Splitsville for Rupert and Hillary -- but it was no real romance to begin with.

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: The Media Equation
It’s Splitsville for Rupert and Hillary
By DAVID CARR
Published: February 4, 2008
Honeymoons don’t last forever. Just ask Hillary Clinton and Rupert Murdoch.

Two years ago, Mr. Murdoch, the head of the News Corporation — which owns The New York Post — was in the midst of a rapprochement with Senator Clinton. He put aside the antagonism that had defined their relationship, even holding a fund-raiser for her Senate campaign before the paper went on, improbably, to endorse her re-election effort. Their newfound friendship seemingly came to a crashing end last Thursday. There was the headline on the front page of The Post, right next to “Cop Sex Ring,” for all to see: “Post Endorses Obama.”...

Why did The Post kick Senator Clinton to the curb? The venom of the editorial about the Democrats and Mrs. Clinton — “a return to the opportunistic, scandal-scarred, morally muddled years of the almost infinitely self-indulgent Clinton co-presidency” — invited suggestions that Mr. Murdoch was using The New York Post to set up a straw man for the Republicans to mow down in the fall. But the real answer is a good deal more complicated.

Yes, two years ago, Mrs. Clinton had breakfast at The New York Post, and yes, the ex-president took a tour of the newsroom. And Page Six laid off calling Bill Clinton the “horn-dog-in-chief” for a bit. But this was never a full embrace on either side. The Post’s cease-fire with Mrs. Clinton was built on realpolitik. Mr. Murdoch’s politics are less ideological than a kind of enlightened pragmatism of being in favor of those who are in favor (he vigorously supported both Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair). So having a good working relationship with one of New York’s senators made sense. Back in 2006 when the paper endorsed her for Senate, it was made clear that there was no endorsement of what were assumed to be her broader ambitions....

As a senator, Mrs. Clinton did put time and effort into the care and feeding of the tabloid, making sure that Post reporters had access to news and expertise out of her office, along with the occasional scoop when it suited both parties. But she never once appeared before its editorial board — a customary act of tribute by local politicians — and her lack of deference was duly noted by the paper’s leadership. Part of the cooling in the relationship, according to people involved on both sides, has to do with the realities of being a hometown paper. When Mrs. Clinton was serving and running as a senator, she had a relationship with the paper. But as her candidacy for president gathered momentum, The Post became just one more part of the media scrum, and the paper did not react well to the disregard.

When John Edwards announced that he would boycott the Fox News Channel debate last spring, Mrs. Clinton went along. Fox News and The Post are corporate siblings, although they’re not particularly close. Still, Mr. Murdoch certainly took note of the fact that the courtesies extended to Mrs. Clinton — a muted presence in the gossip columns of Page Six, more balance in the news pages — did not seem to be returned in kind....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/business/media/04carr.html?ref=todayspaper