Media mogul Rupert Murdoch turns 90 today, and apart from his family, it’s The New York Post, and New York City, that have the most reason to celebrate the milestone.
The Big Apple hasn’t been the same since Murdoch bought the paper from Dorothy Schiff in late 1976. The city is immeasurably more self-aware and better-informed than it was when its media were uniformly liberal if not outright left-leaning. It’s also a more fun place to be, thanks to Page Six.
The newspaper founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1801 owes its existence for the past 44 years almost entirely to Murdoch. He lifted it out of the doldrums when he took it over in January 1977; forged a brave conservative media voice until it was stripped from him by vengeful politicians in 1987; and returned to rescue it from certain collapse in 1993.
Along the way, Murdoch’s Post overcame bankruptcy, union shutdowns and a determined attempt by the archrival Daily News to kill it. The Post shouldered on through the economy-ravaging crises of the Black Monday stock market crash, 9/11, a second Wall Street collapse in 2007 and the coronavirus pandemic.
Murdoch has been inseparable from The Post for nearly half of his life span — even including the five-year interval when he relinquished control of the paper but never lost his passion for it. His empire stretched from Tasmania to Tinseltown. He ran newspapers around the world, Hollywood studios and TV networks. He invented the Fox News Channel and backed great films such as “Titanic” and “Avatar.” Through it all, he never wavered in his commitment to The Post or to the Big Apple.
As much today as in the 1970s era of HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR, The Post holds up an unflinching mirror to a metropolis that once again is desperately threatened by economic despair, corrupt and foolish politicians — and by the new menace of “woke” ideology.
Murdoch never gave up on the paper, and today, the print edition boasts the nation’s fourth-highest daily circulation, while investment in The Post’s digital edition propelled it into a new realm of popularity. More people read The Post than in its entire history. As a result, The Post turned “its first profit in modern times,” News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson said last month.
Not bad for a paper whose death was forecast again and again from the day Rupert Murdoch first set foot in the newsroom on Dec. 30, 1976, never to look back. So happy birthday, boss. Here’s to many more.