Rupert Murdoch, Bleeding Heart
Ryan Tate · 09/11/08 05:11PMIf you're even remotely curious about oft-vilified media mogul Rupert Murdoch or his News Corporation empire, there are plenty of gems to pluck from Esquire's lengthy interview with the mogul. There is, for example, Murdoch's baldfaced assertion that Fox News Channel is "very, very fair;" his wild accusation that Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger tried to bar the hiring of white males for five years; and the mild rebuke that Fox host Bill O'Reilly "shouldn't be so sensitive" to Keith Olbermann's attacks. The biggest takeaway, though, is that Murdoch is softening in his old age, despite a punishing work regimen. The quotes in the Esquire piece reinforce the idea, floated by Michael Wolff in Vanity Fair earlier this month, of this change in Murdoch toward the "magnanimous" and "further nuanced:"