Conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch hands empire to son Lachlan

Rupert Murdoch said Thursday that he will step down as chairman of his worldwide media enterprise, a conservative powerhouse that has affected politics across continents, to his son Lachlan. The Australian-born mogul, who developed a worldwide entertainment and news behemoth that was influential in events ranging from Margaret Thatcher’s reign to Donald Trump’s ascension, will stand down in mid-November at the age of 92, Fox Corp. and News Corp revealed. With a letter to colleagues saying he’d decided to “transition to the role of Chairman Emeritus,” Murdoch drew a line under a remarkable career that saw him rise from local news in Adelaide, Australia, to amassing a stable of legacy newspapers in Britain and the United States, before launching into broadcast media. The Murdoch family has become some of the world’s most powerful personalities because to aggressive tabloids like The Sun and New York Post, renowned dailies like The Times and Wall Street Journal, and big-hitting television networks like Fox and Sky. However, under his supervision, the operation’s news section has received regular criticism for blurring the boundary between opinion and journalism. Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer offered gratitude, saying Murdoch’s “contributions are both innumerable and extraordinary.” Critics such as Angelo Carusone, CEO of Media Matters for America, a liberal group, painted a different picture. “In Fox News, Murdoch created a uniquely destructive force in American democracy and public life, one that ushered in an era of division where racist and post-truth politics thrive,” Carusone said. “The world is worse off because of Rupert Murdoch.” Murdoch was typically unapologetic, taking a parting shot at what he called the “elites” who had “open contempt” for outsiders. Scandal The tycoon leaves behind a trail of media scandals. In 2011, the company suddenly shuttered the News of the World, a popular British weekly tabloid following public revulsion over its journalists’ practice of hacking the phones of celebrities and crime victims to get scoops. Then in 2016, Rupert Murdoch ousted powerful news chief Roger Ailes following a sexual harassment scandal later dramatized in the Oscar-winning 2019 movie “Bombshell.” But every controversy paled in comparison to fallout from the Murdoch empire’s relationship with Trump, peaking in coverage of the Republican populist’s campaign to persuade tens of millions of people that he was cheated in the 2020 election. In April, Fox News agreed to pay a $787.5 million settlement in a defamation case brought by voting machine maker Dominion. It alleged that the network knowingly and repeatedly promoted Trump’s false narrative that the voting machines were part of a conspiracy to rob him of victory against Joe Biden. A week after the settlement, Fox ousted conservative firebrand Tucker Carlson, one of several prominent Fox figures who had publicly championed Trump, while privately disparaging the conspiracy theory peddling Republican. Succession and ‘Succession’ The transition of leadership to Murdoch’s son Lachlan, executive chair and chief executive officer at Fox Corporation, follows a period of intense speculation about the media empire’s leadership plans that proved the inspiration for the fictionalized and highly-rated “Succession” series on HBO. Third Bridge analyst Jamie Lumley said the transition could boost the odds of a merger between Fox and News Corp. The company still faces litigation over the Smartmatic suit on the 2020 election, said Lumley, adding “questions also remain about how Fox will approach its programming and coverage of the 2024 election cycle, a year which will be flush with political ad dollars.” In 2020, Lachlan’s younger brother James Murdoch, who had been in the running to lead the empire, resigned from the News Corp. board, alluding to “disagreements over certain editorial content.” James Murdoch and his wife Kathryn have also become significant donors to Democratic candidates and progressive environment and voting rights groups. In his farewell memo, Rupert Murdoch indicated that the family media companies would maintain their right-wing bent, saying his own father had believed in “freedom” and that Lachlan Murdoch “is absolutely committed to the cause.” Thursday’s upheaval is far from the end of the story. Under the terms of the Murdoch family trust that controls the media empire, Lachlan and James, along with sisters Elisabeth and Prudence, will have an equal vote on the business after the death of Rupert Murdoch. “The scramble for control will happen when he dies,” New York University professor Jay Rosen said on social media site X.