Good Times, Bad Times: The Explosive Inside Story of Rupert Murdoch Paperback – 6 October 2011

Interesting and intelligent read

Well written by Harold Evans with some personal insights into Rupert Murdoch and key investigations by the Uk Times paper

great read, a historical book, we should all read. Highly recommend this book. I only put 4 stars, cause 5 at Love it, just seemed wrong with the terrible events and times of the Potato Famine in Ireland.

Harold Evans was a highly successful campaigning editor when he took over at the helm of The Times. But his stint as editor came to an ignominious end after a clash with the paper’s proprietor, Rupert Murdoch. Evans accused him of going back on legal guarantees Murdoch gave about ensuring editorial independence. Evans describes how Murdoch tried to interfere with the running of the paper and influence its stance, while declaring that he had no interest in telling Evans how to edit. Relations badly soured. This is a chronicle of those disputes, and it’s highly detailed. Evans kept a shorthand note of crucial meetings. Often it’s too granular. There’s too much on the run-up to Murdoch’s acquisition of The Times. The best chapters in terms of readability are those dealing with Evans’s tenure as Sunday Times editor. Uncovering the Thalidomide scandal was probably his greatest achievement. The chapter on exposing the spy Kim Philby is excellent. But it does become bogged down in extreme detail. The chapters on The Times are revelatory. It was a loss-making institution with more than its fair share of Luddites and eccentrics on the staff. Evans reminisces about his favourite leaders (editorial comment pieces) and changes to the typeface. It can be more exciting when he gets into the soap opera of office politics. There’s an understandable bitterness towards Murdoch running through the text, which is brilliantly written (but could have been reduced in length and detail). If you enjoyed it, you might like Paper Dreams by Stephen Glover, about The Independent - a similar highly effective exercise in score-settling…

Excellent