Murdoch journalism is born

The small afternoon newspaper that Murdoch started with was the Adelaide News which is the property he inherited from his father.

Murdoch joined the newspaper and put his energy learning the trade by being involved in virtually every aspect of the newspaper from advertising rates to the actual production and printing process as well as editorial. But more significantly it turned out to be the battle ground for his first real newspaper battle and no doubt played a big role in shaping the fighter in Murdoch that was to be seen in later years fighting for the control of newspaper properties against great odds.

It was not an easy one for the man who was quickly nicknamed “the boy publisher” having arrived at the newspaper to take over his inheritance at the tender age of only 22. The tiny newspaper was under serious threat from its’ much bigger competitor, the Adelaide Advertiser. Indeed the bigger paper which was part of a large group was determined to take over the tiny annoying competitor and Rupert’s mother had already received an offer to sell off the newspaper to them but young Rupert could hear nothing of it. He was rather emotional about the whole thing seeing it as an attempt to discredit the memory of his father who had only died so recently.

Rupert Murdoch in the early years

But even at that tender age and with all his inexperience Murdoch injected a number of interesting ideas and was a key member of the team that survived that first battle. I use the word survive because the nasty circulation war that ensued cost both newspapers a lot but considering that the News had such limited resources in comparison, it was a very commendable show.

Murdoch did not quite destroy the competition completely but a compromise was reached which eased the pressure and saw the two arch enemies own one Sunday newspaper together where they shared the revenues on a 50/50 basis.

Another interesting aspect that came out of this first newspaper project for Murdoch was his propensity for cost cutting. The Adelaide News already had a very lean staff and there are those who felt that it would have done well with more staff. Murdoch went in the opposite direction and still constantly looked for ways to cut down on costs even further.

The other important development is that the young Murdoch started developing a relationship with a bank which was to prove to be critical to his newspaper career. He found the National Bank of Australia as the bankers of the Adelaide News, but they were also bankers to their competitors, The Advertiser. Murdoch switched bankers to the Commonwealth Bank and developed such a close working relationship that he was able to get credit at very short notice for many years as he relentlessly built his media empire.

As the 1950s were coming to a close the Adelaide News was making enough money for Murdoch to consider the first acquisitions, which he did against the wishes of some on the board who were much more cautious. Still he won approval to acquire a weekly woman’s magazine called New Idea published in Melbourne and his second newspaper The Sunday Times published in Perth, Western Australia. To acquire the newspaper he put up his first newspaper as security, a very risky financial move because if his new acquisition had gone wrong, he would have lost everything. Not only that, Perth is 1,400 miles (not kilometers) away from Adelaide and yet Murdoch wanted a hands on approach to enable him turn around his second newspaper even as he kept a close eye on his first newspaper. Every Friday he would fly down to supervise his Sunday newspaper and his ruthless reputation now started to take shape. For instance his Sunday Times staff would work on the paper but the minute Murdoch would arrive straight from his flight he would take a look at the front page and tear it to shreds. Thus work would start all over again on the front page. The newspaper became much more sensational and circulation rose. Indeed many observers are of the opinion that it was in Perth that Murdoch journalism was truly born.

The hallmark of Murdoch journalism and what built his empire may be difficult for many to accept. It was the exaggerated story filled with invented quotes. Boring news service copy was completely re-written into lavishly sensationalized articles. The signature would be the blood-curdling headline. Sample one of Murdoch’s best selling headlines in Perth; LEPER RAPES VIRGIN GIVES BIRTH TO MONSTER BABY.

It was also in Perth that Murdoch developed his aggressive newspaper promoting skills.

The quick success of the Sunday Times sparred him on and thus started the rapid expansion and acquisition of other newspaper properties.

Read the next part

Go back to part 1

Rupert Murdoch: Where it all started

From left to right: Rupert Murdoch aged 5 years old with his father Keith Murdoch, about the time he was working his first newspapers in Australia and finally how he looks like today.

To understand Rupert Murdoch the media mogul and what makes him who he is today it is important to go back to the 19th century and to a time when he was not even born. We need to understand the life and times of one Alfred Hamsworth billed to have been the greatest publisher who ever lived.

Who was Hamsworth and what is his link to Murdoch?

Hamsworth (later Lord Northcliffe) was the major inspiration in the life of Rupert’s father Keith Murdoch. When the older Murdoch was working on behalf of the Aussie government in London he spent a lot of time with Murdoch and learned a lot about the newspaper business which he later went back home to apply. And as he did so this knowledge and information was passed on to the young Murdoch and is very evident in the younger Murdoch’s media career as we shall see later in this series.

Hamsworth’s most powerful newspaper principal was simplify, clarify, explain. Born in 1865, he came on the scene when newspapers were more like text books on medicine. Articles were written for detail and one had to painstakingly read through thousands of words to understand the content. With the strong traditions and class system in Britain it would have been an insult to suggest to any editor at the time to make his newspaper or articles more readable for the uncouth masses. Hamsworth saw only the money that could be made from reaching the masses.

Alfred Hamsworth

The foundation of his newspaper was a dirt-cheap weekly called Answers to correspondence (later shortened to Answers). The format was simple. Each article started with a question and was followed by the answer written in a simple easy to grasp way that had yet to be seen at the time. Sometimes the questions were picked from topical issues and at other times they were just based on the other powerful emotion successful publications exploit in prospective readers, namely curiosity. “Can a clergyman marry himself?” “Do Dogs commit murder?” are two examples that were big sellers at the time. This small pamphlet was a sensational success even as the then mainstream press ignored and laughed at it. Circulation steadily rose to 200,000 copies weekly.

But Hamsworth real money-making genius emerged from the fact that he realized that the material he produced in Answers could easily be recycled again and again by simple changing the headline and re-writing the articles from a different angle but based on the same researched material. This could be done almost endlessly and so he launched numerous other cheap papers like Comic Cuts, Illustrated Chips, Forget me Not, Home Chat and so on. By 1894 the total circulation of all his papers was 2 million copies a week and Hamsworth was rapidly becoming a very wealthy man. And that was the year that his inevitable shift away from the ‘gutter press’ to the mainstream media happen.

A newspaper called Evenings News was in serious financial trouble and on the verge of shutting down. Hamsworth purchased it and using the same tactics that had built his gutter press empire to such phenomenal success he turned it around instantly into a great success. In 1896 he founded the Daily Mail which sold 400,000 copies on it’s first day of publication.

Hamsworth’s guiding principle was simple but revolutionary in his time. He put it thus: “For a newspaper to pay it must deal with what interests the mass of people, give the public what they want.”

If you were to pick up any copy of Rupert Murdoch’s most financially successful newspaper over the years, The Sun you would see this simple principal in every article, every headline and every photograph including the notorious page 3 naked model. Simply put The Sun is successful because it gives the people what they want.

Hamsworth is the foundation of Rupert Murdoch’s phenomenal media empire which was built from scratch. Murdoch started with one very small afternoon newspaper in Australia which he inherited from his father and as we shall see throughout this series, that is the simple principle he copied and put to work.

Admittedly there was also a lot of financial smarts which can still be applied to any business today and we shall examine those as well. Indeed what Murdoch did can still be done today albeit on the information super highway. Because even with all the technology available now the basic fact that information is the most powerful and lucrative commodity on earth is still very much true.

Read more on Hamsworth

Read part 2