Murdoch's World

Just as Charles Foster Kane, thought it would be fun to run a newspaper, and was always torn between being rich, a pillar of the establishment, and being the owner of a populist , anti elitist, publication, so to his real life scion Rupert Murdoch.

It's a complicated story as Murdoch begins, from his father's modest company in Australia, to build a business spanning 50 countries, a powerhouse of influential TV and movie production companies, newspapers and book publishers. Now it all could come chasing down in a London courtroom. Admired, loathed and feared, Murdoch is hard to size up neatly.

But NPR media reporter David Folkenflick takes on the job in Murdoch's World: The Last of the Old Media Empires.

My conversation with David Folkenflick:

Page One: Inside the New York Times

Arthur C. Clarke said that "any significantly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." This is arguably true not only for mechanized technology, but for intellectual technology as well.

The process of putting out a great daily Newspaper is  such a process. Especially today, given the torrent of information, of news and of individual bits and bites that are coming at us every minute of every day. The ability to aggregate it, fact check it, put it in narrative form and make sure it arrives on your doorstep each morning, is truly a feat of magic.

There maybe more efficient ways to do this today, perhaps without the trucks and the dead trees. Still, the process of creating great narrative journalism, in high quality Newspapers, is unquestionably unique. This process is at the heart of a new documentary and its’ companion volume taking us inside the New York Times. Amidst a landscape of technological revolution, information overload, shrinking ad revenues, political polarization and institutional distrust, the Times and by extension, all great journalism, struggles to survive.

David Folkenflik, the media correspondent for NPR, is the Editor of the companion volume for Page One: Inside The New York Times and the Future of Journalism.

My conversation with David Folkenflik:

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