It goes without saying that your colleagues may not be too pleased to find out you’re writing a book about the inner dealings of the company. And when that company is as esteemed as the Wall Street Journal and said tome is an insider account of its sale to Rupert Murdoch, well, let’s just say you should probably start looking for another gig just in case.
“I mean, a lot of people I talked to did [like the book] and some didn’t,” said Sarah Ellison, author of War at the Wall Street Journal. “I feel like at the very top level of Dow Jones, I don’t think that the people who read it liked it.”
Ellison also told mediabistro.com founder Laurel Touby in the final segment of Media Beat how she was able to include so much detail about the main characters, including Rupert Murdoch.
“The day that Murdoch essentially fired Marcus Brauchli, I was traveling with him that day. And so that was a literal fly on the wall kind of thing. And I heard conversations. That was a level of detail where it was just a reporter’s dream.”
Part 1: Sarah Ellison Calls Wall Street Journal Sale ‘An Epic Clash of Cultures’
Part 2: Sarah Ellison on Writing War at The Wall Street Journal