By Claudia Beal, Staff Writer
In September, a settlement was reached between Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch and his four eldest children – Prudence, Elisabeth, Lachlan, and James – regarding the future of Newscorp, the most influential media company in the world.
Murdoch, who famously founded Sky, also owned 21st Century Fox until 2019 when he sold it to Disney. He retained FoxCorp, where he was chair until 2023 (now chair emeritus), with his son Lachlan as the company’s residing chair.
Rupert Murdoch also owns FoxCorp (Fox News), The Sun, The Times, Times Radio, The Sunday Times, New York Post, California Post, The Wall Street Journal, Financial News, Collins publishing, Harper Collins, Tubi, Vogue Living, GQ and Vogue Australia, Sky News Australia and New Zealand, 13 statewide Australian Newspapers, hundreds of local Australian papers, along with several other news and radio stations across the US and the UK, most prominent in Australasia.
Being an Australian media mogul, and arguably the most powerful man in news, his recent legal victory has made his son, Lachlan, his heir.
In December 2024, a Nevada Court blocked Murdoch’s bid to amend his 1999 trust. The changes would have allowed Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert’s third child and eldest son, to take control of NewsCorp and FoxCorp (the collective names for Murdoch’s numerous operations) without the threat of being blocked by the votes of his siblings on shareholder decisions. The commissioner argued that the case showed “dishonesty of purpose and motive” in the advantages it supposedly provided.
Lachlan’s three siblings, Prudence (half-sister by Rupert’s first wife), Elisabeth, and James, are the only children considered in the 1999 trust and hold more politically moderate views than Lachlan and their father. Rupert actioned the amendments to the trust on the basis of a ‘lack of consensus’ among his children, after all. This lack of consensus boils down to the conservative views of Mr Murdoch and Lachlan, who is currently the CEO of FoxCorp. For decades, Murdoch’s companies have been accused of promoting a right-wing bias and publishing misleading content.
In 2020, Fox News made unsubstantiated claims that the voting machines used in the election of Joe Biden into the White House were rigged by the companies that built and ran them. As a result, the companies sued and won defamation claims. Fox was also criticised for platforming guests who spread misinformation on the COVID-19 virus, most commonly that the disease was not particularly transmissible.
The largest of Murdoch’s scandals was in 2011, when it was discovered that journalists for Murdoch’s now-defunct paper, News of the World, had been hacking phones for years. The incident was covered in ITVX’s The Hack, and targeted murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, relatives and victims of the July 2005 tube bombings, celebrities, politicians, and royal family. The following inquiry found a systemic cover-up within the paper.
It was until recently that James, the youngest son, was the favourite to run the empire as CEO of 21st Century Fox. However, during the pandemic in 2020, he resigned, stating that his “resignation is due to disagreements over certain editorial content published by the Company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions.” Mr Murdoch was open about his desire to consolidate power in Lachlan for the purpose of ‘company values,’ claiming his empire is the “protector of the conservative voice in the English-speaking world.”
It was Lachlan’s 2022 proposal to merge Fox and NewsCorp into a single entity that seemed to cement him as James’ replacement. Lachlan has now been CEO at FoxCorp for two years. His largest step so far was the $440 million USD acquisition of Tubi, a free ad-sponsored service.
We can expect largely the same from NewsCorp under Lachlan as we have had in recent years. As chair, he has technically been the owner since 2023. What the succession deal ensures is not change, but that the media empire will remain a conservative voice.
Image: Phillip Strong