This article is more than 3 years old
How
departure of James laid bare the Murdoch family rifts
This article
is more than 3 years old
The younger
son has quit the family firm, but the question of who eventually inherits
Rupert’s media empire remains a cliffhanger
Vanessa
Thorpe
Sun 2 Aug
2020 09.00 BST
The
unfolding story of the Murdoch family empire is often likened to a television
soap opera: there is plenty of jetsetting, wheeler-dealing, power-broking and
personal intrigue.
Yet Rupert
Murdoch’s dominance of the media scene in Britain, America and Australia has
been established for such a long time now that, if it were a fiction, fresh
plotlines would be in danger of running out. We have already seen sibling
rivalry, feuds, treachery, marital discord and public moral outrage.
But the
“writers’ room” churning out scripts for “The Murdochs” in a backroom somewhere
has pulled off another triumph this weekend. James Murdoch, the media magnate’s
younger son, has walked away from the business that has shaped his life and out
of the control of his 89-year-old Melbourne-born father.
Citing
differences over the editorial lines taken by the newspapers in the family’s
News Corp conglomerate, which include the Wall Street Journal and New York Post
and the Australian, as well as the Times and the Sun in Britain, the youngest
of Murdoch’s three children by Anna Maria Torv, his second wife, announced that
he would no longer sit on the board of directors.
“My
resignation is due to disagreements over certain editorial content published by
the company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions,” read an
official statement from the 47-year-old.
Yet if the
appeal of such a long-running family drama rests on its ability to surprise the
audience, then the latest twist in the Murdoch fortunes lacks real shock value.
James’s dislike of his father’s view on climate change – in short, that we
don’t need to worry unduly – has become increasingly evident, as have his own
leanings towards progressive politics.
For veteran
media expert Roy Greenslade, who has charted every turn in the patriarch’s
career, this weekend’s episode was no bolt from the blue. “It has been obvious
for a couple of years that James has been unhappy about his father’s – and
therefore the company’s – stance on climate change,” he said. “He and his wife
have been vocal critics of Rupert’s belief that the change is not the result of
human activity.”
The
bushfires that ravaged Australia at the beginning of the year are ostensibly at
the centre of James’s decision. In January, he and his wife, Kathryn, an
environmental campaigner, issued a statement expressing disappointment at
coverage by Fox News and other News Corp outlets.
An anonymous
former colleague described how her initial scepticism about James’s talents
proved unfounded. Speaking this weekend from LA, she said: “My hope is that
James will now use his resources to create antidotes to Fox News,” adding that
his faith that he could change the views of his father and brother may well
have just run out.
James’s
views on American politics are also a factor. The most liberal Murdoch donated
to Unite America and to the Anti-Defamation League, both liberal causes. He has
given cash to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, while, in contrast, the
family’s broadcast news outlet helped to elect the current incumbent. “James
has also been anything but a fan of Donald Trump and of his cable TV
cheerleader, Fox News,” said Greenslade.
The
outspoken conservative news channel was founded in 1996, when Murdoch was at a
peak of his influence. It became front-page material itself four years ago when
its former boss, the late Roger Ailes, was alleged to have assaulted more than
20 women. It has since earned heavy criticism for misleading messages on the
threat posed by Covid-19.
Murdoch
Senior now presides over a reduced Fox Corporation, which recently sold much of
its TV and film interests to Disney, and also over News Corps’s national and
regional newspapers and wire services. His elder son, Lachlan, 48, is now
co-chairman of News Corp and last year was named executive chairman and chief
executive of Fox Corp.
“The
resignation of James now clears the path for Lachlan to inherit the leadership
of News Corp after Rupert’s death and, just possibly, before it. But, given the
state of the newspaper industry, it is unlikely to be a welcome inheritance,”
said Greenslade.
And
inheritance is the key. As fans of the hit TV show Succession will understand,
when you have a family business on this scale, the question of legacy
dominates. Playwright Lucy Prebble, currently working on the third season of
the drama said to be inspired by the Murdochs, was aware of odd resonances this
weekend. “Although this is obviously a spoiler, there are uncanny echoes with
the end of season 2 and Kendall’s public stand against his father,” she said.
Murdoch
started to build his news empire, entering the British media market in the late
1960s, after acquiring a stable of Australian titles. This period inspired
another recent dramatic hit, James Graham’s West End and Broadway play, Ink,
now being turned into a film. “I want something loud … less hoity-toity and
artsy fartsy and fancy pantsy … Margins, bottom lines, the figures are what
counts,” Graham has a thrusting, 38-year-old Murdoch explain to the editor of
the Sun, urging it to conquer the Daily Mirror.
By 1973,
Murdoch was financially victorious, expanding into America and founding News
Corporation, one of the largest media groups in the world, seven years later.
He is currently thought to be worth $17bn.
Murdoch’s
great age has heightened speculation about future leadership. Last year, David
Dimbleby gave a lengthy overview in his podcast The Sun King. Murdoch was,
Dimbleby said, “an enigma” with a “risk-taking, buccaneering approach to
newsgathering and the use of that power to influence public attitudes”.
Last month
the BBC television documentary series, The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty,
presented the story so far to a wider audience. Its focus was the perceived
battle between Anna’s three children, with Elisabeth, 51, described as her
father’s probable favourite, and perhaps the most suited to filling his shoes.
“In the
usual sexist way, a lot of the rivalry has involved the brothers,” said Simon
Bunney, assistant producer of the documentary. “While James’s criticisms of Fox
News are clearly genuine, there is a question about his posture on politics. He
is politically closer to people like David Cameron and George Osborne than he
is to the left.”
Researchers
also detected that James’s ambitions were thwarted during the Disney purchase
of the Murdoch film businesses. “It had clearly been difficult for him to
recover from the phone-hacking scandal in Britain that resulted in the closure
of the News of the World, but to some extent he had managed that. With his
techy interests, he was thought to be keen to work more with TV and film,” said
Bunney.
James was
not the first child to step outside the fold, of course. Elisabeth pulled away
in 2001, becoming a successful independent television executive after working
under her father at BSkyB during the 1990s. Her second marriage, to PR guru
Matthew Freud, great-grandson of Sigmund, also brought her inside another more
famous dynasty, but a liberal one, and created new barriers.
She publicly
raised an eyebrow when her father left her mother to marry a former office
intern, Wendi Deng, the woman who went on to give Murdoch his two youngest
children, teenagers Grace and Chloe. Elisabeth, who is now the executive
chairman of a production company, also has a third, lower-profile elder
half-sister. Journalist Prudence Murdoch, 62, is the daughter of her father’s
first wife, Patricia Booker,
Since
Murdoch’s wedding to Deng in 1999, Elisabeth has stood in attendance, bouquet
in hand, for the latest of her father’s brides: this time Mick Jagger’s
ex-wife, Jerry Hall, the former model.
Curiosity
about the personal lives of this family inevitably drives public interest, but
it is their father’s impact on news coverage and on international politics that
still makes them important to monitor.
Britain’s
Murdoch newspapers are credited by many with giving Tony Blair the chance to
lead Britain through the late 1990s, and in turn, they are judged responsible
for shifting public opinion away from Gordon Brown to David Cameron.
It was under
Cameron’s premiership that Murdoch had his infamous “humblest day”, giving
testimony to the Leveson inquiry into press abuses carried out by his British
newspapers.
As the head
of the family approaches his 90th birthday next March, there is still scope for
further drama, with minor characters ready to step into the frame. Perhaps
daughters Chloe, Grace, or even Prudence, will emerge as players. Deng,
however, with her alleged romantic hankering for Tony Blair, and her lively
defence of her elderly husband during a parliamentary committee session, is
surely worthy of her own spin-off series.
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