Murdoch, Ink.

An increasing share of those Journal articles will be about politics. Murdoch's passions, by and large, are limited to "only two topics—politics and media," says his daughter Elisabeth's husband, Matthew Freud, a London public-relations heavyweight and a descendant of Sigmund. Nothing spikes Murdoch's adrenaline like a wayward politician who's about to drown in newspaper ink: consider the scene last month of the hyperventilating mogul's receiving fresh word of the then New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's tabloid-ready secret life as a client of high-priced prostitutes. As the story was breaking online at NewYorkTimes.com, Murdoch was stuck on his crippled jet in a hangar at a private airport in Palm Beach, Fla. With his wife, Wendi, looking on, Murdoch frantically worked the phones, bombarding New York Post editor Col Allan and Fox News chief Roger Ailes. "I couldn't believe it," Murdoch said later of Spitzer's scandalous predicament. "Naturally, I was on the phone: 'What do you know, and how are you going to treat the story?' " Murdoch was so caught up in the moment that he even sketched a mock layout of how the story might appear in The Wall Street Journal. Murdoch didn't phone editors at the Journal, however. "He doesn't treat the Journal the same as he does a tabloid," says a spokesman.

A good example of the kind of political coverage Murdoch is aiming for is the April 4 front-page story in the Journal that rocked Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. The Journal reported that Clinton's pollster and chief strategist, Mark Penn, acting in his capacity as the CEO of the Burson-Marsteller public-relations and lobbying firm, had met with Colombian officials who'd paid his firm $300,000 to push for approval of a bilateral trade agreement that the senator opposed. A few days later, an embarrassed Clinton campaign demoted Penn. "I'm always delighted when any of my papers have an exclusive like that," Murdoch says.

One of the most intriguing parlor games of this year's presidential race has been figuring out whom Murdoch will support—and whether The Wall Street Journal, which hasn't endorsed a candidate since Herbert Hoover, will do so now ("We haven't made up our minds," the Journal recently reported Murdoch as saying). As a champion of conservative causes, Murdoch would seem to have already made up his mind. But he likes to keep the pols guessing. When he hosted a fund-raiser for Senator Clinton in 2006, it stunned both political conservatives and liberals. But an equally shocking turnabout came just days before this year's Super Tuesday primary contests. Murdoch's New York Post not only endorsed Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in New York's primary, but it also criticized Senator Clinton, with whom it was assumed Murdoch was now friendly, given the '06 fund-raiser.

Why did Murdoch turn cold on Clinton? That's remained an unanswered question—until now. "She's been a good senator for New York," he told NEWSWEEK recently. "It doesn't mean she'd make a good president." While he lauds Clinton's "terrific mastery of details and issues," Murdoch says, "I'm against a lot of her big national issues." He says he's worried that the senator will make the United States more of "a dependency society" like the United Kingdom was before Margaret Thatcher, of whom he was an ardent supporter. "Government should not be too big," he says. Interpretation: Clinton, despite her centrist message, remains too liberal for Murdoch. Clinton's camp rejects the view. "I don't know what evidence he has to that effect," Harold Ickes, a Clinton strategist, told NEWSWEEK on Friday. "I don't know what he would look to in terms of her policies that she's proposing that he could draw that conclusion." As for the Post's nod to Obama, that appears to have been a calculated attempt by Murdoch to do his part to prolong a great horse race. "I said, 'Let's make a race of it'," he said.

In his daily contest against The New York Times, Murdoch appears poised to use his playbook from the 12-year showdown between his upstart Fox News and the entrenched CNN, formerly owned by Ted Turner. Murdoch marketed "fair and balanced" Fox as an alternative to what he deemed CNN's liberal bias. And certainly The Wall Street Journal's conservative leanings are a foil to the Times's liberal voice. But the Journal-vs.-Times war seems unlikely to get as personal as Murdoch vs. Turner (he neglected to take his lithium, Murdoch once said of the manic-depressive Turner; he's like Hitler, Turner said of Murdoch). Murdoch says he and New York Times Co. chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. aren't friends, but there's no hostility between them, either. Sulzberger declined to comment for this article.

Things may not be hostile, but they are certainly feisty. For years, Murdoch has targeted Sulzberger for tabloid harassment. The Post regularly runs a "Sulzberger meter" alongside stories about negative developments at the rival publishing company, featuring a head shot of Sulzberger sporting a black eye. The Journal joined the fray last December, after Murdoch had clinched the Dow Jones deal, accusing his critics of "commercial" and "ideological" motives and blasting the Times for giving credence to concerns that Murdoch would turn the Journal into a mouthpiece for his own business and right-wing political interests. The Times, like numerous other media outlets, has been critical of Murdoch for allegedly using his media properties to pursue personal business and political ends—a contention that Murdoch vehemently rejects. "I've never, ever done that," he says angrily. "I challenge anyone to show that I did. My bloody papers won't even review Fox films favorably."