Early in The Men Who Killed the News, Eric Beecher wistfully remarks that he worked in a golden age of journalism; as a journalist starting out in the early 1970s, print journalism was at its height buttressed by the so-called ‘rivers of gold’ flowing from advertising revenues. He quickly rose through the ranks and at a young age became editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. He was then poached by Rupert Murdoch to come down to Melbourne and revive Melbourne’s afternoon broadsheet, The Herald. He soon formed the impression that behind its respectability News Corporation, ‘was a kind of medieval fiefdom where we all lived in the shadow of a proprietor whose predilections – commercial, editorial, ideological, personal, political, economic, philosophical, racial, sociological – were insinuated into every important decision and direction we took.’

According to Beecher, Murdoch’s power is exercised overtly and subtly. Beecher recollects that one day a man started turning up to his editorial meetings; the man didn’t say who he was or why he was there, but Beecher soon came to believe he was Murdoch’s spy: ‘I told him to f**k off and never come back.’ Beecher reflects on Murdoch’s interactions with politicians, including a famous example when Murdoch responded to a question about how he was able to influence a politician: ‘Simple … I told him: look you can have a headline a day or a bucket of sh*t every day. What’s it to be?’

Beecher gives a fascinating history of media’s evolution over the years, building a compelling case that ever since the advent of the modern newspaper there have been unscrupulous media barons solely interested in power and money. However, he takes the position that it is Murdoch’s arguable likeness to Lord Beaverbrook’s ‘unscrupulous man of genius’ that makes him unique. Murdoch had the foresight to anticipate the decline of print media and his creation of Fox News was a crucial step in securing his longevity; yet Beecher is scathing about Fox and the role it plays in shaping the world. That said, Beecher argues it is now the new media barons, such as Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, that pose an even greater threat to public interest journalism: ‘The internet, despite all its benefits, has unleashed a series of missiles that have attacked the durability of the free press.’

Can this be reversed? Perhaps, writes Beecher. Illuminated by many stories told with an irreverent humour that will make you gasp at their malevolent audaciousness, The Men Who Killed the News is one of the most important books published here in many years. It should be read by everyone who is interested in a civil society.