Here comes the son: Lachlan takes over Murdoch media empire • FRANCE 24 English

It’s time now for scoop, our weekly conversation on international media and the political and economic headwinds confronting the industry. We look at who shapes a narrative and explore journalistic ethics. With trust in the press at a nadier, it’s a critical eye on a critical profession. [Music] Imagine Rupert Murdoch espousing media pluralism. Today, it’s virtually unthinkable, but nearly half a century ago, that’s exactly what he did. At the time, he was 36 years old. Here’s a clip from a documentary by Australia’s ABC on the budding media mogul. Of course, one enjoys the feeling of power. Although, if I can just hold you there for a minute, I think that this question of the power of newspaper proprietors can be greatly overdone. Um, we have certain but we can we have more responsibility than power. I think the newspaper can um create great controversies, stir up u uh arguments within the community, discussion, can throw light on injustices uh just as it can do the opposite. It can hide things. I think the important thing is that there’d be plenty of newspapers with plenty of different people controlling them so that there’s a variety of viewpoint and that there’s a choice for the public. Rupert was a son of a journalist. His father, Sir Keith Arthur Murdoch, was a war correspondent, later became a owner of various media. This is 7 News. Rupert Murdoch was born in Australia and took over the running of a small Adelaide newspaper called The News after his father’s death. Throughout the 50s and 60s, Murdoch acquired a number of newspapers in Australia and New Zealand, including the Australian, the Daily Telegraph, the Herald Sun, just to name a few. Then he moved on to UK newspapers, purchasing The Sun and the Times. And after this he moved to New York, gave up his Australian citizenship to become a US citizen in order to own a US television network, Fox Corporation. Fox News Media brings America together. America is watching. By 2000, Murdoch’s News Corporation owned more than 800 companies in more than 50 countries. Over the past year and a half, there’s been a legal battle to decide the next era. The dispute over the family trust has been the subject of intense interest inside and outside the family as it would determine the future of a media empire that holds vast political sway across three continents. And this month, the succession plan to the family business was finally settled. Here’s America’s Today Show. This morning, a major plot twist in a real life succession battle. The Murdoch family establishing a new trust that leaves Rupert Murdoch’s oldest son, Lachlan, firmly in control of the family business. In exchange for the agreement, three of Lachland’s siblings will receive huge payouts for their shares and will step away from their roles at both News Corp and Fox. When you talk to investors, when you talk to current and former executives, all of them have been obsessed with this question of what is going to happen to the empire when the king is dead. Right? That question has now been answered. So Lachlan now in charge of two media companies with a combined value of more than $40 billion and arguably even more influence. He’s now one of the most powerful people in the world for decades to come. Joining us from Melbourne, Australia is our guest, journalist and professor Matthew Rickettson. Hello to you, Matthew, and thank you for joining us on Scoop. Um, you’ve been covering this throughout and the Murdoch in general for even longer. Was this the inevitable outcome? From in hindsight, it looks like that. I mean, I’m I’m I’m happy to say I wrote uh several months ago that Lachlan and Robert in their application to the uh probate court in Nevada in America had had really coped a hiding from the probate commissioner and it didn’t look at all good. This was late last year and and there were myself included, there were a number of people who thought that uh it all might go pear-shaped for Lachlan and Roupert. But if there’s one thing that we have learned about his career is that he’s a very very determined person and he almost always gets his way. Lachlan replacing his father, but Rupert is serving as chairman emeritus both at Fox and and News Corp. So who do you think will have the final call? Well, Rbert is 94 and he uh he perhaps at last is showing some signs of uh slowing down. I mean, when he actually stepped down as the chief executive and chairman in late 2023, um to pave the way for his elder son, Lachlan, it looked like, you know, he um he might step back, but you know, he’s been he’s been in the news a lot lately, as you’ve already alluded to. and not only the things you’ve talked about, but the um I mean just literally in the last 24 hours, he’s been at the banquet in the in uh in England uh where the American President Donald Trump had been invited by the the the government there in England and the uh royal family and Rubert Murdoch was there. Just why he was there, it’s not clear. There’s speculation. Um but and that speculation has to do with perhaps Donald Trump being the one who wanted him to be there so that they could have a bit of a discussion perhaps uh on the side about the lawsuit that Donald Trump has launched against um uh News Corporation and Fox Corporation in the broad more specifically the Wall Street Journal, one of their newspapers uh which is uh has published material about a a body birthday card that was given to uh Jeffrey Epstein, the um late convicted uh pedophile. And Donald Trump is is alleged to have uh signed that card and in a in a boardy manner. The Wall Street Journal ran information about that. Trump has sued them for about $10 million American. That case has been going for a couple of months. That is the legal wranglings about that case has been going for a couple of months. So that’s the speculation. I don’t know if it’s true, but that’s what’s being speculated, right? And and about that case, I mean, that’s one of several where Donald Trump is taking on the media. Uh Fox hasn’t covered the Epstein affair uh like the Wall Street Journal has. It’s been reporting on this uh non-stop, a lot of solid reporting. Um but do you think that Lachlan might get a lay of the landscape in the United States and might want the Wall Street Journal to perhaps tow the line? Good question. Nobody knows for sure but um Rbert Murdoch’s history is that he doesn’t cave into politicians. I mean in historically generally he is the one who who makes politicians quail or he persuades them or he duchesses them, he charms them. That’s been his uh both his pattern and his modus operandi for many years now. So, um, uh, that there’s that, but just why he might, uh, that there might be this potential for Lachlan to solve it, solve the the the lawsuit that is, um, I mean, Donald Trump, as you’ve said, is is monstering all sorts of media companies in America and in quite outrageous ways. I mean, this is a country that has the first amendment to the US Constitution. it it enshrines free speech and yet Donald Trump seems to be operating on the principle you can have free speech as long as it’s speech that agrees with me. Yeah. And real quickly going back to Rupert and his politics. Um he he obviously has a conservative slant to the media that he runs. How does Lachland’s politics line up with his own? And I know there’s been a lot of writing about things from um climate change to even whether or not to support Trump in the 2020 election. Where do Rupert and Lachland go in terms of what they see eye to eye and if there’s any differences? Look, again, based on not so much conversations with the Murdoch, but with reading and following their career for many years. Um reportedly is Lachlan. Lachlan is further to the right than his father. His father is uh right-wing. There’s no doubt about that. Has been for many years. He he began as a moderately left-wing person in his very very early days, but this is a long long time ago. He’s been right-wing. He’s a kind of Ronald Reagan right-wing conservative. That’s been his kind of ideological home, if you like. But that was in the 1980s and 1990s. Now he’s had to accommodate Donald Trump who is not conservative in any political sense really. He’s radical in what he is trying to do and trying to upend the constitution trying to upend the the way in which the judiciary operates uh the way in which business operates and so on. Um it’s it’s not a happy he’s not a happy bed fellow for Murdoch but Murdoch has always been commercially uh canny as well as politically engaged. Yeah. And so many people who have covered Rupert, like yourself, have said Rupert is one of a kind. Lachland might not be uh inheriting this empire if he had a different uh family name. Um but that being said, he does have the empire now. He has the influence still. It’s a different media landscape as you alluded to in the US with all these lawsuits. Trump filing lawsuits against ABC, CBS, more recently the New York Times for defamation. Uh public uh funding for public broadcasters has been revoked in the US. Uh Jimmy Kimmel pulled off air. Steven Colbear uh pulled off air. So do you think Lachlan might even make Fox more conservative to curry favor with Trump? Look, it’s possible. Uh one thing we’ve learned about the American president is you you can do the only way to really secure his favor is to do exactly what he wants, when he wants, how he wants. If if Lachlan Murdoch is prepared to do that, then maybe he will be able to work well with Donald Trump. But as you’ve already said, there’s lots and lots of media companies in in America and who are falling foul of Donald Trump and and they have already been trying to cowtow to him and to his desires and wishes. I mean, this is the way in which a bully operates that if if you fold in in the face of a bully, they will keep bullying you. There’s only one way to really stop them and that is to stand up to them and that’s difficult when you’ve got the president of the one of the two or three main superpowers in the whole world. Yeah. And and and back to the family dynamics of all of this, there were some people that were thinking that perhaps James or some of the sisters might actually provide a a sort of liberal uh protest, if you will, to to to the future of News Corp. Obviously, that’s been decided uh that they’re cutting ties with the family businesses, but were you surprised that that they were willing to take this this paycheck and cut ties rather than perhaps try to fight for a different uh path forward? Well, it it’s very hard to tell um particularly with Prudence, the eldest daughter, a little bit less so with Elizabeth, and a little bit less so more with uh James, where exactly their politics lies. as there’s been speculation, but James is really the main person who’s come out publicly and made statements that have where he’s explicitly opposed the way in which um News Corporation has been and Fox Corporation have been covering issues like climate change and the first Trump administration and so on. Um but you know the proof is in the pudding. They they took the money and ran. I mean they took a very large sum of money. it was over a billion dollars US. Uh but they have they they’ve checked out and and the agreement says that they need to remain out of the company. So who knows what they might do. Um but as you’ve already said, you know, Lachlan is perhaps the chief executive at least partly because he has the name Murdoch as distinct from his own qualities. Um the same would apply to James and Elizabeth and to Prudence. I mean, Prudence has never been particularly involved in the media. Elizabeth and James have. And real quickly, running out of time with the succession taken care of. What about mergers and acquisitions? News Corp and Fox. Will they maybe try to do a merger again? I just want you to speculate about what the cards hold. Sure. Look, there is there is some talk about that. They tried that a couple of years ago. Um, one significant thing which which has happened and which will play a role here is that the Murdoch’s stake, sorry, Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch’s stake in the companies overall has slightly dropped as a result of needing to find money to do this deal to buy out their their or their three siblings, three children. So, that’s been diminished and they also needed to take out a large loan from um from JP Morgan Bank. Uh so that they’re they’re slightly more financially vulnerable. Um and of course Robert is you know moving to the side. So there is some speculation about what might happen there which which is not entirely in Lachlan Murdoch’s court. That is he’s got pressure on him at the moment which which uh and who knows where that will go in terms of businesses. I I don’t think there’ll be lots of mergers and acquisitions at this stage. All right Matthew, thank you so much for your time. Professor Matthew Rickardson joining us from Melbourne. Thank you. My pleasure. And that brings us to our quote of the day and it comes from Rupert Murdoch himself who perhaps jokingly said at the World Economic Forum in 2009, quote, “Manopoly is a terrible thing till you have it.” That’s it for this edition of Scoop. Thank you for watching and please stay tuned to Friends 24. [Applause] [Music]

Welcome to FRANCE 24’s media show “Scoop”. This week we discuss Lachlan Murdoch taking over his father’s media empire, and what impact, if any, it will have on the businesses that span Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and more. Our guest in journalist and professor Matthew Ricketson.
#Murdoch #media #Fox

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