Reply #26: Review of Book on Murdoch Is Killed (sinceDow Jones takeover) [View All]

[UpInArms]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/03/business/media/03murdoch.html?ex=1362200400&en=da6eb1080e5f2fa9&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

When Rupert Murdoch took control in December of Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, he also collected a small Hong Kong monthly, The Far Eastern Economic Review.

The Review has the smallest staff, the smallest circulation (less than 20,000 by some analysts’ estimates) and the smallest revenue of any publication in the Murdoch empire. But it has a voice in Asia beyond its size, and its reporting has, over the years, rankled many Asian politicians and business executives.

But in one of the first tests of editorial independence under Murdoch ownership, The Review’s editor, Hugh Restall, has acknowledged getting “cold feet” about publishing a review of a book that is critical of Mr. Murdoch’s business forays into China in the 1990s.

The author of the book, “Rupert’s Adventures in China: How Murdoch Lost a Fortune and Found a Wife,” is Bruce Dover, a former Australian journalist who was employed by the News Corporation in China during that period. It looks at Mr. Murdoch’s attempts to make money and the compromises undertaken to avoid upsetting government officials in Beijing.

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