You may have noticed a recent story about Rupert Murdoch planning to buy Dow Jones & Co. for $5 billion. Dow Jones is the parent company of
The Wall Street Journal, and Murdoch is an Australian media baron whose holdings include more than 100 newspapers, 20th Century Fox movies, and an international television empire that includes the
Fox News channel. Murdoch is notorious for having his media outlets simplify and sensationalize news stories, and his matchup with the staid, dignified, reliable
Wall Street Journal, the most trusted name in business news, seems as unlikely as the one between Anna Nicole Smith and her 115-year-old husband, J. Howard Marshall.
Naturally, panic immediately spread throughout the ranks of the
Journal reporters and editors, who feared that the buyout would result in degrading changes to their financial coverage. They worried that their newspaper would adopt the glitzy style of the tabloids that Murdoch operates, much like the crosstown
New York Post.
As an award-winning journalist, I was upset to hear that news, but then I discovered something even more ominous: Murdoch also was planning to buy
Card Player magazine.
Card Player? "The Poker Authority." The gold standard of poker journalism. The bible of the industry. And Murdoch is threatening to get his money-grubbing hands on this symbol of gaming integrity and turn it into a sensationalist rag? I couldn't believe that Barry Shulman would let down the poker industry for mere money; that is, not until I learned that Murdoch had made an offer of four times the value of the publication.
Alarmed, and also curious to see if there might be anything in this for me, I contacted Murdoch and he agreed to an interview. I arrived at his hotel suite, and he greeted me by demanding to know how much I would pay him for the interview. I offered him half of what I'd get paid for the story, but he insisted on 75 percent. This guy, I immediately realized, was an even tougher businessman than Barry. I asked if he planned to make any changes to the magazine if the deal went through.
"Plenty, mate," he replied. "The mag is too dull and predictable. It needs a bit of livening up."
"Such as?"
"Well, right now it's all analysis and strategy. Take that Roy Cooke bloke, for example. He always starts off describing that he was playing a $30-$60 hold'em game and sitting at a table with three solid players, two rocks, a maniac, and a semi-drunk, that he was one away from the button with the J
9
when a solid player raised, the drunk three-bet it, and he had to determine the intrinsic odds of … you know, all that blarney. Why not get to the point? Just say, 'I played my usual brilliant game and won $3,500,' and leave it at that."
"I guess that would save space," I had to admit. "What else?"
"The covers bore me to tears. The same headlines all the time. This chap won this tournament, and that chap won that tournament. I want to fetch readers' attention with something eye-grabbing. Take a look at this."
Murdoch took out a folder and extracted a magazine cover mock-up. It depicted Phil Hellmuth lying on the floor kicking his feet.
HELLMUTH MELTDOWN! The headline screamed in foot-high letters.
"What tournament was that taken at?" I asked.
"Oh, no tournament, actually. He was just exercising, trying to melt down a couple of pounds. Clever, what?"
"I'd call it misleading, what. How will readers react when they get to the article and realize they've been tricked?"
"Not a problem," he shrugged. "We'll just bury the story at the back of the mag. Your typical tabloid reader has such a short attention span that by the time he gets that far, he'll have forgotten what the headline said. You see, mate, the whole idea is just to get people's attention with the cover so they'll buy a copy."
"Buy? The magazine is given out free in casinos."
"Not any longer. Do you expect Rupert Murdoch to give away his publications? From now on we'll sell it in casino gift shops and at checkout counters in markets."
"Oh, that'll go over big. But won't people get tired of seeing Hellmuth on the cover every issue?"
"We'll use real poker players as little as possible; maybe only during the
World Series. Most of the time we'll use grabbers like Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, and Paris Hilton. 'Poker Hooties' - is that what you call them?"
"It's 'Hotties,'" I corrected him. "But what do those ladies have to do with poker?"
He shrugged. "Oh, we'll make things up as we go along. You know,
Lindsay Lohan Arrested Again. Cops Find Deck of Cards in Her Purse!
I was beginning to get nauseous. I asked what other great cover ideas he had.
"Well, covers disclosing celebrities' weight loss and gain seem to sell the most copies. You know,
Oprah Loses 200 Pounds! Next issue:
Oprah Gains 400 Pounds! Maybe we can show that plonker you call Big Denny going up and down a half-ton every few issues. And, of course, photos of top players with cellulite."
"All poker players have cellulite," I reminded him. "Poker isn't exactly an activity sport."
As Murdoch continued relating the changes in store, I grew increasingly depressed. He wasn't interested, for example, in reporting major tournament wins and having "Player of the Year" standings. "Who wants inspirational stories?" he asked. "I'm not publishing the
Reader's Digest. My readers eat up derogatory and revealing articles; inside dirt, you know. So we'll just report on big losses that name players suffer in tournaments and side games, and do 'Loser of the Year' standings, instead."
I asked him if he wasn't afraid of losing advertising with such radical changes.
"Oh, we'll make it up by getting ads for horoscopes, lucky charms, miracle diet pills, that sort of rubbish."
I couldn't take much more. Finally, I got to the question I'd been dreading. "Uh, what about
my column, sir?"
The media mogul's face lit up. "Shapiro, old boy, your columns are the only entertaining thing, the only piece worth reading in that stodgy old magazine. We're going to run them as the lead article, pay you the handsome salary you deserve, and promote you to editor."
As I was saying, Rupert Murdoch is truly a journalistic visionary as well as an astute businessman. So, keep an eye peeled for the new and improved
Card Player, hitting casinos - I mean, supermarket newsstands - very soon.
Max Shapiro, a lifelong poker player and former newspaper reporter with several writing awards to his credit, has been writing a humor column for Card Player ever since it was launched 20 years ago. His early columns were collected in his book, Read 'em and Laugh.
