Editor's Note: Neil Chenoweth's book Virtual Murdoch: Reality Wars on the Information Superhighway (London: Secker & Warburg; Sydney: Random House Australia, 2001) is not a conventional New Media CEO self-hagiography or a gossip-driven expose. It is a penetrating study of Murdoch and News Corporation Ltd. from a finance/global institutions perspective, written by a senior journalist with Australian Financial Review. Virtual Murdoch delves into a legal and paper-trail labyrinth to explain how corporate media really works, and how the intrusion of financial markets has forever changed newsroom culture. I highly recommend Chenoweth's book, which is scheduled for a US release in early 2002. This manuscript precis is reprinted by kind permission of the author.

Author's Note: This document has been prepared as a reading guide to the themes contained in Virtual Murdoch. It is an edited summary which may not fully reflect material in the manuscript and should be read in conjunction with the book. No adverse inferences should be drawn in regard to any person referred to in this document, directly or indirectly.

Introduction

Part One: Atlantic Crossing

Chapter One: Voltaire's Undergraduate
Young Rupert Murdoch considers the consolations of philosophy, while his party goes swimmingly

Chapter Two: The Drunken Sailor
Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch have a boat race and drift outside the buoys

Chapter Three: Wapping's Casualties
The intercontinental consequences of riotous success

Chapter Four: The Party Line
In which Rupert Murdoch finds salvation at a New York soiree

Chapter Five: The Fugitive
The man who keeps News Corporation's secrets has to run

Chapter Six: The Pretenders
Anna Murdoch muses on sex and the summer while the family talks money

Part Two: American Jihad

Chapter Seven: Herb Allen's Porch
The Masters of the Universe do brunch and Ron Perelman thinks he is the clever one

Chapter Eight: The Apple Fumble
How Gerry Levin and Ted Turner foiled the Second Coming

Chapter Nine: Wired
The High Court learns that someone has been listening on the telephone

Chapter Ten: The Poker Player
Rupert Murdoch declares war on everybody

Chapter Eleven: Divided Royalties
Newt Gingrich discovers that friendship has no price

Chapter Twelve: The Testing of Pat
Televangelists, gold mining in Zaire and the perfect children's program

Chapter Thirteen: Seasonal Variation
Midnight mishaps by footballers, baseball clubs and a large polo player

Chapter Fourteen: The Mouse Wars
Michael Eisner sets a trap

Part Three: Murdoch's Archipelago

Chapter Fifteen: The Trouble With Tony
The Prime Minister regrets picking up the telephone

Chapter Sixteen: Rupert's Rocket
The Murdochs take some collateral damage but reach escape velocity

Chapter Seventeen: The Manhattan Window
In which a global media baron discovers he has a second chance