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"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff) LATEST POSTS:
- Dennis Prager v Cedars-Sinai Lawsuit
- Dennis Prager Through Randall Collins: Interaction Ritual Chains
- What is a ‘Received Idea’?
- Jordan Bardella: The Manufacture of Normality
- Everyone Became Television: Bourdieu’s Warning and the 2026 Iran War
- Marine Le Pen
- The Coalition-Proximity Rule
- Nigel Farage
- Bernard Haykel: A Life Between the Text and the Gun
- Walker Connor (1926-2017)
- Benedict Anderson and the Nation as Imagination
- Anthony D. Smith: The Student Who Kept the Question and Rejected the Answer
- Ernest Gellner
- Eric Kaufmann: The Man Who Made the Majority Visible
- Dominic Cummings: A Biography
- Steve Lopez: The Last City Columnist
- California Historian Kevin Starr
- Stephen Kotkin: A Life in Power
- William T. Vollmann: An American Life in Excess
- Rod Dreher: A Life in Exile
BEST POSTS:
- * The Enlightenment Wasn’t Enlightened (6-23-26)
* Mr. Burge Draws The Line (6-23-26)
* 'Improving on Democracy' (6-17-26)
* People Leak To People Who Are Fun (6-11-26)
* Why Does Australia Produce So Many Great Journalists? (6-11-26)
* Steve Wynn and the Press: Power, Litigation, and the Contest Over Las Vegas (6-3-26)
* Sheldon Adelson and the Journalists (6-3-26)
* The Vigilant Animal: Thinkers Who Reject the Myth of Human Gullibility (6-2-26)
* The Cost of Refusing the Misunderstanding Myth (6-2-26)
* Show Me How It Travels (6-2-26)
* The Norm Explainers (6-2-26)
* Centering Marginalized Voices (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Washington Post put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Financial Times put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for the Los Angeles Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for The New York Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* Why Wembanyama Lives on the Perimeter (5-31-26)
* The Emotional Palettes Of San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco & Sacramento (5-27-26)
* The Administrative Capital: Sacramento Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* San Diego - The Quiet Republic (5-27-26)
* The Quiet Bar: San Diego Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* SF v LA Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* Why Talent Travels Poorly Between San Francisco and Los Angeles (5-27-26)
* San Francisco and Los Angeles as Rival Models of Urban Access (5-27-26)
* Social Cliques in New York, 2026 (5-25-26)
* Social Cliques in San Francisco, 2026 (5-25-26)
* The Rival Courts of Washington (5-25-26)
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Category Archives: Rupert Murdoch
The Jurisdictional Wars Alliance Theory and the battle for authority at Crikey
Crikey journalists do not compete for authority by declaring a desire for power. They compete by invoking moral languages that frame their claims as independence from Australia’s concentrated media system, loyalty to exposing how power operates, and responsibility for saying … Continue reading
Posted in Australia, Journalism, Rupert Murdoch
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The Jurisdictional Wars Alliance Theory and the battle for authority at The Australian Newspaper
Journalists and editors at The Australian do not compete for authority by declaring a desire for power. They compete by invoking moral languages that frame their claims as fidelity to serious national journalism, loyalty to economic realism, or responsibility for … Continue reading
Posted in Australia, Journalism, Rupert Murdoch
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Why Are There Such Uniform Reactions To The New Books By Jason Zengerle (Tucker Carlson) And Gabriel Sherman (Murdoch Family Feud)?
ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory says this uniformity is not an accident, a coincidence, or a failure of imagination. It is the function of elite cultural production working correctly. 1. These books are not investigations. They are boundary rituals. The reviews … Continue reading
Posted in Journalism, Rupert Murdoch, Tucker Carlson
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James Murdoch in 2009: ‘The only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit’
Gemini says: James Murdoch’s 2009 MacTaggart Lecture, where he declared that “the only reliable, durable, and perpetual guarantor of independence is profit,” sparked significant elite backlash because it directly challenged the foundational values of the British media establishment. The reaction … Continue reading
Posted in Elites, Journalism, Rupert Murdoch
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The Murdochs: Gabriel Sherman’s Class Cleansing Ritual
Gemini says: In his book, Bonfire of the Murdochs: How the Epic Fight to Control the Last Great Media Dynasty Broke a Family –– and the World, Gabriel Sherman focuses his gaze on the decline of the Murdoch empire because … Continue reading
Posted in Elites, Journalism, Rupert Murdoch
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Bonfire of the Murdochs: How the Epic Fight to Control the Last Great Media Dynasty Broke a Family—and the World
I enjoyed this new book by Gabriel Sherman though I could have done without the preaching. ChatGPT says: For Gabriel Sherman and his publisher, writing about the Murdochs is not neutral reporting. It is a ritual of boundary enforcement aimed … Continue reading
Posted in Elites, Rupert Murdoch
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Rupert Murdoch vs The Establishment
I’m reading the new Gabriel Sherman book, Bonfire of the Murdochs: How the Epic Fight to Control the Last Great Media Dynasty Broke a Family –– and the World, and it seems like a case study in Alliance Theory, elite … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Elites, Fox, Journalism, Rupert Murdoch, Tucker Carlson
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Breaking News: Sex, Lies and the Murdoch Succession (2013)
Here are some highlights from this 2013 book: * one of Rupert’s great attractions is that he rarely thinks hard before opening his mouth. * Rupert Murdoch is half puritan, half gambler, and that’s the way he has always behaved. … Continue reading
Posted in Rupert Murdoch
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How Rupert Murdoch’s Wife Wendy Deng Slept Her Way Out Of China
Wendy Deng made the news last week when she socked a guy who shoved a cream pie at her husband Rupert Murdoch during a British parliament hearing. Wendy is Rupert’s third wife. Rupert Murdoch (a staunch non-Jewish supporter of Jews … Continue reading
Posted in China, Rupert Murdoch
Tagged british parliament, nearby apartment, rupert murdoch, telegraph reports, wendy deng, wife wendy
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