Wendi deng

Tuesday

Lynn Barber

Rupert Murdoch’s warped vision of family

When Rupert Murdoch divorced his fourth wife, Jerry Hall, in August 2022 he made her sign an agreement that she would not give any story ideas to the writers of Succession. Frankly he need not have bothered, because it’s all here in this utterly gripping book. The award-winning journalist Gabriel Sherman has been reporting on the Murdochs since 2008 and has interviewed them all at one time or another, so he really knows his stuff. He briskly covers Rupert’s entire career but concentrates on the man’s relationships with his children and the war of succession. Rupert was always an absentee father who put business before family. He divorced his first

Thursday

Kelvin MacKenzie

The real Rupert Murdoch, by Kelvin MacKenzie

For more than four decades I have been around Rupert Murdoch. In that time he employed me in both London and New York, invested in my business ideas and ultimately fired me. It was always rock ’n’ roll around Rupert and that’s the way I liked it. So you would have thought that when the BBC made its current three-part documentary on him, it might have come to me for my views. Oh no. I presume it didn’t want to take the risk I might say something warm and supportive. It did, however, film Trevor Kavanagh, the Sun’s political columnist, for hours on end. He was warm and supportive. But