"Two years later, Murdoch has dodged much more than the pie," Felix Gillette writes of the News Corp honcho.

Forbes
Si Newhouse's net worth is $8.1 billion and his brother Donald is worth $7.3 billion, Forbes estimates in its new list of world billionaires. Both mens' wallets have thickened, at least by Forbes' count, since September, when it said they were worth $7.4 billion and $6.6 billion, respectively. The Newhouses owns Advance Publications, which recently laid off more than a thousand journalists and reduced print publication schedules to three days a week at several of its newspapers.

Other media fat cats, according to the list:

• Warren Buffett (No. 4, $53.5 billion)
• Thomson Reuters chair David Thomson (No. 24, $20.3 billion)
• Rupert Murdoch (No. 91, $11.2 billion)
• Mike Bloomberg (No. 13, $27 billion)
• Mort Zuckerman (No. 613, $2.4 billion)

Brad Kelley, the cigarette billionaire who Rafat Ali reported Monday is buying Lonely Planet from the BBC, is No. 792.

News Corp.
Revenue from News Corp.'s publishing businesses rose in the second quarter of its 2013 fiscal year, the company said in an earnings release Wednesday.

Publishing reported quarterly segment operating income of $234 million, a $16 million improvement from the $218 million reported in the same period a year ago. Increased contributions from the U.K. newspapers which benefitted from the launch of the Sunday edition of The Sun in February 2012, integrated marketing services driven by higher custom publishing revenues, and book publishing businesses related to the acquisition of Thomas Nelson, Inc., a Christian book publisher, more than offset lower advertising revenues at the Australian newspapers.

Revenue from the company's cable-TV businesses was up 18 percent, the company said. The company spent $56 million on phone-hacking investigations, compared with $87 million during the same period the year before. (more...)

The Washington Post | Fox News
Bob Woodward reports that Fox News chairman Roger Ailes had a Fox analyst visiting Afghanistan deliver a message to Gen. David Petraeus in 2011 -- that the general should demand to be appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or else resign and run for president.

From Woodward's scoop:

The Fox News chairman’s message was delivered to Petraeus by Kathleen T. McFarland, a Fox News national security analyst and former national security and Pentagon aide in three Republican administrations. She did so at the end of a 90-minute, unfiltered conversation with Petraeus that touched on the general’s future, his relationship with the media and his political aspirations — or lack thereof. The Washington Post has obtained a digital recording from the meeting, which took place in Petraeus’s office in Kabul.

(more...)

The New York Times | The Huffington Post
What besieged mogul wouldn't welcome a story about getting his bounce back? "In the last several weeks," Amy Chozick writes, Rupert Murdoch "has exuded a satisfaction and sure-footedness that people close to the company said they had not seen since before Mr. Murdoch’s British newspaper unit became embroiled in a phone hacking scandal." In Chozick's story, Murdoch all but raises the Jolly Roger: A pair of scandals at News Corp. U.K. rival the BBC is dinging The New York Times, and the planned split of his company into two divisions is freeing him up to make acquisitions -- 49 percent of New York's Yes Network, maybe even the Los Angeles Times.

But one tweet about the "Jewish-owned press," and suddenly the PR win feels a little hollow. Murdoch apologized to the Anti-Defamation League for a tweet pondering why, in Murdoch's view...actually, I think I'll let him handle this one:

Why Is Jewish owned press so consistently anti- Israel in every crisis?

— Rupert Murdoch(@rupertmurdoch) November 18, 2012

(more...)

The Wall Street Journal
News Corp.'s publishing business may "pursue acquisitions of distressed newspapers, such as the Los Angeles Times" after its planned split from the company's media and entertainment divisions, John Jannarone reports. Reports of Rupert Murdoch's interest in that title have been bouncing around since at least this past June, when the split was announced.

"News Corp executives -- including Murdoch's son James -- flew into Los Angeles twice this month to take a preliminary look at the storied daily's books," Reuters initially reported Saturday. The LA Times says Murdoch is also interested in the Chicago Tribune. Both papers are owned by the Tribune Company, which is expected to exit bankruptcy this year. Also interested in the Times, which could sell for $400 million it reports, are Doug Manchester, new owner of U-T San Diego, and Aaron Kushner, new owner of the Orange County Register. (more...)