Editors tell of the vital role played by Rupert Murdoch’s right-hand man, Ken Cowley

Ken Cowley went from printer to the top of a publishing and transport empire that eventually spanned the globe.

Former News Corp CEO Ken Cowley, who died on October 23. Picture: Chris Pavlich

Former News Corp CEO Ken Cowley died on October 23, leaving many of us with memories of a fine businessman, an encouraging mentor and trusted friend.

Paul Kelly, The Australian’s editor-at-large, a former editor-in-chief, and the country’s foremost commentator on national and international affairs, considered Cowley “a great Australian”.

“He ranks in that handful of the most important media executives in the postwar period,” Kelly said, describing the period as one of “commercial success and strong editorial performance”.

Kelly said Cowley’s attachment to The Australian newspaper was deep and personal and he kept the paper alive in its darkest hours. “Ken was a battler who made good,” he said.

“His executive career was marked by a long, mutually trusting relationship with Rupert Murdoch. He won the respect of the prime ministers he dealt with and the loyalty of his staff.”

Neither did he ever overlook the fact that newspapers have a wider responsibility to their community and, in the case of The Australian, the country.

Kelly said Cowley possessed the key requirements for a successful CEO: a deep knowledge of the industry, a close and mutually trusting relationship with Murdoch, the ability to assemble quality people in the management, commercial and editorial roles, along with a cap­acity to win loyalty from the staff, the skill to negotiate with the political and industry powerbrokers of the day and, above all, judgment in making the many decisive calls that shaped the company in Australia.

Kelly added Cowley had the respect of every prime minister with whom he dealt, and that had particularly been the case with Paul Keating and John Howard.

“His relationship with Rupert was enduring and durable despite obvious tensions and disagreements,” he said.

Ken Cowley, centre, pictured in 1997 with Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch

The executive chairman of News Corp Australasia, Michael Miller, said Australia had lost one of its most successful newsmen and executives.

“If Ken leaves us with one tremendous legacy, it was his passion for The Australian to ensure it survived its challenging early days to prosper as Australia’s best national news brand with its trusted journalism now rewarded with the largest audience in its history,” Miller said.

Cowley and Murdoch’s relationship of absolute intimacy and trust, spanning almost half of ­century, was “utterly unique” in Australian business history, according to The Australian and News Corp business commentator Terry McCrann. Cowley was at once adviser, sounding board and cautioner, implementer and fixer, eyes and ears on the ground and go-between for the always restless, always moving Murdoch, said McCrann, who has tracked Murdoch’s extraordinary journey since the 1970s.

McCrann believes the Cowley-Murdoch alliance can be split into three broad periods and ­influences. “The first ran from their coming together in the early 1960s to launch The Australian, which grew in the 1970s to Cowley acting as Murdoch’s right arm, managing the print media empire that Murdoch was putting together in Australia,” he said.

“Murdoch’s ability to utterly trust Cowley to, in a sense, keep the presses running Down Under, was critical as Murdoch embarked on his first forays into the UK and US media spaces.”

This phase culminated in the acquisition of the country’s then-biggest media group, the Herald & Weekly Times, in 1987, “that doubled Murdoch’s News Corp and was the springboard to further expansion in the UK and the US through the 1990s”.

“That second phase saw Cowley playing two crucial roles: running the Australian business for an increasingly peripatetic Murdoch, and acting as confidant at the top of the global News Corp, a relationship that Murdoch did not and could not have with any other executive.”

McCrann said that merged into the final phase after Cowley stepped down from active management, remaining as director “but a board director like no other, given their shared history” and “Australianness” in what by then was mostly a US business.

Former long-time News Corp editor Piers Akerman also worked with Cowley for decades.

“As deputy to The Australian’s editor-in-chief Les Hollings during the early 1980s, I had daily dealings with Ken about the news content. He was a most fair and extremely able newspaper executive,” Akerman said.

“His thorough grounding in the print industry gave him an edge over the print union figures and he was astute enough to ask his journalist executives to explain their decisions without attempting to influence them.”

Akerman said the death of Cowley’s daughter, Michelle, in a car accident in 1988, devastated Ken and wife Maureen: “I felt he never got over her sudden death.”

Akerman wrote to the Cowleys from London where he was based at the time. “Ken responded with a heartfelt and deeply personal letter, knowing I was the father of two young daughters.”

“As editor-in-chief of The Adelaide Advertiser and later of the Herald & Weekly Times, we enjoyed a close working relationship though we disagreed about some of the Keating government’s policies.”