‘Hail Rupe!’: how the Murdoch press reported on his reduced role
You don’t get to the top of one of Rupert Murdoch’s UK newspapers without knowing on which side your bread is buttered. And senior editors at News UK certainly weren’t taking any risks when the ruthless media mogul announced he was stepping down as chair of Fox and News Corp.
The Times ran a laudatory spread in Friday’s paper and articles online, calling Murdoch a “trailblazer hailed for reshaping media”.
One fawning headline read uncomfortably like an obituary: “There’ll never be another Rupert … tributes from politics and media.”
The piece quoted Boris Johnson as saying: “Hail Rupe! He not only built a media empire vast enough to intimidate politicians on every continent. Through constant technological innovation he did more than any press baron in the last 100 years to promote the cause of the global free media that is indispensable for democracy and progress.”
It also referenced comments made by the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, who called Murdoch “one of the giants of his era”.
Kelvin MacKenzie, who edited the Sun between 1981 and 1994, said in the article: “There will never be another Rupert … all journalists should be grateful he invested his time and energy in the world of news.”
The Sun summed up Murdoch’s move to chairman emeritus of both firms as “king gets a new job”. Its veteran political columnist Trevor Kavanagh called Murdoch “far and away the most phenomenal newspaper man of the modern age.”
Some of Murdoch’s other media adopted a similar tone. In the US, the New York Post also framed the story as a new chapter rather than an ending. “Rupert Murdoch is taking on a new role at both News Corp and Fox as his son, Lachlan Murdoch, becomes sole chair of both media giants, the companies said Thursday,” it reported.
The non-Murdoch-owned New York Times used the word “retirement” and described the move as “the formal end to an active career”.