of Murdoch’s management style. He will, on occasion, become infatuated with someone and then, in not so subtle and sometimes not so logical ways—before he falls out of love—reorganize the company around that person.
    It is impossible to ignore that this crush—or, changing the metaphor, the choice of a new son—comes as his real son is so painfully leaving him.
    Robert Thomson is a Melbourne boy, thirty years younger than Murdoch—both were born on March 11, which Murdoch seems to find significant—who started at the Melbourne Herald as a copyboy. He has covered Asia for the Financial Times (another paper that Murdoch, at various times, has desired), and helped direct the FT ’s expansion into the United States. He lost a bake-off in 2001 to be the editor. Bitter about the slight, Thomson put out feelers about his availability—and Rupert called. They met for beers at the Dervish—a Times Square Turkish restaurant and one of the News Corp. joints (which qualifies by proximity and bad food) where Rupert and Lachlan, often with New York Post editor Col Allan, had their regular Friday lunch.
    In one of those soul-mate flukes, Murdoch became almost immediately enthralled with Thomson for all the reasons he is so often suspicious of others. In the FT, Thomson has a prestige journalistic credential; he has a certain expertise in Asia (Murdoch was not someone who particularly valued independent expertise); he carries himself like an intellectual; and, unlike the garrulous reporters with whom Murdoch surrounds himself when he is in the mood for reporters, Thomson is restrained in the care with which he speaks, to the point of crypticness.
    Rebekah Wade, the editor of the Sun in London, recalls Murdoch telling a joke after a few drinks, as they wait for Robert Thomson to arrive at a posh London restaurant. “God this is brilliant…what’s the difference between a fridge and a poofter?” Murdoch booms to Wade. “Well, when you pull the meat out of the fridge, it doesn’t fart!” But, then, seeing Thomson coming into the restaurant, Murdoch urgently whispers, “For God’s sake, don’t tell Robert what I said. He’s a gentrified man…very