Autumn of the Moguls

The world is full of the media. The media, at times, feels like the world, or at least feels like it controls how pretty much everyone sees, views and experiences the world. It is, then, understandable, in a way, that many of those who run the media, who own and direct the ever-larger, ever-more ambitious, ever-more capable corporations, feel that they are, unambiguously and unironically, at the centre of how the world works. The brilliance and panache and inventiveness (and hubris) of these titans is breathtaking from afar, when seen through the lens of news (a lens they usually themselves own, of course). But, up close and personal, by all the gods, has anyone seen their like before? Well, Michael Wolff has spent his adult life as close to the titans as it's possible to get. He even tried to be a mini-titan for a while there. He knows Rupert (Murdoch) and Barry (Diller) and Jean-Marie (Messier) and Steve (Ross) and Ted (Turner). He knows what they want, what fuels their appetites, what they can and can't see when they look in the mirror (or the financial pages).
And he tells us all he knows, in this report from the frontlines of an industry that, every month now, has to reinvent itself and rebuild the foundations on which it towers up - lest it all coming crashing down around us.