Categories: OLD Media Moves

WSJ reporter on leave to write book on Murdoch deal

Wall Street Journal reporter Sarah Ellison will take a one-year leave from the paper to write a book about News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch‘s acquisition of Journal parent Dow Jones & Co., writes Leon Neyfakh of the New York Observer.

When Ellison returns to the paper, Murdoch will be her boss. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.

Neyfakh wrote, “Ms. Ellison would not comment further on what will be in the book, but George Hodgman, her editor at Houghton Mifflin, said the book will contain new reporting.

“‘Of course it will have new information,’ Mr. Hodgman said. ‘We think that [the takeover] is the perfect vehicle to really look at Murdoch in action. There’ve been several biographies and there’ll be several more, and I think we’re much more interested in, you know, an action-oriented narrative of the takeover not weighted down with a lot of biographical history on Murdoch. We’re interested in a page turner about the era, and the change of the media with this as a very active central narrative.'”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.