A media mogul Rupert Murdoch announced yesterday Thursday that he will be leaving the management positions of News Corporation and Fox Corporation at the ripe old age of 92. The hard-boiled media fox will be replaced by his eldest son, 52 years old Lachlan Murdoch.
Fox Corporation’s flagship is the right-wing Fox News, America’s most watched news channel, whose prime time broadcasts have well over one and a half million viewers. It served as president Donald Trump’s in the period as his main horn.
The selection of Lachlan Murdoch for the skull place ends Murdoch among the grown children years of power struggle. Lachlan Murdoch beat his older sisters in the selection Prudence and by Elisabeth Murdoch and his younger brother by James Murdoch.
This story tells who Lachlan Murdoch is and at the same time reveals how much the favorite series Succession is based on the Murdoch media family.
The long twist of a pair of brothers
Lachlan Murdoch was born in London in 1971. His mother is the second wife of Rupert Murdoch, Anna Maria dePeysterwho is also the mother of Elisabeth and James.
Lachlan Murdoch grew up in New York, from where his father took him to Australia to work at the age of 18. There began Lachlan Murdoch’s long run into his father’s media empire: first as an intern at the Daily Mirror newspaper, at the age of 22 he took on management positions at the newspaper publisher Queensland Newspaper, and in 1995 he became deputy CEO of the Australian News Limited media group.
Lachlan Murdoch graduated with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Princeton University in 1994. In 1996, it was time to return to New York and make his debut in the “main series” of the media empire, the media group News Corporation.
Lachlan Murdoch held various management positions at News Corporation for the next ten years until he ran into a workplace drama. He drifted into a confrontation by Roger Aileswith the ruthless populist visionary who founded Fox News in 2005.
Rupert Murdoch sided with Ailes in the dispute against his son, and he got the full measure. Lachlan Murdoch returned to Australia with his family, where he ran an investment firm for the next ten years.
Ailes was forced to resign from Fox in 2016 amid multiple harassment allegations, as was the channel’s favorite host Bill O’Reilly a year later.
While Lachlan Murdoch was living in Australia, the succession rumors turned to his brother James Murdoch, who was from a different country than his father and brother.
James Murdoch, who started in the family company in 1996, attracted attention with his actions. He among other things invested by American standards, to “liberal” media companies such as National Geographic, spoke with concern about the factual basis of Fox News reporting and wanted to make News Corporation and Fox Corporation’s operations carbon neutral.
It has been speculated that it was James Murdoch’s liberal undertones that caused Rupert Murdoch to patch up his relationship with Lachlan Murdoch around 2014. In his university days student conservative club Lachlan Murdoch, who ran Lachlan Murdoch, returned to work in the family company after being lured by his father. There, he quickly took a big role in significant decisions.
Deals and kicks
After returning to the family business, Lachlan Murdoch served, among other things, as chairman of the board of the 21st Century Fox media company – while James Murdoch served as its CEO.
In 2017, there was a big screen place for the brothers: 21st Century Fox announced that it would sell most of its film and television operations to Disney.
The deal was implemented in 2019, and the remaining production operations of the Murdochs were transferred to a company called Fox Corporation. Following the transactions, Lachlan Murdoch was named chairman and CEO of the new company. This was seen as a sign that Rupert Murdoch had chosen his successor.
In 2020, James Murdoch resigned from News Corporation’s board. At the beginning of 2021, he took In an interview with the Financial Times stands against “media owners” who spread disinformation and conspiracy theories. Joe Biden had been elected president the same year, and Fox News had constantly provided a platform for statements questioning the voting results in its reporting.
James Murdoch’s critical exit was seen as a decisive watershed moment, when the younger brother turned his back on the family business.
Lachlan Murdoch’s next test was precisely related to reporting the voting results.
In March 2021, voting equipment manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News for spreading lies and linking Dominion’s equipment to election fraud. The company demanded more than a billion dollars in damages. According to it, Lachlan Murdoch’s Fox News attacked voting machines as its viewership declined with Trump’s loss.
After much wrangling, in April of this year, Fox News settled with Dominion for $787.5 million in compensation.
More difficulties lay ahead. Just six days after signing with Dominion, the super popular TV anchor was announced by Tucker Carlson leaving Fox News. Based on the communications published in connection with the Dominion trial, it had been revealed that Carlson had spoken disparagingly of the TV channel’s audience and, among other things, of a female colleague who had used called “cunt”.
However, the reasons for Carlson’s firing are partly shrouded in obscurity. It has been evaluated in the media, that the Murdochs saw him as gaining too much power with his rabble-rousing evening show. The kicking decision was made by either Rupert or Lachlan Murdoch. According to Forbes Fox would have kept incriminating material about Carlson for publication if he had decided to challenge his firing.
Lachlan’s Dilemma
What kind of leader will News Corporation and Fox Corporation get from Lachlan Murdoch?
The political line is unlikely to change decisively. Rupert Murdoch is a conservative and so is Lachlan Murdoch. And both have one decisive opinion in the United States: according to numerous sources, they hate Donald Trump.
Whereas Trump and his supporters are neo-rights with colorful origins, Lachlan Murdoch is a “cultured bourgeois” shaped by American elite schools and old money.
Nonfiction writer by Michael Wolff the recent book about Rupert Murdoch, The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty according to Murdoch previously referred to Trump simply as a “fucking idiot.” Today, he updates why Trump isn’t already dead.
In the same book, Wolff claims At the time of the 2016 presidential election, Lachlan Murdoch had toilet paper with Trump’s face printed on it.
So the Murdochs want a different version of American conservatism than the one Trump offers. Here is a challenge in next year’s presidential election, for which Trump still appears to be the most likely candidate for the Republican Party.
When the fairy-tale popularity of Fox News in recent decades is based precisely on rabble-rousing, anti-liberal uproar, Lachlan Murdoch is faced with a challenge: Can the Murdoch media empire win without President Trump?
As a role model in a favorite series
Take the quiz below to vote on which of media mogul Logan Roy’s children on Succession resembles Lachlan Murdoch the most. You will also see the winner of the vote. You can create a ID here if you haven’t logged in yet.
What thoughts does the story evoke? The article can be discussed until Saturday, September 23, at 11 p.m.