Authors Michael Wolff and James McGrath Morris said last night that media mogul Rupert Murdoch and Joseph Pulitzer may have a lot more in common than people believe.
Wolff, columnist for Vanity Fair and founder of aggregator site Newser, spoke at The Strand bookstore in Union Square last night as he signed copies of his biography on Murdoch entitled "The Man Who Owns the News."
“[Murdoch] is like Pulitzer in that he is concerned about the package, the news media,” Wolff said. “It's not necessarily about the facts.”
James McGrath Morris, author of "Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print and Power," chimed in by saying the famed newsman's background as a poor Hungarian immigrant gave him insight into his coverage in the 19th Century.
“He could see this massive wave of immigrants settling in New York,” Morris said. “Other newspapers saw them as a threat. ... He admonished his reporters to go out and cover their lives.”
Pulitzer's flare for the sensational is echoed in the tabloid-style of Murdoch's New York Post, the authors said.
