Murdoch was born in Melbourne in 1885 and was educated at Camberwell Grammar School and the London School of Economics. After graduation, he began a career in journalism with The Age.
Murdoch applied to become Australia's official war historian upon the outbreak of World War I in August 1914. In the ballot to decide on that position he lost out to Charles Bean.
In August 1915 that Murdoch managed to get permission to visit Anzac Cove, and for the purpose of investigating the alleged mismanagement of mail sent to Australian soldiers serving in the Gallipoli campaign.
Murdoch agreed to hand deliver a letter detailing the mismanagement of the campaign from the British reporter Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett to the British Prime Minister Hebert Asquith.
On route to London, Murdoch was arrested by French Military Police in Marseilles and the letter was confiscated from him. Murdoch made it to London but without the letter so he wrote his own letter to the Australian Prime Minister Andrew Fisher in a similar vain to the Ashmead-Bartlett letter.
It is commonly believed that the letter and the fuss that it created helped bring an end to the Gallipoli campaign.
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See also: The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd, Herald-Sun
