Rupert Murdoch
The twentieth century saw the rise of media conglomerates that stretched across continents, reshaping how news and entertainment reached ordinary people. Rupert Murdoch, born in Melbourne on March 11, 1931, built one of the most far-reaching ownership portfolios in that era and has remained a central figure in global media into the twenty-first century.
A holder of both Australian and American citizenship, Murdoch was educated at Geelong Grammar School and later at Worcester College, University of Oxford. He went on to work as a businessperson, publisher, entrepreneur, financier, and media proprietor — a combination of roles that placed him at the intersection of editorial and commercial power. His ownership interests have included News Corp, the book publisher HarperCollins, Sky News Australia, Fox News, and, formerly, Sky, 21st Century Fox, and the now-defunct News of the World. That breadth of ownership, spanning print, broadcast, and digital platforms across multiple countries, has led some commentators to describe him as an oligarch. As of March 2022, his net worth stood at approximately US$21.7 billion.
The scale of Murdoch's holdings has drawn sustained public and political attention over the decades. His career has not been without controversy, and the reach of outlets he owns — ranging from a major book publisher to cable news networks — has made him a recurring subject of debate about media concentration and its effects on public discourse. None of that scrutiny has translated into marginalization; he has continued to operate at the center of global media business.
On the honors side, Murdoch has received a range of formal recognitions, including the Companion of the Order of Australia, the Bodley Medal, the Great Immigrants Award, the Centenary Medal, the Commander First Class of the Order of the White Rose of Finland, the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Gregory the Great, and the Financial Times Person of the Year.
Quotes by Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch's insights on:
ESPN is a very, very good operation, and it's a gold mine. It's an even bigger gold mine than Fox News.
People who watch 'Fox News,' you may say, and this is anecdotal, but they are passionate about it. In the most unlikely places, like down in Soho where I used to live, people would come up to me and thank me for it. People I didn't know from a bar of soap. People appreciate that at least they're being heard. It is much more watchable.
I was brought up in a publishing home, a newspaper man's home, and was excited by that, I suppose. I saw that life at close range and, after the age of ten or twelve, never really considered any other.
If you're in the media, particularly newspapers, you are in the thick of all the interesting things that are going on in a community, and I can't imagine any other life that one would want to dedicate oneself to.
Scarcely a day goes by without some claim that new technologies are fast writing newsprint's obituary.
If the sea level rises 6 inches, that's a big deal... we can't mitigate that; we can't stop it. We've just got to stop building vast houses on seashores and go back a little bit.
You can't have a free democracy if you don't have a free media that can provide vital and independent information to the people.
I wasn't weaned on the web nor coddled on a computer. Instead, I grew up in a highly centralized world where news and information were tightly controlled by a few editors, who deemed to tell us what we could and should know. My two young daughters, on the other hand, will be digital natives.