Abstract
American entrepreneur, television producer, media owner and philanthropist, Ted Turner, once described Rupert Murdoch as “the most dangerous man in the world” (Beahm, 1). This is not an unusual judgement. But it is also one which may contribute to sustaining the Murdoch “brand”, his notoriety and appeal to supporters.
This article examines the deep origins of Murdoch’s cynical worldview, and the source of an ambition that drove him from ownership of a small provincial Australian newspaper to global media mogul. What compelled the need to disseminate often dangerously divisive views on as large a stage as possible, while purporting to be acting in the interests of society’s disenfranchised?
The purpose of the article is to critically, but disinterestedly, question the credibility of judgement, and so challenge the basis of his public influence.
The article’s approach is gendered and historical. It examines the values modelled by his grandfather, and transmitted to his father. It looks at the less direct, yet significant modelling of his boarding school headmaster, the institution that acted in loco parentis from age 10 to 18. It looks at the boyhood version of Rupert Murdoch and finds a direct, undeviating line of sight between the adolescent and the adult. Without access to the same eloquent and intimate relationship shared by Patrick and Keith, Rupert created for himself in adolescence a persona which not only distorted but inverted the altruism cherished his male predecessors.
Recommended Citation
Summerfield, Elizabeth
(2024)
"Rupert Murdoch: Altruism Inverted,"
The Journal of Values-Based Leadership: Vol. 17
:
Iss.
2
, Article 18.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22543/1948-0733.1493
Available at:
https://scholar.valpo.edu/jvbl/vol17/iss2/18
