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Schiff has dangled the paper before a long procession of prospective buyers. Among them: Eleanor Roosevelt, Thread Heir and Nation Editor Blair Clark, Post Editorial Page Editor James Wechsler, New York Magazine Editor Clay Felker. "It's her way of flirting," says Felker. This year she became serious. Among the possible reasons: the specter of afternoon competition from the News—or from Murdoch, who had been telling associates he might launch his own New York daily if he could not get the Post; Schiff's conclusion that her daughter, Post Assistant Publisher Adele Hall Sweet, would never fill her slippers; recent tax-law changes, effective Dec. 31, that would reduce the value of the paper to her estate; and a recent communiqué from Publisher Samuel I. Newhouse that he was not interested in the Post, which faces sensitive labor negotiations next year, at any price.
Selling the Farm. Still, why sell to an Australian instead of seeking other American prospects? Some Schiff associates speculate that Murdoch's publishing success and personal vigor remind her of the late Lord Beaverbrook, her fond mentor. But unlike Beaverbrook, who used his newspapers to influence British politics, Murdoch is out to make merry and money. The son of a prominent Australian journalist, Sir Keith Murdoch, Oxford-educated Rupert inherited a lackluster Adelaide daily in 1952 and parlayed it into an empire on three continents that today includes 87 newspapers, eleven magazines, seven broadcast stations, and an airline service. Publicity-shy but grimly determined, Murdoch recently sold his farm outside London to allow more time for newspapering.
Three years ago Murdoch moved his headquarters to Manhattan, took a Fifth Avenue duplex, and enrolled his three children in local private schools. Clay Felker brought Schiff and Murdoch back together again at his home and, over lunch last September, Murdoch made her an offer. "I won't say how much," he says, "but we didn't get around to it until after coffee."
Schiff may have had some misgivings about Murdoch. He is a leading practitioner of what Fleet Street calls the "tits and bums" school of journalism; his London tabloids, the News of the World and the Sun (combined circ. 9 million), celebrate crime and cheesecake. In the U.S., Murdoch's three-year-old national Star (circ. 1.3 million) is a gaudy but not particularly profitable cousin of the mindless National Enquirer, and his San Antonio Express and News (combined circ. 156,000) is even worse (sample scoops: UNCLE TORTURES TOTS WITH HOT FORK, HANDLESS BODY FOUND, GIRLS STREAK AT GUNPOINT). Yet Murdoch also publishes Australia's only national daily, The Australian, which at least aspires to quality, and he is currently bidding to buy the respected London Observer.