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:

"I'm going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee. We have an ideological press that's interested in the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that's interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don't have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people." [AP]

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