Murdoch hearts Obama
darkcrow
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/sep/02/rupertmurdoch.usa
Oliver Luft guardian.co.uk, Tuesday September 02 2008 13:54 BST
Barack Obama, Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes
Rupert Murdoch helped broker a "tentative truce" between Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and key News Corporation lieutenant Roger Ailes, the boss of Fox News Channel, earlier this year, according to the media mogul's biographer.
Murdoch, the News Corp chairman and chief executive, was forced to court Obama after the rising star of US politics rebuffed his initial approaches, it is believed because of what he saw as the derogatory coverage of him and his wife, Michelle, on Fox News, according to Michael Wolff.
The News Corp boss also advised Wolff, his biographer, to vote for the man who eventually become the Democratic presidential candidate during the New York primary earlier this year, saying: "He'll sell more papers."
These revelations are reported in the October edition of Vanity Fair magazine, which details contributing editor Wolff's interviews with Rupert Murdoch over a period of nine months for his upcoming biography of the media mogul, The Man Who Owns the News.
After initially snubbing offers of a get-together with the media tycoon, made through the Kennedy family, Obama relented and a secret courtesy meeting with Murdoch was arranged at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, according to Wolff.
When Obama eventually met Murdoch early this summer in secret, they were joined by Ailes, who runs News Corp's Fox News Channel.
Wolff reported in Vanity Fair that during the meeting Obama and Murdoch sat knee to knee, with the older man offering the prospective candidate advice.
"Murdoch, for his part, had a simple thought to share with Obama. He had known possibly as many heads of state as anyone living today - had met every American president from Harry Truman on - and this is what he understood: nobody got much time to make an impression. Leadership was about what you did in the first six months," wrote Wolff.
But Wolff claimed things were different when Ailes took Murdoch's place.
"Obama lit into Ailes. He said that he didn't want to waste his time talking to Ailes if Fox was just going to continue to abuse him and his wife, that Fox had relentlessly portrayed him as suspicious, foreign, fearsome - just short of a terrorist," he wrote.
"Ailes, unruffled, said it might not have been this way if Obama had more willingly come on the air instead of so often giving Fox the back of his hand.
"A tentative truce, which may or may not have vast historical significance, was at that moment agreed upon."
In the Vanity Fair article Wolff also claimed that Murdoch advised him to vote for Obama during the democratic primaries.
"Just before the New York Democratic primary, when I found myself undecided between Clinton and Obama, I said to Murdoch (a little flirtation, like a little gossip, softens him), 'Rupert, I don't know who to vote for—so I'm going to give you my vote. You choose'," he wrote.
"He paused, considered, nodded his head slowly: 'Obama - he'll sell more papers.'"
Murdoch courting Obama marks something of role reversal from the mid-1990s, when UK prime minister in waiting Tony Blair actively courted Murdoch as part of his bid for power.
"This is a leap for Murdoch. Murdoch has traditionally liked politicians to come to him. His historic shift in the 1990s to Tony Blair came after Blair made a pilgrimage to Australia," wrote Wolff.
"Obama, on the other hand, was snubbing Murdoch. Every time he reached out (Murdoch executives tried to get the Kennedys to help smooth the way to an introduction), nothing. The Fox stain was on Murdoch."
Oliver Luft guardian.co.uk, Tuesday September 02 2008 13:54 BST
Barack Obama, Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes
Rupert Murdoch helped broker a "tentative truce" between Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and key News Corporation lieutenant Roger Ailes, the boss of Fox News Channel, earlier this year, according to the media mogul's biographer.
Murdoch, the News Corp chairman and chief executive, was forced to court Obama after the rising star of US politics rebuffed his initial approaches, it is believed because of what he saw as the derogatory coverage of him and his wife, Michelle, on Fox News, according to Michael Wolff.
The News Corp boss also advised Wolff, his biographer, to vote for the man who eventually become the Democratic presidential candidate during the New York primary earlier this year, saying: "He'll sell more papers."
These revelations are reported in the October edition of Vanity Fair magazine, which details contributing editor Wolff's interviews with Rupert Murdoch over a period of nine months for his upcoming biography of the media mogul, The Man Who Owns the News.
After initially snubbing offers of a get-together with the media tycoon, made through the Kennedy family, Obama relented and a secret courtesy meeting with Murdoch was arranged at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, according to Wolff.
When Obama eventually met Murdoch early this summer in secret, they were joined by Ailes, who runs News Corp's Fox News Channel.
Wolff reported in Vanity Fair that during the meeting Obama and Murdoch sat knee to knee, with the older man offering the prospective candidate advice.
"Murdoch, for his part, had a simple thought to share with Obama. He had known possibly as many heads of state as anyone living today - had met every American president from Harry Truman on - and this is what he understood: nobody got much time to make an impression. Leadership was about what you did in the first six months," wrote Wolff.
But Wolff claimed things were different when Ailes took Murdoch's place.
"Obama lit into Ailes. He said that he didn't want to waste his time talking to Ailes if Fox was just going to continue to abuse him and his wife, that Fox had relentlessly portrayed him as suspicious, foreign, fearsome - just short of a terrorist," he wrote.
"Ailes, unruffled, said it might not have been this way if Obama had more willingly come on the air instead of so often giving Fox the back of his hand.
"A tentative truce, which may or may not have vast historical significance, was at that moment agreed upon."
In the Vanity Fair article Wolff also claimed that Murdoch advised him to vote for Obama during the democratic primaries.
"Just before the New York Democratic primary, when I found myself undecided between Clinton and Obama, I said to Murdoch (a little flirtation, like a little gossip, softens him), 'Rupert, I don't know who to vote for—so I'm going to give you my vote. You choose'," he wrote.
"He paused, considered, nodded his head slowly: 'Obama - he'll sell more papers.'"
Murdoch courting Obama marks something of role reversal from the mid-1990s, when UK prime minister in waiting Tony Blair actively courted Murdoch as part of his bid for power.
"This is a leap for Murdoch. Murdoch has traditionally liked politicians to come to him. His historic shift in the 1990s to Tony Blair came after Blair made a pilgrimage to Australia," wrote Wolff.
"Obama, on the other hand, was snubbing Murdoch. Every time he reached out (Murdoch executives tried to get the Kennedys to help smooth the way to an introduction), nothing. The Fox stain was on Murdoch."
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