“The Men Who Killed the News: The Inside Story of How Media Moguls Abused Their Power, Manipulated the Truth and Distorted Democracy.” By Eric Beecher. Never before has the media played such an active part in our politics, with Elon Musk using X to affect world elections and direct U.S. government policy. But, as ex-News Corp executive Eric Beecher shows, media moguls on the left and right have a long history of abusing their power.
What has gone wrong with our media? The answer: its owners. From William Randolph Hearst to Jeff Bezos, from the British press barons to colonial upstarts Conrad Black and Rupert Murdoch, media proprietors have manipulated the news to accumulate wealth and influence events as they meddled with American democracy.
Beecher knows the news business from bottom to top. He has been a journalist, editor, and media proprietor, with the rare distinction of having both worked for and been sued (unsuccessfully) by the Rupert Murdoch family.
This book—nominated for the 2025 Sperber Prize—reveals the distorted role of the media moguls of the past two centuries: their techniques, strategies, behind-closed-doors machinations, and indulgent lifestyles.
It explains how they have exploited the shield of the freedom of the press to undermine journalism—and public confidence. In an era of AI, fake news, and misinformation, this is democracy’s chillingly important story: how a small coterie of flawed and narcissistic moguls created a shadow of power that has contributed to making the media an agent of deceit.
Softcover, 416 pages, #1064, $21 minus 10% for TBR subscribers.
