Murdoch confirms April launch of new WSJ section; in speech, he promises NYC edition 'will be feisty'

In remarks that refer to "a certain other New York daily'' -- The New York Times -- CEO Rupert Murdoch for the first time previewed The Wall Street Journal's nascent New York City edition, in a speech today before the Real Estate Board of New York, according to a transcript on Romenesko. He confirmed that it will launch next month, saying:

"I can't tell you all the details. I can tell you that the new section will be full color -- and it will be feisty. It will cover everything that makes New York great: state politics, local politics, business, culture, and sports. Oh yes -- and real estate. Why are we expanding where others are pulling back? Because we take a different view of technology and value. Too many newspaper editors and owners are afraid that technology is harming the value of our product. The truth is just the opposite: technology is putting a premium on content."

Related: Here's the WSJ's story

Report: WSJ's N.Y. city bureau to be even bigger

Expected to launch on April 12, The Wall Street Journal's New York City bureau will employ roughly three dozen staffers, three times more than the dozen or so the paper had planned for just three months ago, according to the New York Observer, adding that it represents Rupert Murdoch's most direct assault on The New York Times: "As we’ve reported, Mr. Murdoch has set aside a budget of $15 million for the project. There are plans for a daily stand-alone New York section, an Albany bureau, a City Hall bureau, a crime beat, a sports section and a culture section—in other words, a new, full-fledged New York paper, and one, incidentally, that is looking increasingly like the now defunct New York Sun."

Rupert Murdoch to headline Press Club talk

"There are few people in America who exercise so powerful an influence over what we see, what we hear, what we know about our world as Rupert Murdoch (left)," moderator Marvin Kalb says of the Feb. 9 event at the National Press Club in Washington. Tickets for "Rupert Murdoch: the Making of a Modern Media Mogul" have already sold out. But his 8 p.m. talk will be webcast at kalb.gwu.edu.

New Murdoch-WSJ book 'mother of all tick-tocks'

That's New York Times media columnist David Carr's assessment of the soon-to-be published War at The Wall Street Journal: Inside the Struggle to Control an American Business Empire. The book, by the former Journal media writer Sarah Ellison, is set for publication May 12. Carr got an advance copy.

Posting on the NYT's Media Decoder blog today, he calls it "the mother of all tick-tock, an intimate look at how the Bancroft family fumbled away an asset they never really demonstrated much interest in as Murdoch pounced. When it comes to taking a measure of Murdoch, there is little of the moralistic keening that characterized the coverage at the time, with Ellison instead adopting a tone of an ichthyologist studying the feeding habits of a large, hungry shark."

Wendi Murdoch reported in Machiavellian schism

I don't know how I missed Lloyd Grove's behind-the-scenes explainer on how CEO Rupert Murdoch's son-and-law fired that jaw-dropping broadside against Fox News founder Roger Ailes in last weekend's New York Times. But it's worth posting here, even at this late date.

Writing for The Daily Beast, Grove quotes a family insider as saying that it was Murdoch's third wife, Wendi (left), who encouraged his son-in-law's attack in the NYT's page-one profile of Ailes. Matthew Freud, married to Murdoch's daughter, Elisabeth, told the Times: "I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes' horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corp., its founder and every other global media business aspires to."

The players in this corporate whosaidit: Freud (left, with Elisabeth) is a publicist in London, and a great-grandson of Sigmund Freud. Elisabeth, 41, owns a television production company in London. Her brother, James Murdoch (below), 37, is chief of News Corp.'s Europe and Asia operations, and the current heir-apparent to 78-year-old Murdoch. Grove suspects that James and Elisabeth share the same negative views of the powerful Ailes, and that Freud is merely giving them voice.

But Grove takes it too far when he spins Wendi Murdoch's motivations into Machiavellian heights. "Wendi is a skilled inside player," Grove writes, "and a possible result of this corporate PR embarrassment would be to undermine Rupert's confidence in Elisabeth and James, thus ultimately advantaging Wendi's children -- 8-year-old Grace and 6-year-old Chloe Murdoch -- in the inevitable successionary rivalry. It would help, of course, if Rupert hangs on as long as his formidable 100-year-old mother."

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In new profile, powerful Ailes leaves rivals behind

The creator of News Corp.'s profit engine -- Fox News -- is believed responsible for $700 million in operating earnings for the parent company, more than CNN, MSNBC and the evening newscasts of NBC, ABC and CBS combined, The New York Times says today in a must-read profile of CEO Rupert Murdoch's right-hand man.

That success has put Roger Ailes (left) "at the pinnacle of power in three corridors of American life: business, media and politics,'' the NYT's David Carr and Tim Arango report. "In addition to being the best-paid person in the News Corporation last year, he is the most successful news executive of the last 10 years, and his network exerts a strong influence on the fractured conservative movement."

Ailes is well-paid for his outsized contributions to NWS' bottom line: he made $23.7 million last fiscal year in salary, bonuses and other compensation -- more than Murdoch, who got $19.9 million. Ailes' annual pay was more than double the $10.9 million he received in 2007, according to the August 2009 proxy report to shareholders, a public document filed annually with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

His influence extends well beyond the Fox News franchise. The Times says Ailes threatened to quit when he heard that Murdoch was going to endorse Barack Obama via the editorial page of the New York Post -- an allegation that Ailes denies.

But he isn't universally loved within the Murdoch empire or his family. In a strikingly candid statement, Murdoch's son-in-law, Matthew Freud, an influential publicist in London, told the Times: "I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes' horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to."

Freud is married to Elisabeth Murdoch, a London television producer; she is one of Murdoch's three adult children.

What's more, the NYT notes, Lachlan Murdoch (left) -- Rupert's eldest son, and once his heir-apparent -- quit a senior News Corp. post in 2004 when he felt Ailes was encroaching on his corporate territory.

Conspicuously absent in the story are any views on Ailes held by the third child, James, 36, the only one of the siblings employed in the company. James is chairman and CEO of the company's operations in Europe and Asia. He's also a member of the board of directors, and is seen as a likely successor to Rupert.

Moreover, Ailes' position as a megaphone for right-leaning causes and candidates has made him a high-profile target among his most rabid critics. "His movements now are shadowed by a phalanx of corporate-provided security,'' the NYT reports. "He travels to and from work in a miniature convoy of two sport utility vehicles."

His security benefit cost NWS $54,494 last fiscal year, the August proxy report says.

Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.

[Today's New York Post, Newseum]

Memos | If this is a holiday greeting . . .

. . . what does a layoff notice read like?! In his Holiday Greetings 2009 memo, CEO Rupert Murdoch (left) takes an almost all-business approach to wishing everyone well. How's this for the introductory paragraph:

"This has been one of the most challenging periods in our history, but, as I wrote to you in February, the steps we are taking today will define the character of our company for many years to come."

Media gossip blog Gawker's got the full memo. Enjoy!

Got a favorite memo? Send it my way! Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.

Murdoch: Online news aggregators guilty of 'theft'

From his Op-Ed in today's Wall Street Journal:

There are those who think they have a right to take our news content and use it for their own purposes without contributing a penny to its production. Some rewrite, at times without attribution, the news stories of expensive and distinguished journalists who invested days, weeks or even months in their stories—all under the tattered veil of "fair use."

These people are not investing in journalism. They are feeding off the hard-earned efforts and investments of others. And their almost wholesale misappropriation of our stories is not "fair use." To be impolite, it's theft.

If Rupert is the cat, who's the mouse?

Google, of course, says blogger Ken Doctor, posting on the latest jousting between Murdoch and the titan of online search:

"It’s quite a cat-and-mouse game. The cat is Rupert Murdoch, a lion in the winter of his career. Astoundingly, he’s become the leading spokesman for American journalism. The mouse is the crafty Google, adjusting its algorithms and its tactics, faster than publishers can bemoan, 'who moved my cheese!'"

AdAge: Why News Corp. won't quit search

CEO Rupert Murdoch created a furor last week when he suggested News Corp. would quit Google. The good and bad of such a move, trade publication AdAge says:

The move could make News Corp. websites work more like print -- in a good way. Readers who want news from their favorite source would have to enter through the front door, registering and subscribing along the way. Those readers are worth more to advertisers than the unwashed, anonymous masses shipped in by search.

But it would also make News Corp. sites more like print in the bad way. Readers who don't know about a Wall Street Journal story on their area of interest would become less likely to find out about The Journal's value. Sampling would go through the floor. The link economy would no longer recommend News Corp. sites. Mr. Murdoch's recent grumbling about "fair use" aside -- grumbling quickly followed by an admission of its value -- other sources will take Journal news breaks and expand upon them.

Murdoch: 'No regrets' on Dow Jones purchase

Speaking at The Wall Street Journal's CEO Council, CEO Rupert Murdoch told attendees: “I have no regrets about [purchasing] the Wall Street Journal, even though the accountants made me write it down by about 50%." News Corp. completed its purchase of the WSJ in 2007 before the financial crisis hit in earnest and the stock market tumbled." Watch Murdoch and big New York Times Co. investor Carlos Slim in this video.