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The Men Who Killed the News: The inside story of how media moguls abused their power, manipulated the truth and distorted democracy
Crikey owner and ex-News Corp and Fairfax editor lifts the lid on the abuse of power by media moguls – from William Randolph Hearst to Elon Musk – and on his own unique experience of working for (and being sued by) the Murdochs.
What’s gone wrong with our media? Eric Beecher’s answer its owners, many of the biggest of them at least. They have exploited their privileged position in society to distort journalism and accumulate vast wealth and power.
Few people know the media like Eric Beecher. He has worked at Fairfax and News Corp, founded and sold Text Media, and is currently the biggest shareholder in the news website Crikey. He’s been journalist, editor and media proprietor, and has the rare distinction of having both worked for and recently been sued by (unsuccessfully) the Murdochs.
This is a book only he could a portrait of the rise of media moguls over the past two centuries, and an analysis of how they have destroyed news journalism and undermined truth by using the shield of the ‘freedom of the press’ to cover their quest for personal power. In a year that will see Fox News and Donald Trump fight an election, no book could be more timely and important in our understanding of how the media has become an agent of misinformation.
The Men Who Killed the News is deeply informed by Beecher’s own experience and delivers engaging first-hand insights. His in-depth research takes us from Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst – the first sensationalist newspaper owners in the US, who made fortunes and established dynasties – to their UK successors Lords Northcliffe and Beaverbrook; contemporary media dictators like Conrad Black, Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch; and on to Musk and Zuckerberg, the latest, tech-inflected manifestation of the mogul.
In 2024, more people will vote in elections than ever never has the role of the media been more virulent and of more urgent interest. Eric Beecher is the perfect guide to understanding how media power the players, the techniques, the strategies, the behind-the-scenes machinations.
What’s gone wrong with our media? Eric Beecher’s answer its owners, many of the biggest of them at least. They have exploited their privileged position in society to distort journalism and accumulate vast wealth and power.
Few people know the media like Eric Beecher. He has worked at Fairfax and News Corp, founded and sold Text Media, and is currently the biggest shareholder in the news website Crikey. He’s been journalist, editor and media proprietor, and has the rare distinction of having both worked for and recently been sued by (unsuccessfully) the Murdochs.
This is a book only he could a portrait of the rise of media moguls over the past two centuries, and an analysis of how they have destroyed news journalism and undermined truth by using the shield of the ‘freedom of the press’ to cover their quest for personal power. In a year that will see Fox News and Donald Trump fight an election, no book could be more timely and important in our understanding of how the media has become an agent of misinformation.
The Men Who Killed the News is deeply informed by Beecher’s own experience and delivers engaging first-hand insights. His in-depth research takes us from Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst – the first sensationalist newspaper owners in the US, who made fortunes and established dynasties – to their UK successors Lords Northcliffe and Beaverbrook; contemporary media dictators like Conrad Black, Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch; and on to Musk and Zuckerberg, the latest, tech-inflected manifestation of the mogul.
In 2024, more people will vote in elections than ever never has the role of the media been more virulent and of more urgent interest. Eric Beecher is the perfect guide to understanding how media power the players, the techniques, the strategies, the behind-the-scenes machinations.
409 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 31, 2024
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March 6, 2025
A story ostensibly about the history of media barons and their abuses of power, ‘The Men Who Killed the News: The Inside Story of How Media Moguls Abused their Power, Manipulated the Truth and Distorted Democracy’ is a classic example of events overtaking an author's chosen thesis.
To be fair, author and veteran journalist Eric Beecher (owner of Crikey and a former editor of both Fairfax and News Corp newspapers), admits as much in the afterword.
“When I first began to think about writing this book, a decade ago, its central premise was uncomplicated,” Beecher writes. “The owners and practitioners of news journalism either exercised their social licence responsibly or they abused it, but they used it. “
“Ten years on, as media power has shifted rapidly into the hands of the owners of social-media algorithms and partisan propaganda platforms, technology is replacing the humans. Scale is no longer a limitation. The century-old idea that greedy, malign media moguls are the greatest danger to moral journalism has become almost quaint.”
That dramatic shift in power of the past decade in some ways undermines Beecher's original intention to the extent that one wonders whether his publisher ever asked him to recast the entire book to focus on what is happening right now. To use a journalistic cliche, he “buried the lead”.
So, this starts out as a story about the media moguls, both good and bad, who dominated the 20th century, an era in which it was possible to amass significant wealth and political influence through ownership of media assets. With a virtual monopoly on advertising, they had elected leaders at their beck and call (indeed some still do).
Beecher's telling of the colourful, albeit well-trodden, histories of the Hearsts and Pulitzers, Northcliffes and Beaverbrooks, Maxwells and Murdochs is central to the book. These are people who cast themselves as romantic swashbucklers doing battle with ‘the elites’ and who revelled in flexing power without responsibility while making extraordinary profits in the process. Beecher cogently describes the ‘magic formula’:
“Titillating journalism = mass audiences = abundant advertising revenue = vast profits= political power. This is the formula, in its raw simplicity, that empowered a coterie of moguls to exploit journalism to both uphold and pollute civil society, with Murdoch as its greatest exponent.”
But with newspapers virtually dead as a medium, arguably the more compelling story is the one he dedicates less space to. And that is the threat to the institutions of democracy from artificial intelligence, unaccountable social media platforms and in the case of Murdoch’s Fox News, an empire openly prepared to spread disinformation to support the commercial imperative of maintaining an audience that has grown increasingly dependent on the delusions it cynically pedals. So the title of this book is to an extent a misnomer. ‘The men’ didn’t kill the news at all. The machines did.
With that in mind, I often found myself skimming the mogul anecdotes in the central chapters of the book to get back to the vital moral issues about journalism that Beecher identifies in a hard-hitting opening chapter, one in which he muses on the cumulative damage done to liberal democracies by publishers who place profits and power ahead of civic responsibility and decency.
In perhaps his most well-made observation, he talks of media owners exploiting a ‘loophole’ in democracy built around their organisations’ unlimited access to power, information as a tradable (sometimes lethal) commodity, and the use of fear to bring elected leaders to heel.
“When I first became a journalist in my 20s, I was highly motivated, like most of my peers, by its mission to report the facts and uncover important things that people don’t want aired in public; to be society’s watchdog,” Beecher recalls.
“Over the years...I began thinking less about the obvious virtues of journalism and more about the exploitation of journalism by its owners and their enablers. I know why it happens – human nature and greed – but I remain perplexed as to why most people working inside the media almost never talk about their power or make themselves accountable for it.”
This gets to the heart of the issues he raises - the inability or refusal of journalists to ever reflect on their own power and how it is abused. I and other former journalists and academics have written and presented on this for years, without anything ever changing. Journalists remain notoriously incurious about their own power and how the media industry, which employs them, actually works. They piously proclaim their role as public watchdogs but are revealed so often as nothing more than handservants for the commercial and ideological ambitions of the people who own the platforms that employ them. In one of the best passages of the book, Beecher rips back the curtain of convenience under which journalists operate:
“The truth is, journalism has always operated as a kind of mirage,” he writes. “The people who consume it have never paid what it costs to produce. And the people who funded most of those costs, the advertisers, never had a say in what was produced because they were paying for a different product – access to the audience. To me, this misalignment of incentives always felt uneasy. And, finally, it has proved to be untenable.”
Of course, the likes of the Murdochs will say they ARE accountable to ‘the market’ and the proof of whether they are serving a need is in the readership and viewership figures of their publications and broadcasts. But producing journalism is not like producing widgets. Its value is not measured solely by the number of eyeballs its output attracts, but by the tough questions it asks of power and by its capacity to reveal truths in the public interest that those who hold power do not want revealed. Unfortunately, the reality is that public trust in media has never been lower than it is now, and that is partly because the legacy media, under pressure from digital platforms that built a better advertising mousetrap, are getting down into the same sewer as those platforms to generate clicks and attention.
In his final chapter on reimagining journalism, Beecher turns back to the more interesting question about how, if at all, we can restore the civic principles of public interest journalism while ensuring it is commercially viable. He runs through the familiar alternative models - philanthropy, niche publishing, government subsidy etc; - none of which can restore the old town square or mass market information "commons" that everyone would draw from.
But I think this is putting the cart before the horse. The priority is not finding a viable business model but restoring trust in journalism and public support for its civic purpose. In many ways, civic journalism should be seen as a public utility like safe drinking water and breathable air. But it can’t survive without trust.
And that will require enforceable standards. Beecher rightly notes that journalism, alone among the ‘professions’ (more a craft really) has no governing body with the power to sanction abuses of agreed standards. There is no licensing or formal self-policing. Instead, culture and behaviour are set from the top of the organisation and percolate down through the ranks. We see the outcome of this in Australia in which every move by local government on media regulation has been to satisfy the commercial imperatives of dominant organisations like Nine, News Corp and Seven West Media, while any move toward greater public accountability is dismissed as an attempt to undermine the power of the Fourth Estate.
We had a proposal in Australia after the Finklestein media inquiry in 2012 for a legislated News Media Council that would have made binding decisions about media malfeasance. Beyond providing the funding, the government itself would have had no role in the council, which would have comprised community industry, and professional representatives. In the UK, after the phone hacking scandals, the Leveson inquiry recommended something similar - a powerful independent body with the capacity to deliver real sanctions. In both cases, nothing happened, partly because politicians were too gutless and partly because the media barons played the ‘freedom’ card.
In the meantime, the consequences of the unaccountable power of media owners grow more threatening by the day. In 2023, Murdoch's Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems nearly $US800 million to avert a trial in the voting machine company’s lawsuit that would have exposed how the network promoted lies about the 2020 presidential election. Recently, free-speech absolutist Elon Musk actively sought to foment violent unrest in the UK by using his platform, X (formerly Twitter), to encourage the spread of disinformation.
In the world’s most concentrated media market, half a million Australians in 2020 signed a petition to parliament calling for a Royal Commission into the dominance of Rupert Murdoch. The petition was supported by two former prime ministers – Labor’s Kevin Rudd, who has called Murdoch “an arrogant cancer on our democracy” and the Liberals’ Malcolm Turnbull, who sees the Murdochs’ ‘angertainment’ business model as one of the greatest threats to the democratic world. Yet nothing changes, and one can’t imagine anything happening until Murdoch senior dies. And maybe not even then.
I agree with Beecher that civic-minded, public interest journalism is essential to a functioning liberal democracy. But the death of the 20th century business model in which a virtual monopoly on advertising subsidised quality journalism has created a dangerous vaccuum. In the meantime, morally deficient characters like Murdoch and Musk are exploiting that loophole in democracy that Beecher rightly identifies to undermine the institutions of democracy.
Don't tell me there is absolutely nothing we can do about that, beyond signing petititions?
To be fair, author and veteran journalist Eric Beecher (owner of Crikey and a former editor of both Fairfax and News Corp newspapers), admits as much in the afterword.
“When I first began to think about writing this book, a decade ago, its central premise was uncomplicated,” Beecher writes. “The owners and practitioners of news journalism either exercised their social licence responsibly or they abused it, but they used it. “
“Ten years on, as media power has shifted rapidly into the hands of the owners of social-media algorithms and partisan propaganda platforms, technology is replacing the humans. Scale is no longer a limitation. The century-old idea that greedy, malign media moguls are the greatest danger to moral journalism has become almost quaint.”
That dramatic shift in power of the past decade in some ways undermines Beecher's original intention to the extent that one wonders whether his publisher ever asked him to recast the entire book to focus on what is happening right now. To use a journalistic cliche, he “buried the lead”.
So, this starts out as a story about the media moguls, both good and bad, who dominated the 20th century, an era in which it was possible to amass significant wealth and political influence through ownership of media assets. With a virtual monopoly on advertising, they had elected leaders at their beck and call (indeed some still do).
Beecher's telling of the colourful, albeit well-trodden, histories of the Hearsts and Pulitzers, Northcliffes and Beaverbrooks, Maxwells and Murdochs is central to the book. These are people who cast themselves as romantic swashbucklers doing battle with ‘the elites’ and who revelled in flexing power without responsibility while making extraordinary profits in the process. Beecher cogently describes the ‘magic formula’:
“Titillating journalism = mass audiences = abundant advertising revenue = vast profits= political power. This is the formula, in its raw simplicity, that empowered a coterie of moguls to exploit journalism to both uphold and pollute civil society, with Murdoch as its greatest exponent.”
But with newspapers virtually dead as a medium, arguably the more compelling story is the one he dedicates less space to. And that is the threat to the institutions of democracy from artificial intelligence, unaccountable social media platforms and in the case of Murdoch’s Fox News, an empire openly prepared to spread disinformation to support the commercial imperative of maintaining an audience that has grown increasingly dependent on the delusions it cynically pedals. So the title of this book is to an extent a misnomer. ‘The men’ didn’t kill the news at all. The machines did.
With that in mind, I often found myself skimming the mogul anecdotes in the central chapters of the book to get back to the vital moral issues about journalism that Beecher identifies in a hard-hitting opening chapter, one in which he muses on the cumulative damage done to liberal democracies by publishers who place profits and power ahead of civic responsibility and decency.
In perhaps his most well-made observation, he talks of media owners exploiting a ‘loophole’ in democracy built around their organisations’ unlimited access to power, information as a tradable (sometimes lethal) commodity, and the use of fear to bring elected leaders to heel.
“When I first became a journalist in my 20s, I was highly motivated, like most of my peers, by its mission to report the facts and uncover important things that people don’t want aired in public; to be society’s watchdog,” Beecher recalls.
“Over the years...I began thinking less about the obvious virtues of journalism and more about the exploitation of journalism by its owners and their enablers. I know why it happens – human nature and greed – but I remain perplexed as to why most people working inside the media almost never talk about their power or make themselves accountable for it.”
This gets to the heart of the issues he raises - the inability or refusal of journalists to ever reflect on their own power and how it is abused. I and other former journalists and academics have written and presented on this for years, without anything ever changing. Journalists remain notoriously incurious about their own power and how the media industry, which employs them, actually works. They piously proclaim their role as public watchdogs but are revealed so often as nothing more than handservants for the commercial and ideological ambitions of the people who own the platforms that employ them. In one of the best passages of the book, Beecher rips back the curtain of convenience under which journalists operate:
“The truth is, journalism has always operated as a kind of mirage,” he writes. “The people who consume it have never paid what it costs to produce. And the people who funded most of those costs, the advertisers, never had a say in what was produced because they were paying for a different product – access to the audience. To me, this misalignment of incentives always felt uneasy. And, finally, it has proved to be untenable.”
Of course, the likes of the Murdochs will say they ARE accountable to ‘the market’ and the proof of whether they are serving a need is in the readership and viewership figures of their publications and broadcasts. But producing journalism is not like producing widgets. Its value is not measured solely by the number of eyeballs its output attracts, but by the tough questions it asks of power and by its capacity to reveal truths in the public interest that those who hold power do not want revealed. Unfortunately, the reality is that public trust in media has never been lower than it is now, and that is partly because the legacy media, under pressure from digital platforms that built a better advertising mousetrap, are getting down into the same sewer as those platforms to generate clicks and attention.
In his final chapter on reimagining journalism, Beecher turns back to the more interesting question about how, if at all, we can restore the civic principles of public interest journalism while ensuring it is commercially viable. He runs through the familiar alternative models - philanthropy, niche publishing, government subsidy etc; - none of which can restore the old town square or mass market information "commons" that everyone would draw from.
But I think this is putting the cart before the horse. The priority is not finding a viable business model but restoring trust in journalism and public support for its civic purpose. In many ways, civic journalism should be seen as a public utility like safe drinking water and breathable air. But it can’t survive without trust.
And that will require enforceable standards. Beecher rightly notes that journalism, alone among the ‘professions’ (more a craft really) has no governing body with the power to sanction abuses of agreed standards. There is no licensing or formal self-policing. Instead, culture and behaviour are set from the top of the organisation and percolate down through the ranks. We see the outcome of this in Australia in which every move by local government on media regulation has been to satisfy the commercial imperatives of dominant organisations like Nine, News Corp and Seven West Media, while any move toward greater public accountability is dismissed as an attempt to undermine the power of the Fourth Estate.
We had a proposal in Australia after the Finklestein media inquiry in 2012 for a legislated News Media Council that would have made binding decisions about media malfeasance. Beyond providing the funding, the government itself would have had no role in the council, which would have comprised community industry, and professional representatives. In the UK, after the phone hacking scandals, the Leveson inquiry recommended something similar - a powerful independent body with the capacity to deliver real sanctions. In both cases, nothing happened, partly because politicians were too gutless and partly because the media barons played the ‘freedom’ card.
In the meantime, the consequences of the unaccountable power of media owners grow more threatening by the day. In 2023, Murdoch's Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems nearly $US800 million to avert a trial in the voting machine company’s lawsuit that would have exposed how the network promoted lies about the 2020 presidential election. Recently, free-speech absolutist Elon Musk actively sought to foment violent unrest in the UK by using his platform, X (formerly Twitter), to encourage the spread of disinformation.
In the world’s most concentrated media market, half a million Australians in 2020 signed a petition to parliament calling for a Royal Commission into the dominance of Rupert Murdoch. The petition was supported by two former prime ministers – Labor’s Kevin Rudd, who has called Murdoch “an arrogant cancer on our democracy” and the Liberals’ Malcolm Turnbull, who sees the Murdochs’ ‘angertainment’ business model as one of the greatest threats to the democratic world. Yet nothing changes, and one can’t imagine anything happening until Murdoch senior dies. And maybe not even then.
I agree with Beecher that civic-minded, public interest journalism is essential to a functioning liberal democracy. But the death of the 20th century business model in which a virtual monopoly on advertising subsidised quality journalism has created a dangerous vaccuum. In the meantime, morally deficient characters like Murdoch and Musk are exploiting that loophole in democracy that Beecher rightly identifies to undermine the institutions of democracy.
Don't tell me there is absolutely nothing we can do about that, beyond signing petititions?
April 10, 2025
I will have to start this review by agreeing with one of Mr Beecher’s antagonists. Beecher begins his book with a detailed account of the time when Lachlan Murdoch sued Beecher for defamation. Murdoch’s legal team had a miss match of arguments against Beecher (Crikey) one of which was that the story at hand was published only to attract more readers to Beecher’s media web site, ‘Crikey’. Well that’s me guilty as charged. I had known of Crikey for many years and eventually received ‘Crikey Worm’. When it went behind a paywall and with Murdoch’s bleatings in my ears I decided it was time to pay up and go the whole hog. So a subscriber I became. The only downside it is sometimes near midnight that I get around to reading the morning publication.
After the expose of Murdoch’s attempt to use brute force to silence a critic Beecher goes on to give us a compressed history of media barons, mainly English and American, but with a smattering of European and Asian. It is not a pretty picture that he paints of the princes of print who used their power to create a world that reflected their views.
He does spend a sizeable amount of time on Murdoch: justifyingly so. Because Murdoch is still a moving target his story was being added to as I read, his family was in serious dispute about who will run the company when Rupert leaves this Earth to wherever media mogul jets take them when they go to meet their maker. Connected to this issue was the fact that Beecher spoke approvingly about Jeff Beevos and his hands off investment in the Washington Post. This has changed drastically since the book was published.
It is obvious that Beecher has done detailed research before publishing, he quotes others extensively. He describes numerous scenes where media moguls demonstrated their power and influence.
Beecher discusses at length the demise of journalism with the rise of the internet, social media and now artificial intelligence. The rivers of gold, classified advertising have dried up. There is a sweeping feeling of distrust in the media. What the future holds is uncertain.
“The Men Who Killed the News” is a passionate and professional account of the news media.
After the expose of Murdoch’s attempt to use brute force to silence a critic Beecher goes on to give us a compressed history of media barons, mainly English and American, but with a smattering of European and Asian. It is not a pretty picture that he paints of the princes of print who used their power to create a world that reflected their views.
He does spend a sizeable amount of time on Murdoch: justifyingly so. Because Murdoch is still a moving target his story was being added to as I read, his family was in serious dispute about who will run the company when Rupert leaves this Earth to wherever media mogul jets take them when they go to meet their maker. Connected to this issue was the fact that Beecher spoke approvingly about Jeff Beevos and his hands off investment in the Washington Post. This has changed drastically since the book was published.
It is obvious that Beecher has done detailed research before publishing, he quotes others extensively. He describes numerous scenes where media moguls demonstrated their power and influence.
Beecher discusses at length the demise of journalism with the rise of the internet, social media and now artificial intelligence. The rivers of gold, classified advertising have dried up. There is a sweeping feeling of distrust in the media. What the future holds is uncertain.
“The Men Who Killed the News” is a passionate and professional account of the news media.
July 16, 2024
Not for fans of Fox News or Rupert Murdoch.
May 14, 2025
Got distracted by other books / life in the middle of this one, but so glad I finished it…
These bastards… Changed the world for the very worst…
These bastards… Changed the world for the very worst…
November 24, 2024
Eric Beecher as owner of Crikey and a former journalist for News Corp and Fairfax has the insiders view of the men (mostly) who have manipulated the news since newspapers were ever a thing - everyone from William Randolph Hearst to Rupert Murdoch and Elon Musk. It is in many ways a disturbing read as we see the lengths to which these men have gone to maintain power and a certain hold over politicians and society. This distortion of democracy doesn't look like ending any time soon. A bit repetitive at times, the book could have done with a little more editing.
December 16, 2024
An excellent and very important book that analyses what is wrong with the media today and how we got into this mess. The problem of media moguls abusing their power is not a new one. The author demonstrates how media moguls have been abusing their power for over 100 years but it is getting worse and has been amplified by technological developments (the internet) which make it easier to cheaper to be successful while being thoroughly unprofessional and having no regard to truth in reporting. Unfortunately, there are no simple solutions.
February 24, 2025
Given that this book was written by a professional journalist, I was expecting a well written and coherent story explaining the abuse of power by Murdoc and co. I did not get that coherent story. Although the information in the book is good, its all very disjointed. Switching between people and time constantly and never remaining on a single person or family for very long. Plus Beecher's.... consistent use of quotes got quite distracting, with seemingly every line being something someone else said rather than his own words. By the end of the book he seemed to get a hold of himself and finally realise what it was that he wanted to say and I must say that his conclusion is the highlight of the book, presenting what he believes must and almost inevitably will happen to improve the sate of media today. Overall, not a bad book, just not as good as I was expecting. 2.5/5
Read
April 11, 2025I don’t typically rate non-fiction books. I got about 2/3 of the way through this one and that was enough. I learnt a lot and was throughly outraged at the abuses of the media moguls. I didn’t feel the need to push through and finish the book as I felt there was nothing new that the author could have added to what they already had
January 31, 2025
Maybe I do like non-fiction
April 9, 2025
An impressive well researched inside story of how media moguls abused their power historically and all over the world .
A makes you think book
A makes you think book
May 8, 2025
This book made me angry, VERY angry as I read about the arrogance of media moguls over many years who manipulate readers and Governments through misinformation and bias as they build more wealth and power.
The following blurb summarises the issues covered better than I can.
This is a must read book for all if we really want Democracy to survive.
Crikey owner and ex-News Corp and Fairfax editor lifts the lid on the abuse of power by media moguls – from William Randolph Hearst to Elon Musk – and on his own unique experience of working for (and being sued by) the Murdochs. What’s gone wrong with our media? Eric Beecher’s answer its owners, many of the biggest of them at least. They have exploited their privileged position in society to distort journalism and accumulate vast wealth and power. Few people know the media like Eric Beecher. He has worked at Fairfax and News Corp, founded and sold Text Media, and is currently the biggest shareholder in the news website Crikey. He’s been journalist, editor and media proprietor, and has the rare distinction of having both worked for and recently been sued by (unsuccessfully) the Murdochs. This is a book only he could a portrait of the rise of media moguls over the past two centuries, and an analysis of how they have destroyed news journalism and undermined truth by using the shield of the ‘freedom of the press’ to cover their quest for personal power. In a year that will see Fox News and Donald Trump fight an election, no book could be more timely and important in our understanding of how the media has become an agent of misinformation. The Men Who Killed the News is deeply informed by Beecher’s own experience and delivers engaging first-hand insights. His in-depth research takes us from Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst – the first sensationalist newspaper owners in the US, who made fortunes and established dynasties – to their UK successors Lords Northcliffe and Beaverbrook; contemporary media dictators like Conrad Black, Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch; and on to Musk and Zuckerberg, the latest, tech-inflected manifestation of the mogul. In 2024, more people will vote in elections than ever never has the role of the media been more virulent and of more urgent interest. Eric Beecher is the perfect guide to understanding how media power the players, the techniques, the strategies, the behind-the-scenes machinations.
The following blurb summarises the issues covered better than I can.
This is a must read book for all if we really want Democracy to survive.
Crikey owner and ex-News Corp and Fairfax editor lifts the lid on the abuse of power by media moguls – from William Randolph Hearst to Elon Musk – and on his own unique experience of working for (and being sued by) the Murdochs. What’s gone wrong with our media? Eric Beecher’s answer its owners, many of the biggest of them at least. They have exploited their privileged position in society to distort journalism and accumulate vast wealth and power. Few people know the media like Eric Beecher. He has worked at Fairfax and News Corp, founded and sold Text Media, and is currently the biggest shareholder in the news website Crikey. He’s been journalist, editor and media proprietor, and has the rare distinction of having both worked for and recently been sued by (unsuccessfully) the Murdochs. This is a book only he could a portrait of the rise of media moguls over the past two centuries, and an analysis of how they have destroyed news journalism and undermined truth by using the shield of the ‘freedom of the press’ to cover their quest for personal power. In a year that will see Fox News and Donald Trump fight an election, no book could be more timely and important in our understanding of how the media has become an agent of misinformation. The Men Who Killed the News is deeply informed by Beecher’s own experience and delivers engaging first-hand insights. His in-depth research takes us from Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst – the first sensationalist newspaper owners in the US, who made fortunes and established dynasties – to their UK successors Lords Northcliffe and Beaverbrook; contemporary media dictators like Conrad Black, Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch; and on to Musk and Zuckerberg, the latest, tech-inflected manifestation of the mogul. In 2024, more people will vote in elections than ever never has the role of the media been more virulent and of more urgent interest. Eric Beecher is the perfect guide to understanding how media power the players, the techniques, the strategies, the behind-the-scenes machinations.
July 12, 2025
The author of this remains an active journalist and media owner, yet I can’t help but think, that a great majority of his motivation for this work is to expose and critique the Murdock family, principally Rupert and James.
As he states in the commencement of the work, he’s one of few to resign from News Corp. he’s also been involved personally in litigation with James
So, to the book then. There is little to no respect or love shown to the media owners from the 1800’s to now. In point of fact the opposite, with a dose of distain, is true.
The author recounts mostly historically known facts across a range of media owners detailing motivations, business practices and personal and professional ambition. Interspersed amongst the consistent focus of the Murdochs we learn of, in the majority, the men who built, ran/run and use the ownership of media to their own ends. Glimpses are provided to those who have used power, practice and influence for the “good”, yet in the main it is a work of the corruption, theft, willful destruction of others and purely self benefit that fill the pages
For this reader, the grind and torrent of distant against four recurring characters became in itself a grind. Perhaps this was prejudiced by myself from the outset as I hold minimal respect for “main stream/ populist” media and respect and pay for only collectively owned or publicly funded media. So I guess it depends from where you are starting from and what you are hoping to get from work such as this
3 stars for the content, with an additional for the way it is presented
As he states in the commencement of the work, he’s one of few to resign from News Corp. he’s also been involved personally in litigation with James
So, to the book then. There is little to no respect or love shown to the media owners from the 1800’s to now. In point of fact the opposite, with a dose of distain, is true.
The author recounts mostly historically known facts across a range of media owners detailing motivations, business practices and personal and professional ambition. Interspersed amongst the consistent focus of the Murdochs we learn of, in the majority, the men who built, ran/run and use the ownership of media to their own ends. Glimpses are provided to those who have used power, practice and influence for the “good”, yet in the main it is a work of the corruption, theft, willful destruction of others and purely self benefit that fill the pages
For this reader, the grind and torrent of distant against four recurring characters became in itself a grind. Perhaps this was prejudiced by myself from the outset as I hold minimal respect for “main stream/ populist” media and respect and pay for only collectively owned or publicly funded media. So I guess it depends from where you are starting from and what you are hoping to get from work such as this
3 stars for the content, with an additional for the way it is presented
January 27, 2025
It’s not like you’re a millionaire or billionaire and with your spare change you buy…a newspaper, a TV station, radio station or dare I say it a media network. And then leave it to run itself. This is the story of how the media is now the plaything of moguls and what they wanted published is all that is published.
Beecher details the progress or better said regress of global media ownership and its refusal, defiance, and ignorance of being regulated as well as its complete failure to regulate itself and its selfishness and illegality when cornered.
For me who was the son of a journalist and ultimately chose not be one, I’m dismayed and saddened. Beecher does detail a hopeful recipe for the future but even that has been outflanked by fact lacking social media.
Beecher details the progress or better said regress of global media ownership and its refusal, defiance, and ignorance of being regulated as well as its complete failure to regulate itself and its selfishness and illegality when cornered.
For me who was the son of a journalist and ultimately chose not be one, I’m dismayed and saddened. Beecher does detail a hopeful recipe for the future but even that has been outflanked by fact lacking social media.
March 9, 2025
Another in my series of books on understanding how we got here / how the world really works. Fascinating insight into how the press has always worked, and how it has systematically been degraded from a source of information into a source of entertainment, as well as a tool for projecting political and ideological power. A powerful reminder of quite how critical it is to have access to independent and unbiased reporting. I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford to pay for my news, and it made me happy to continue with my 3 or 4 subscriptions - but also a reminder of how critical it is to support relatively unbiased public news agencies like PBS, Australia's ABC etc.
April 14, 2025
A comprehensive, well researched and impressive insiders view of media moguls past and present.
We're talking about men whose massive egos, sense of entitlement and financial resources mean there has been no brakes, restraints, checks or balances on their reach when it comes to how much power they wish to wield - and wield they have, and do.
I came away from this read outraged, infuriated and depressed - and with a renewed commitment to maintaining my subscriptions to the independent news sources I already support.
We're talking about men whose massive egos, sense of entitlement and financial resources mean there has been no brakes, restraints, checks or balances on their reach when it comes to how much power they wish to wield - and wield they have, and do.
I came away from this read outraged, infuriated and depressed - and with a renewed commitment to maintaining my subscriptions to the independent news sources I already support.
August 15, 2025
3.5/5 Yeah, Murdoch media is fucked! This book was a fairly solid takedown of the corruption, ethical destitution, and social harms which underpin the empires of media moguls.
I felt that the writing was, at times, a bit disjointed and the flow of the book left something to be desired. The overall argument came across, but perhaps not as effectively as it could have.
I was glad this book touched on the racist, homophobic, and sexist violence perpetrated by these right-wing “news” sources, and thought the analysis of Fox News was particularly salient.
I felt that the writing was, at times, a bit disjointed and the flow of the book left something to be desired. The overall argument came across, but perhaps not as effectively as it could have.
I was glad this book touched on the racist, homophobic, and sexist violence perpetrated by these right-wing “news” sources, and thought the analysis of Fox News was particularly salient.
January 6, 2025
Decent but not great. Most of the observations are unoriginal, repetitive, and have been expressed better by other authors and academics. The best parts are Beecher’s personal reflections from his career. I picked up the book after listening to his interview with David Marr on Late Night Live, shortly after release. That conversation contained the author’s best insights, which unfortunately are only sprinkled throughout the book itself.
January 23, 2025
Decent, I felt like this was a Rupert Murdoch book first, and the other characters second. The parts where Beecher talks about his relationship to Murdoch and the subsequent detailing of how ruthlessly he built his empire were the most intriguing, and the book is tied together to the current day is done really well. Just felt like at times there was a bit of water being trodden but hey I’ve read like 3 books since I finished high school so who am I to write a book review?
February 23, 2025
Compelling to start. Lachlan Murdoch’s failed attempt to sue Crikey was one of the highlights. I started to lose interest approaching the half-way mark because the book slides into repetitiveness. Tighter editing could have made for a snappier read.
Beecher refers to gay people as “gays” at one point, non-ironically, which made me flip back to the copyright page to confirm when the book was published. (2024!)
Beecher refers to gay people as “gays” at one point, non-ironically, which made me flip back to the copyright page to confirm when the book was published. (2024!)
March 23, 2025
Thorough insight into the power of the fifth estate, the ruthelessness and greed of the media owners from traditional media barons to social media billionaires. The first chapter almost put me off, but understand the author wanted to celebrate his victory over the Murdochs. A useful reminder of not to believe everything you read, and to be aware of the different prejudices and lenses through which our news is presented.
April 10, 2025
4.75 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨
This book is heartbreaking in the way that it logically tracks how media empires have been built and why they have been built so the narrative can be controlled for political ends. It focuses at the end on how the Trump presidency has specifically used media which is fascinating and a little scary to see the things I didn’t notice at the time but the chapter on how AI and journalism can and will interact should be mandatory reading for all journalism students.
This book is heartbreaking in the way that it logically tracks how media empires have been built and why they have been built so the narrative can be controlled for political ends. It focuses at the end on how the Trump presidency has specifically used media which is fascinating and a little scary to see the things I didn’t notice at the time but the chapter on how AI and journalism can and will interact should be mandatory reading for all journalism students.
December 4, 2025
Bit of a slog to get through at times, hence the slow reading, but a brilliant & interesting book that taught me a lot about media ownership, regulation and manipulation. One of my favourite books of all time is The Fourth Estate by Jeffrey Archer, telling the fictionalised story of Rupert Murdoch and Robert Maxwell’s rise to media moguldom. This is the non-fiction insight into their world and has made me re think my consumption of news.
September 8, 2024
An enlightening read, not just Murdoch, but other media moguls from history, and the 'new' moguls. Some LOL moments at the craziness of what they say, and WTH at what they do/have done.
A great exposé. Australia, US & UK. Written well, a LOT of information, and great research. Sometimes had to put it down to take in what happened, but don't let that put you off (or a lot of information).
A great exposé. Australia, US & UK. Written well, a LOT of information, and great research. Sometimes had to put it down to take in what happened, but don't let that put you off (or a lot of information).
October 18, 2024
An entertaining read, which really shines when it's exploring the historical themes more than the present ones for me.
The author's biases are obvious, but transparent. However I don't feel like it takes away from the impact of the facts at hand.
I'll be seeking out some novels around some of the more historical figures presented here (have probably had my fill of Murdoch for now).
The author's biases are obvious, but transparent. However I don't feel like it takes away from the impact of the facts at hand.
I'll be seeking out some novels around some of the more historical figures presented here (have probably had my fill of Murdoch for now).
December 4, 2024
Eric Beecher has form in the game of journalism. Worked with the best and worst. Sued by Murdoch twice and won. Uniquely qualified to write this history of journalism and contemplate its future. If any.
When I majored in Journalism in the 1970s no one could see how the coming century would make a book like this possible and necessary.
Written with skill and clarity, Beecher’s book even attempts to predict journalism’s possible futures. Worth reading.
When I majored in Journalism in the 1970s no one could see how the coming century would make a book like this possible and necessary.
Written with skill and clarity, Beecher’s book even attempts to predict journalism’s possible futures. Worth reading.
August 24, 2025
An excellent read, Beecher eviscerates several key figures in the degredation of the media industry; Murdoch, Zuckerberg and Black amongst others.
He makes many strong points on why it is so important to have a well-funded, independent media. His outlook is pragmatic and also inspiring.
Really pleased I read this.
He makes many strong points on why it is so important to have a well-funded, independent media. His outlook is pragmatic and also inspiring.
Really pleased I read this.
December 19, 2024
3.5
Very informative into the hidden importance media has in everyone's lives and the moral responsibility placed on those who wield such power. Ofc they usually fuck it up. Nice insights. A lot of history that had my brain check out sometimes but overall good
Very informative into the hidden importance media has in everyone's lives and the moral responsibility placed on those who wield such power. Ofc they usually fuck it up. Nice insights. A lot of history that had my brain check out sometimes but overall good
March 20, 2025
Probably the quickest I’ve ever finished a book, could not put it down. The insight the author provided was a remarkable look behind the curtain into how corrupt the industry really is. Really 7+1 this book up.
June 13, 2025
I guess I thought this would be a journalistic history and exposé of the news business, but it starts out with the author's relationship to Rupert Murdoch, then skips around to other media moguls without a clear timeline or sense of progression.
July 4, 2025
A very well researched and thought-provoking book outlining a history of the various media across the developed world and a look at where to from here. Numerous anecdotes helped to make it an entertaining and engaging read.
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