If information is power, then whoever controls it holds the world in his palm. In this terrific dual biography, Hack's follow-up to his bestselling Hughes, Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner are the titans who clash over global dominance of information's flow. Hack begins in 1996, with a rift between Murdoch and Jerry Levin of Time Warner, which had recently absorbed Turner Broadcasting, over Time Warner's refusal to carry Murdoch's Fox News Channel in addition to Turner's CNN. The refusal leads to a barrage of "back stabbing and name-calling" between Turner, now Time Warner's largest stockholder, and Murdoch that highlights the bitter enmity between the two men. The chapter spotlights all the virtues that make Hack's work a model of entertaining business writing: his ability to dramatize financial dealings whileproviding hard facts and figures; his keen understanding of the psychology of those of towering ambition; his easily read and clever prose ("Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch are two storm fronts colliding.... Turner—the high front that swings erratic.... Murdoch—the low front that appears at rest, then moves with amazing speed, absorbing all in his path"). The remainder of the book flows chronologically, following Turner and Murdoch as they established their empires in the 1980s, Turner primarily via cable, Murdoch mainly via newspapers and then satellite TV; as their personal lives took surprising turns, with Turner the rake settling down with Jane Fonda while Murdoch the family man ditches his longtime wife for a much younger woman; and as they crusade for opposing political beliefs, Turner the liberal environmentalist, Murdoch the arch-conservative. Hack's vision of megabusinesses as a reflection of the personalities of those who run them is gripping and exceptionally vivid, and if he occasionally veers into melodrama ("They will clash and they will win, with the power to determine what is seen, how it is received... "), he has produced here, as he did in Hughes, a sparkling, immensely enjoyable portrait of extraordinary men. First serial to
Variety. (Jan.)
Forecast:Business readers will snap this up, but, like
Hughes, this bio, with its superb mix of the public and the personal, crackles with general interest as well. This title should climb bestseller lists.
