Media execs out in force at launch of Killing Fairfax by Lachlan Murdoch, left, James Packer, centre, and Ryan Stokes, right, chat at the Killing Fairfax launch. Journalist Pamela Williams speaks at the launch of her book Killing Fairfax, which charts the media company's decline. Ros Packer, widow of Kerry Packer, attends the launch of Killing Fairfax at Harper Collins' office in Sydney. LACHLAN Murdoch and James Packer were among a heavyweight rollcall of executives at the launch of the latest book chronicling Fairfax Media's troubles. In addition to the main protagonists at the launch of Killing Fairfax: Packer, Murdoch and the Ultimate Revenge were Seven Group executive Ryan Stokes and Seven West Media board member John Alexander. The founders of the pure-play digital companies that the book charts the rise of were also at the launch: carsales.com chief executive Greg Roebuck and Seek co-founder Paul Bassat. Ten chief executive Hamish McLennan, who chairs REA, another key company in the story, also attended. Other executives at the Sydney offices of publisher of Harper Collins included former Financial Review Group chief executive Brett Clegg, who it emerged yesterday had resigned to return to News Corp Australia in a senior role. Senior Fairfax journalists included Elizabeth Sexton, and Elizabeth Knight. ABC journalist Leigh Sales also mingled with attendees, along with former Minister for Communications Helen Coonan and her husband retired Supreme Court judge Andrew Rogers. Pamela Williams' book - out yesterday - establishes the role Mr Murdoch and Mr Packer played in helping set up companies like REA, which went onto siphon off valuable classified advertising revenue from Fairfax. The narrative shows that Fairfax failed to spot that these dotcom startups would kill Fairfax's "rivers of gold" classified advertising, whereas Mr Murdoch and Mr Packer realised that they posed a serious threat to legacy newspaper business models and decided to invest in them. Mr Murdoch injected just $2 million into REA, which is now 61 per cent owned by News Corp Australia, publisher of The Australian, and has a market capitalisation of almost $4 billion - far in excess of Fairfax, which is capitalised at $1.2 billion. Speaking at the launch of the book, editor-in-chief of Eureka Report and Business Spectator Alan Kohler said the book was the "definitive account of how Fairfax lost the classifieds or rather how Seek, REA, and Carsales won them with Lachlan Murdoch and James Packer's help." "More than that, it's the definitive account of the mismanagement of Fairfax by its board," Mr Kohler said, adding "The main job of a board is to smell the smoke coming out of the door, but the Fairfax board couldn't see each other for the smoke, and still couldn't smell it." The book also claims that Australia's richest woman, Gina Rinehart, used a private dinner with James Packer last year to try to enlist him to help her take control of Fairfax and slash its costs.