Exclusive: Rupert Murdoch Speaks

Why does he want the Wall Street Journal and what will he do if he gets it? Eric Pooley got the answers from Murdoch himself

Tom Stoddart for TIME

Rupert Murdoch in his office in London

"They're taking five billion dollars out of me and want to keep control," Rupert Murdoch was saying into the phone, "in an industry in crisis! They can't sell their company and still control it — that's not how it works. I'm sorry!"

It was a little before 5 o'clock on Friday, June 22, and the chairman of News Corp. — the world's third largest media conglomerate, with a value of $68 billion, and one of the few megacorporations controlled by a single individual — was at his desk on the eighth floor of...

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