Rupert Murdochology

One of the things that was interesting in the New York Times profile of Roger Ailes, at least it is if one tries to follow the comings and goings of Rupert Murdoch, his family, and News Corp, is the fact that a member of the Murdoch family, Matthew Freud.

Well, one Murdochologist, Michael Wolff, says that this is the beginning of a process that will have Ailes out in the next 12 months or so:

When Tim Arango, the New York Times reporter who got the statement from Freud, called and said he was doing a story on Ailes’ rising power, Freud would have consulted with the rest of the family. James Murdoch would have said to his father something along the lines of, “this is untenable, this idea that Roger is the center of the company.”

Murdoch, who protects nothing so much as his own primacy at News Corp., and who always likes somebody else to do his dirty work, would likely have said, in his particular patois, “umm…goddamn…grump…son-of-a-bitch…they’re gonna say that? Who put ‘em up to it? Okay, okay, do what you want to do.” By which he would have meant: “Blow a rocket up his ass.”

The process of losing your job at News Corp. takes about a year. They talk about you, and isolate you, and then you understand that you’ve been exiled from the tribe.

I'm hoping that it is true, Ailes is an evil man who has hurt the country more than most, but I'm inclined to believe that it's not: Particularly during this downturn, Fox News is Murdoch's money cow, and he can't kill the goose that laid the golden egg.