While the world scrutinizes the front pages of the Wall Street Journal for evidence of Rupert Murdoch’s long hand, the smallest of News Corp’s vast portfolio of news publications made waves this week for being guilty of appeasing the mogul, according to the IHT.

The Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER), acquired as part of Murdoch’s purchase of Dow Jones, spiked a review of a book penned by former News Corp journalist Bruce Dover about Murdoch’s exploits in China, ”Rupert’s Adventures in China: How Murdoch Lost a Fortune and Found a Wife.”

Dover, Murdoch’s right-hand man in China, writes about the global media tycoon’s attempts at breaking into one of the world’s biggest markets and the compromises it entailed. FEER chief Hugo Restall admitted to getting “cold feet” over publishing the review.

From an e-mail exchange between the review’s author Eric Ellis and FEER’s Restall found on Crikey (subscription required): “I’m afraid I am getting cold feet on this one - I’ve just gotten a copy of the book, and it looks more like the work of a disgruntled ex-employee, rather than an analysis of the business.”

Slate’s Jack Shafter Shafer points out that this isn’t the first run-in the review’s author Ellis has had with a Murdoch controlled property investment. His profile of Murdoch’s third wife Wendi Deng was spiked by Fairfax Media newspapers in Australia last year. Murdoch sold the company’s stake in Fairfax. (Slate’s review of the book)

Ellis’s review of Dover’s book ran on AsiaSentinel.com.

(An earlier version of this entry contained several inaccuracies. The author of the review Eric Ellis alerted us to the errors. )

(Photo: Reuters)