Beating Murdoch in Court

 

A piece of Australian media history.

Mint condition. HB. 358pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

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.

About the Author

Bruce Guthrie began his media career as a copyboy at The Herald in Melbourne in 1972. After completing a cadetship, he worked in a variety of reporting roles for the paper until 1985, when he was appointed US west coast correspondent for the Herald and Weekly Times, based in Los Angeles.

In 1987 he returned to Australia and became deputy editor of The Herald, leaving two years later to help launch The Sunday Age.

He was appointed editor of that paper in 1992 and editor of The Age in 1995. He joined Time Inc. as a senior editor at People magazine in New York in 1998, and became editor of Who Weekly a year later.

In 2004, he returned to News Limited to become editor of The Weekend Australian Magazine and to launch The Australian's monthly magazine, Wish.

He was appointed editor-in-chief of the Herald Sun, Australia's largest selling daily newspaper, in February 2007 - a role he filled until his dramatic and unexpected exit in November 2008.

Guthrie is married to journalist Janne Apelgren and lives in Melbourne with their two teenage children and a golden retriever named Tilly.