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A review by kurtwombat
The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty by Michael Wolff

funny informative tense fast-paced

3.25

If you took a bottle of Zesty Italian Dressing and poured it over a New York Times cover story about Rupert Murdoch and Fox News, you would end up with something resembling this book. A mix of interesting background, saucy gossip and idle speculation creates an entertaining romp—especially for anyone viewing Trump, Fox and Murdoch with disdain. The author deserves credit for presenting a narrative that makes it easy to remember a couple dozen different people fairly easily. If given a pop quiz about who bragged the most about their sexual conquests, who drank the most and who was the dumbest person on the air in America (Guilfoyle, Ingraham, & Hannity), I’d score pretty well. Ask me about the nitty gritty of the Murdoch financial empire, not so much. Granted, I don’t want to be reading spreadsheets, but after 10 hours of audio—it might be nice to know more than I do. The entertaining audio narration often strays into burlesque—the presentation of Tucker Carlson finding out he was being taken off the air at Fox is something I will cherish always. In the end the same speculations are spun again and again to no end. The book purports to be a kind of wrap up of the Murdoch empire—but only in the way newspapers have obituaries ready for famous people before they die. This conceit is ultimately annoying.