'“Never trust a Sydney newspaper proprietor,” Sir Keith Murdoch told his son Rupert, who was in time to become one himself. The Sydney press lords were once a famously weird mob—and whether they remain so is an open question.The Packer dynasty; the odd couple of stately, unworldly Warwick Fairfax and his polar oppo-site R.A.G. (“Rags”) Henderson; and further back the neurotic and bullying Ezra Norton, son of Napoleon admirer John Norton, founder of the “awful” Truth, Australia’s most memorable scan-dal sheet. Their doings and frailties and those of the senior Murdoch dominate Sally Young’s lively and often fascinating Paper Emperors. Young is a Professor of Political Science at Melbourne University.'
(Introduction)
