A day or two before the Great Man’s arrival, word would go out for us to clear up our desks. He likes clean workspaces.
Or maybe he doesn’t.
I don’t really know, because so much of what we hear or read about Keith Rupert Murdoch is mixed up with myth and spin.
Stories about him are resurfacing now because he has fought and won what’s been billed as his last great battle — the one over who will control his media empire once he’s gone.
One thing I do know for sure — because I saw it happen at the Daily Sun in the early 1980s and again at The Sunday Mail in the early 2000s — is that during his regular progressions through his realm, Rupert liked to go through the recent copies of his newspapers with the editor and other senior staff, commenting on what he liked and what he did not like.
I don’t know if it’s true that, during this routine at one newspaper, he criticised the use of a question mark in a headline and thundered: “We don’t ask questions, we answer them!”
That, so the story goes, was interpreted as don’t use question marks when you pose a question in a headline, rather than don’t pose questions in headlines. The “rule” still stands today, and I still argue that it’s a bad practice that mangles the language and confuses the readers.
Another, possibly apocryphal, story involves Rupert going out on the town with some senior staff, one of who becomes so drunk that he vomits all over his sleeping boss in the back of a limo. The quick-thinking hack shakes Rupert awake and says: “Look what you’ve done to yourself!”
Then there’s the one about the time Rupert is on the “stone” (production floor) of one of his titles and the deadline has come and gone. He asks what the delay is and is told they are still waiting for a photograph to be processed.
So, Rupert phones the dark room and demands to know where the picture is. The person on the other end says that it’ll be ready when it’s ready.
Rupert explodes, saying: “Do you know who I am?”
The reply: “Yes. Do you know who I am?”
“No.”
“Well, f—k off then.”
I know a few stories, too, about his son and now-undisputed heir, Lachlan, but my only personal encounter with him was on Christmas Day in the early 1990s.
It was during the time he was learning the ropes at Queensland Newspapers and I was working a casual sub-editing shift on The Courier-Mail. Because so much is done in advance and it’s traditionally a quiet news day, we were filling in our time with a touch of “corridor cricket”. Lachlan, who apparently had nothing better to do than be in the office, joined in the fun and was very pleasant to one and all.
I had friends who knew him better than me — in one case, a lot better — and they only had good things to say.
But all this was well before his ascent to the top of his father’s company.
These memories are flowing, not only because of the Murdoch succession settlement, where Lachlan has officially received the keys to the kingdom, but also the news that Prince Harry and King Charles have reportedly taken tea together, possibly ending a years-long rift.
The Murdochs and the Windsors are not that dissimilar. In both of their family businesses there is room for only one heir, and that makes life difficult for the surplus children.
Back in the old days, the other claimants would lose their heads. These days, at least if you’re a Murdoch, you get a billion dollars to go away and get on with your life.
The legal action may be over, but I doubt that any of Lachlan’s siblings will be popping around for tea and a game of cricket, corridor or otherwise, this Christmas.
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Radio activity
It pleases me to know that not only did my recent post about the radio ratings attract a higher-than-average number of readers to this newsletter, but it was also the subject of discussion out in the real world.
Some of that discussion centered around the identity of Anon of Brisbane. Don’t ask me, because I’m not telling.
From employees and former employees to people with no skin in the game whatsoever, except that they are listeners or former listeners, people care about the station — a lot more, perhaps, than its owner, Nine Radio, appears to at the moment.
Many of the comments made online, and in direct engagement with me, express fear for the future of 4BC.
Although some commenters disagreed with Anon’s rationale and recommendations, there was broad agreement that change is needed — with suggestions ranging from abandoning talk altogether to doubling down on it.
One person who, as the Americans like to say, has knowledge of the situation, told me that “talk radio in Brisbane can and should work”.
“But,” they added, “it starts and ends in breakfast. Until the Breakfast show is a game changer, the rest of the station never will be.”
The person went on to say that 4BC should “invest heavily in securing the best person with a large profile and strong opinions in Breakfast”.
Another source said 4BC should have persisted with the former Breakfast team of Laurel Edwards, Gary Clare and Mark Hine, arguing that the model of mixing talk and classic hits had worked well until Sydney-based management started interfering and the ratings began to drop.
On social media, one person opined that “they would do better by ditching the shock jock talkback rubbish and play classic pop”.
P.S.
A few eyebrows are being raised in journalism circles over a recent newspaper column about a public figure who is said to be getting away with bad behaviour.
Disclaimer: Brett Debritz used to work as a producer at 4BC and as a journalist at various News Corporation publications.