Rupert Murdoch is the big, bad media mogul who meets secretly with presidential candidates and might want to buy the New York Times. He's also the billionaire behind STAR India, the media giant there that's closing a deal to acquire a majority stake in Asianet Entertainment. But is it just business as usual, or Murdoch's Machiavellian attempt to execute a secret agenda?

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For helping Fox News continue pulling in more viewers than any other cable network, Roger Ailes was rewarded $19.9 million in the last twelve months, double what he was paid in the year prior. His pay package includes a measly $5 million salary, plus a $1 million bonus and, from Fox News alone, a $4.5 million bonus. How are things looking farther up the ladder, though, where Rupert Murdoch sits? Still healthy, but not such year-over-year largesse. In fact, Murdoch's pay slipped last year. Fourteen percent lower, Murdoch's total compensation rang in at $27.5 million; $17.5 million of that was a cash bonus. As for Democrat-loving COO Peter Chernin? He beat the bossman, with pay of $28.8 million; even still, his award dropped a full 15 percent.

While MySpace lays the groundwork to become the next Friendster — read: over — all the kiddies are running to Facebook. Perhaps this explains why Fox News, the right-wing television channel from the media company News Corp., has decided to latch on to Facebook, rather than MySpace, which News Corp. paid more than a half billion dollars to buy. This is good news for College Republicans, bad news for Tila Tequila.

You are looking at a Wall Street Journal headline from yesterday's newspaper. What you might not get from the headline is that instead of posting a $8.86 billion loss, Wachovia will post a $9.11 billion loss. Pennies, right? But there's a reason you didn't get a sense of peril — we're talking a $250 million difference — from the headline: the Journal didn't want you to. When Rupert Murdoch launched the Fox Business Network last year, he promised a "more business friendly" (than CNBC) financial network. And having gobbled up the Journal, it appears Murdoch might be spreading that policy to newsprint. Otherwise, this headline might've read the less wordy, less vague, "Wachovia Admits to Even Wider Loss." [Naked Shorts]

Still bitter about losing his wedding ring, media baron and newspaper shaman Rupert Murdoch has suddenly found himself hedging his bets, rather than expanding his empire anywhere you can translate American Idol. While he has no problem doing big business with human rights running joke China and sinking $100 million into India, there is one place he isn't keen on dealing with: the Kremlin. Because they steal!

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A year ago this month, wedding ring misplacer Rupert Murdoch had set his sights on Dow Jones & Co. and its Wall Street Journal newspaper, successfully clearing the bid with shareholders and leading up to the December closing. At the time, media speculators trashed Murdoch, accusing him of looking to the Journal not to improve its credentials, but to add it his enormous empire of political and business influence. But Wall Street wasn't on board with that scenario; instead, they nudged Murdoch on.

It's a very difference scenario today.

The press is defending Murdoch; even Jack Shafer has nice things to say about his stewardship of the Journal. Meanwhile, Wall Street has trounced News Corp.' stock; it hovers around $14, or 40 percent less than its 52-week high. Something about the instability of the print media market, and Murdoch's insistence on subsidizing any losses with big gains made elsewhere. And then there's the whole Dow Jones part of the equation; where does that thing fit in with, say, MySpace? And what about Murdoch's tendency to treat financial weaknesses in other media companies as a chance to snap 'em up on the cheap? So, so many concerns, this deserves an exposé!

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Outside News Corp.'s offices yesterday afternoon, Nas hosted an album release party-slash-protest. With his single "Sly Fox," it's clear where the rapper stands on the current state of Fox News: "Watch what you watchin’ / Fox keeps feeding us toxins / Stop sleepin’ / Start thinkin’ outside of the box / And unplug from the matrix doctrine." What a perfect anthem, then, for the rally he led outside Murdoch's HQ, where some 50 protesters gathered as black political activist organization Color of Change and MoveOn.org tried to drop off petitions with 620,000 signatures asking the network to "stop its racist smears against the Obamas and other Black Americans," like that terrorist fist jab remark and, basically, Bill O'Reilly's entire shtick. As you might expect, the boxes of petitions were not welcomed inside the building, nor was Nas' challenge for Bill O'Reilly to debate him, mostly because there'd be no opportunity for the anchor to make use of his ambush cameras.

Below, Fox News host John Gibson on his radio show very carefully not calling black people idiots.

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Roger Ailes, the Fox News head earning $11 million a year whose job description is loosely phrased as "perform Rupert Murdoch's bidding," did something most would expect from his boss: He bought a newspaper. It's the 3,000 circ Putnam County News and Recorder, the 142-year-old paper of Ailes' hometown. And like a good Murdoch minion, Ailes is taking care of the whole nepotism thing: He's hired his wife, Elizabeth, to be its publisher. Also like Murdoch, there are promises that nothing about the paper will change. Heh. [NYT]

David Carr did something very brave. The Times media columnist and reformed crackhead – with his new book detailing his druggy past, that description will carry on at length – dared confront the Fox News publicity machine and call it out for what it is: Another mouthpiece for Roger Ailes & Co.

That Carr would publish an article like this — lots of finger-pointing, zero niceties — is very interesting, and potentially very game changing. Undoubtedly, it's a piece he's been wanting to pen for months, if not longer. But for somebody working an industry beat to so deliberately slam the garage door down on one of the niche's major players is a bold move; the gossip that spills out from the item today will not be even close to the sum of the fall out.

The real gauge of this article's effect will be determined only months, perhaps years, from now, as Carr continues reporting on Fox News, the network's PR division continues it's aggressive defense tactics, and countless more reporters engage in a tug-of-war with Ailes' spirited charges.

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It must've been a bitter pill for Jack Shafer to swallow when his editor showed him the headline of his column published Friday: "Is the Journal Getting … Better?" To be sure, that's exactly what Shafer is arguing, pulling a 180 after what seems like endless columns where he railed against Rupert Murdoch from the first whispers of his trying to buy the paper from the Bancroft family to his first days as its new owner. But might the biggest foe to balanced journalism actually have made the Wall Street Journal a better paper through his stewardship?

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FiLife, the new financial website that launched this week with backing from both News Corp. Wall Street Journal and Barry Diller's IAC, whose aim is to "help consumers who want to improve their financial situation figure out how they stack up against their peers when it comes to income, household debt and savings," is basically a glorified way to see if you're earning more zeros than your neighbor.

Last month, the big broadcast networks NBC, CBS, and Fox filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against RedLasso, the video clipping service used by many blogs to post footage of Dancing With the Stars contestants falling down and Fox News anchors displaying their whiteness. While RedLasso argued they wanted to work with television content producers to create a good-for-everyone revenue-sharing model, the networks took a different approach: stop stealing our content and building your business on it.

Funny, then, that the same companies responsible for trying to kill RedLasso are using the very service on their own websites.

On last night's Countdown, Keith Olbermann named Rupert Murdoch his "Worst Person in the World" for the inside baseball decision of firing HarperCollins chief Jane Friedman, supposedly because she quashed the O.J. Simpson book and fired Judith Regan, despite Murdoch wanting the book out.

But maybe Friedman's fate was sealed much earlier? Like, three years ago? When her ally Lachlan Murdoch, son of Rupert, left the company, and she had to begin reporting to COO Peter Chernin? And had to start meeting certain financial targets? Which would've meant layoffs? That Friedman would've had a problem with?

With this week's ouster of HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman, so too come the exciting details. Like how Rupert Murdoch took a meeting with Friedman's deputy Brian Murray on Monday, and then met with Friedman on Wednesday, where she was told she'd be leaving the company, and then named Murray her successor.

But another bit of HarperCollins news makes headlines this week: That the publisher is suing former Star columnist and reality television star Victoria Gotti for the $70,000 advance they paid her in a 2005 two-book deal, one of which was to be a memoir, but never materialized. Her literary agent says no big whoop, and that she'll return the advance. Oh, and maybe the reason she never turned in that memoir is because they fired her confidant Judith Regan and all her underlings, and she didn't feel like commuting in from Long Island to make any new friends.

As News Corp.'s HarperCollins pushes out its chief Jane Friedman, Rupert Murdoch is smartly installing her deputy, Brian Murray, who, at 41, is 21 years her junior and is expected to usher is a new methodology. Or whatever. Basically, he's expected to up profits.

No matter than Friedman has managed to double HarperCollins' take during her 10 years there; in the fiscal year's last nine months, her profits have slid $6 million, to $132 million, over last year. Which, theoretically, is not that big of a slide. But it's part of the newest trend in book publishing: Out with the old, in with the new. Which isn't exactly a new trend, but anyone will point to the ouster of Random House CEO Peter Olson last month, and his replacement of Markus Dohle, as evidence.

By all accounts, the move comes as a surprise, with top-level insiders at the publishing house not expecting her departure. So how to explain why Friedman, inarguably an industry talent, was given the heave ho?

Well, this Bill Moyers book deal might have something to do with it. Moyers, of course, was famously quoted in 2004 saying this, which couldn't have sat well with Murdoch:

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