Man Bites Murdoch: Four Decades In Print, Six Days In Court

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Melbourne Univ. Publishing, Aug 1, 2011 - Social Science - 320 pages
Man Bites Murdoch is Bruce Guthrie's explosive account of almost 40 years in the news business, his brutal dismissal from Australia's biggest selling paper, the celebrated court case that exposed the inner workings of the world's biggest media company and the treachery of its most senior executives.
Guthrie survived tuberculosis, Melbourne's gritty northern suburbs and a boss who twice tried to sack him in his first six months in newspapers, to become a foreign correspondent and then one of Australia's feistiest and most controversial editors. His CV boasts editorships of The Age, The Sunday Age, Herald Sun, Who Weekly, The Weekend Australian Magazine, even a stint at America's celeb-news bible, People. Then, just as he claimed one of the industry's most glittering prizes, he fell foul of Rupert Murdoch and his henchmen, who promptly dispensed with his services. What would any self-respecting Broadmeadows boy do in such circumstances? Sue them, of course.
Man Bites Murdoch exposes the back rooms of Australian business, politics and media and offers a front-row seat at the many seismic events that played out over the last 20 years, including Murdoch's relentless push for growth both here and overseas, young Warwick Fairfax's ill-fated takeover of the family company and the extraordinary impact of the internet.
 

Contents

Rupert comes to town
3
And the winner is
13
The dismissal
22
Hi Im Rupert Murdoch
31
Widford Street to Spencer Street
47
Broady boys
49
Read all about it
60
Jump boy jump
65
Sixth Avenue to Southbank
187
New York New York
189
Bound for Botany Bay
202
The firm
213
An opportunity has come up
226
Coming to grips
235
Change partners
248
Storm clouds
255

Death in the afternoon
74
Rocky Mountain high
87
The downhill run
92
Off to war
99
Out of the red into the Black
105
TV or not TV?
117
Not your everyday newspaper
125
The poisoned chalice
135
If the boss rings can you get his name?
143
Drip drip drip
157
Outnumbered
169
The sting
266
Trials and tribulations
275
Fighting back
277
Guthrie v News Limited
288
Here comes the enemy
301
Checkmaaate
312
Harsh judgements
324
Paper cuts
335
Index
341
Copyright

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About the author (2011)

Bruce Guthrie began his media career as a copyboy at The Herald in Melbourne in 1971. After completing a cadetship, he worked in a variety of reporting roles for the paper until 1985, when he was appointed the Herald and Weekly Times’ Los Angeles correspondent.

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