Working for Rupert: Written from the inside trying to get out

by Hugh Lunn

Without a doubt the most instructive, emotional, enlightening, and ironic book on Murdoch. Ignacio Cruz Herrera, Washington correspondent. Hugh Lunn spent 17 years before the masthead on the newspaper Rupert Murdoch started himself when he was only 33. Rupert called his baby The Australian because all the big newspapers in Australia were state-based and the young upstart believed the future was with a paper sold throughout the nation. Every other newspaperman predicted it wouldn't last six months. Hugh is based in Brisbane, Queensland, News Corporation's most remote and exotic outpost of empire. Since he had been a Reuters foreign correspondent in Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, and West Papua, Hugh is "Rupert's foreign correspondent in Queensland". Hovering constantly over Hugh's life is Rupert. Every now and again, when he's least expected, Rupert drops in for one of his notorious "terror from the sky" visits. From close quarters in the 1970s and 1980s, Hugh observes the rise and rise of Rupert Murdoch, and by way of contrast recounts his own wild Hugh is sacked, hired, sacked and hired again by a cast of editors who come and go like nappies on a baby. Hugh gets an insider's view of how Rupert operates, and the vastness of his ever-expanding empire, when he is asked to write News Corporation's Annual Report and, finally, Rupert's own three-page Chief Executive's Review for all the shareholders. "To write as Rupert Murdoch, I had to become Rupert Murdoch."

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography

276 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Di Schlenk · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Quirky, fly-on-the-wall stories from journalist Hugh Lunn and his decades long career in journalism and his interactions with Rupert Murdoch.

[Kelv · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in a formal, high level - this is a pretty quick enjoyable read. Not so much about working for Rupert as working as a reporter / editor under Rupert. It does give an insight into the biggest media takeover(s) in the world back in the eighties.