tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/lachlan-murdoch-2229/articlesLachlan Murdoch – The Conversation2023-11-15T14:22:00Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2130242023-11-15T14:22:00Z2023-11-15T14:22:00ZAs Lachlan Murdoch takes over from his father he may need to reset News Corp’s relations with Donald Trump<p>As Rupert Murdoch hands over the reins of News Corp and Fox <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/e13a0081-538a-4cdf-966d-1a20da47605f">to his son Lachlan</a>, there is an opportunity to rebuild the relationship between the family’s media empire and former US president Donald Trump. This would make business sense for Fox as Trump is a ratings winner. But it may prove to be more difficult than it first appears.</p>
<p>The deterioration of the relationship between the Murdochs and the former president resulted in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-he-wont-take-part-republican-debates-2023-08-21/">Trump choosing</a> not to attend the Fox’s Republican debates. But Trump’s refusal to participate in any of the three debates has not affected his chances of gaining the nomination.</p>
<p>After the third debate on November 8, absent Trump was judged by 30% of the viewers to be the winner, <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12731283/Donald-Trump-named-real-winner-debate-DeSantis-Daily-Mail-poll-viewing-figures-revealed.html">in a J.L. Partners poll</a>. Further proof, according to one <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/08/how-donald-trump-got-the-upper-hand-on-fox-news">commentator</a>, that missing the debates has illustrated that Fox is more reliant on Trump than vice versa.</p>
<p>Trump’s love-hate relationship with Fox has been a long one, particularly his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/16/donald-trump-rupert-murdoch-friendship-fox-news">connection</a> with Murdoch and his family. During the late 1970s and 1980s, Trump featured regularly in the Page Six gossip column of the Murdoch-owned New York Post. His constant appearances in the paper <a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a30709872/page-six-gossip-history-new-york-post/">catapulted</a> Trump from a New York real-estate developer into a celebrity figure.</p>
<p>During the 2016 election cycle, Murdoch originally <a href="https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/04/murdoch-says-jeb-bush-paul-ryan-top-2016-list-but-he-could-vote-for-hillary-186645">supported</a> Jeb Bush, the son of former president George H.W. Bush and brother to president George W. Bush. Trump’s initial support within the Fox organisation in 2016 was through Roger Ailes, the chief executive, as well as leading presenter Bill O’Reilly.</p>
<p>When Trump became the leading candidate for the 2016 Republican nomination, the Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2016/04/14/the-post-endorses-donald-trump/">endorsed</a> him for the candidacy, while Murdoch <a href="https://twitter.com/rupertmurdoch/status/705134886324215808?s=20">stated</a> that the Republican Party would “be mad not to unify” behind him. Consequently, Fox and Trump’s relationship became a mutually supportive one – Fox supported his campaign, while Trump enhanced Fox’s viewing figures.</p>
<p>That’s not to say it was all smooth sailing. In January 2016, he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/27/us/politics/trump-feud-fox-debate.html">demanded</a> that Fox anchor Megyn Kelly be replaced as host of the second Fox-hosted debate after he accused her of treating her badly in the first. When Fox <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35422552">refused</a>, he avoided the second debate and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-election/trump-abruptly-withdraws-from-fox-debate-in-iowa-idUSL2N15B00Z">told</a> reporters: “Let’s see how much money Fox is going to make on the debate without me.”</p>
<p>Fox News was committed to the Trump presidency. During the first year, Fox News acted as a crucial mouthpiece for the Trump administration. Fox and Friends, the station’s breakfast show was a conduit between Trump and Republicans, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/sep/17/fox-and-friends-fox-news-donald-trump">exaggerating</a> Trump’s achievements. Trump reciprocated by parroting Fox’s talking points in his Twitter feed.</p>
<p>The Trump-Fox relationship started to deteriorate on 2020 election night, when the station announced that Joe Biden had won the state of Arizona. For the Trump campaign, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/05/fox-draws-trump-campaigns-ire-after-early-call-of-arizona-for-biden">this</a> was a betrayal. In March, Steve Bannon, host of the War Room podcast and Trump’s former chief strategist, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/03/the-trump-world-fox-news-war-gets-nasty-00085506">told the audience at CPAC</a>, the leading conservative conference, that Fox had done so illegitimately, constantly attacking Fox during his speech.</p>
<p>The gulf between Trump and Fox widened in April of this year. Fox’s <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/markets?utm_source=business_ribbon">support</a> of Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories surrounding vote rigging during the 2020 presidential election resulted in the organisation <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/first-read/fox-news-pays-price-2020-lies-trump-hasnt-yet-rcna80382">settling a defamation lawsuit</a> with the owners of the voting machines, Dominion Voting Systems, for US$787.5 million (£631.8 million).</p>
<p>According to some <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/03/donald-trump-relationship-fox-news">reports</a>, the settlement of the case, which involved admitting that the claims were without merit, was seen by Trump as the organisation turning its back on him. This was made worse by <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fox-chairman-rupert-murdoch-said-under-oath-2020-election-was-not-stolen-according-to-court-filings">Murdoch’s sworn testimony</a> that “the election was not stolen”.</p>
<h2>Maga-hating Murdoch</h2>
<p>Trump still has a good rapport with some Fox hosts, but his relationship with Murdoch has deteriorated to the point where Trump <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11807939/Trump-ups-attacks-MAGA-Hating-Globalist-RINO-Rupert-Murdoch.html">called Murdoch and the Fox executives</a> a group of “MAGA Hating Globalist RINOS” (Republican in name only). And his relationship with Fox in general is not the same as it was 2016. He also recently <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/110904845212218957">complained</a> about being unfairly treated by Fox and Friends.</p>
<p>Posting on his <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/110924112193729328">Truth Social website</a>, Trump claimed his decision to not attend the debate was because he was so far in front of his rivals in recent polls. While viewing <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/24/media/fox-news-gop-debate-ratings/index.html">figures</a> for the debate without Trump were higher than expected, they were half of those for the corresponding event in 2016.</p>
<p>Trump’s decision to release a recorded <a href="https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1694513603251241143?s=20">interview</a> on X with former Fox star Tucker Carlson shortly after the debate was another slap in the face for Fox. Choosing Carlson to be the host, who has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/08/business/media/tucker-carlson-trump.html">stated</a> he hated Trump on numerous occasions and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/26/tucker-carlson-fox-news-firing-condition-dominion-settlement">claimed</a> he himself had been fired from Fox News as part of the agreement with Dominion, was a thinly veiled attack on the channel.</p>
<p>Trump’s absence from the debates is unlikely to affect his chances of getting the Republican nomination. Polling experts <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/">FiveThirtyEight</a> give Trump 51.4% of the projected <a href="https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-r/2024/national/">vote</a>, with his nearest rival Floridian governor Ron DeSantis at a dwindling 14.5%. </p>
<h2>Lachlan Murdoch enters the fray</h2>
<p>Lachlan Murdoch thinks as much of Trump as his father does. One unnamed source is <a href="https://people.com/lachlan-murdoch-more-conservative-than-rupert-source-says-7973718">quoted as saying</a> that Lachlan has “had trouble with Trump’s antics” in the past. </p>
<p>So resetting the Murdoch-Trump relationship might not be so easy. It would show immense weakness on Lachlan’s part and might jeopardise his relationship with his father, <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/lachlan-murdoch-reunite-fox-news-trump-biographer-michael-wolff/">according to</a> Michael Wolff, Murdoch’s biographer.</p>
<p>But regardless of who is in charge, Fox News will need to start rebuilding bridges with Trump to ensure that it maintains the attention of its Republican audience. After all, despite not being there, Trump was still the source of much <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/24/business/media/fox-republican-debate-trump.html">debate</a> and interaction between the candidates in the debates. </p>
<p><a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4168345-fox-news-is-the-debates-biggest-loser/">Criticism</a> of the format of the first Fox debate suggests that Fox needs to do something if it wants to win the ratings war. And with <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12732397/Viewing-figures-Republican-debate-drop-NBC.html">declining viewing figures</a> for the debates without Trump, it needs to do something quickly. Meanwhile Trump, it seems, can do without Fox.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213024/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dafydd Townley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Will the son choose to build bridges with Trump that his father burned?Dafydd Townley, Teaching Fellow in International Security, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2142182023-11-01T12:35:32Z2023-11-01T12:35:32ZRupert Murdoch’s empire was built on a shrewd understanding of how media and power work<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555588/original/file-20231024-21-p46wd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C128%2C3579%2C2369&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The man at the center of the news.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/publishing-magnate-rupert-murdoch-at-the-printing-presses-news-photo/685183993?adppopup=true">Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS/VCG via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When businesspeople retire at an advanced age, it seldom makes headlines.</p>
<p>But when 92-year-old Rupert Murdoch <a href="https://apnews.com/article/murdoch-fox-quit-emeritus-30286a4a3107b7bde612adbfc7891958">announced in September</a> that he was stepping away from his multicontinent media empire and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/lachlan-rupert-murdoch-fox-news-a5100d8bd20f72efe5a83eec32823f1f">turning it over to his son Lachlan</a>, it was breaking news that generated countless stories <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/22/briefing/rupert-murdoch.html">speculating about the futures</a> of two of his most storied holdings, Fox and News Corp.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://miamioh.edu/profiles/cas/bruce-drushel.html">scholar who studies media organizations</a> and their political and economic influence, I see this level of attention as an indicator both of the significance of the companies Murdoch built and the way he used them to alter the media and political landscape.</p>
<h2>Murdoch the believer … or opportunist?</h2>
<p>Murdoch infused his print and television properties, first in his native Australia and later in the U.K. and the U.S., with a generally right-of-center slant. </p>
<p>But his reputation as a promoter of conservative ideals was at odds with his past. While a student at Oxford University, Murdoch <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/11/rupert-murdoch-kept-bust-lenin-oxford-dorm-room/335908/">kept a bust of Lenin</a> in his room and annoyed his father, Sir Keith Murdoch, <a href="https://www.afr.com/companies/media-and-marketing/rupert-murdoch-was-a-socialist-before-he-built-fox-news-20230906-p5e2ev">with his socialist views</a>.</p>
<p>When his father <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/murdoch-sir-keith-arthur-7693">died suddenly in 1952</a>, Murdoch inherited a small newspaper in Adelaide and soon was using its profits to buy up suburban papers all over Australia, as well as licenses for television stations.</p>
<p>His conquest of the U.K. began in 1969 with the purchase of a majority interest in <a href="https://www.historic-newspapers.co.uk/blog/news-of-the-world-history/">News of the World</a>, a major circulation Sunday tabloid. Eventually, he would add to it the daily tabloid <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2013/aug/27/rupert-murdoch-the-sun">The Sun</a> and the redoubtable but financially struggling <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1981/02/14/world/murdoch-in-challenge-of-my-life-buys-london-times-for-28-million.html">Times and Sunday Times</a>. </p>
<p>Through the 1970s, his politics moved to the right, culminating in his support – and The Sun’s much <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/28/how-margaret-thatcher-and-rupert-murdoch-made-secret-deal">sought-after editorial endorsement</a> – of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party.</p>
<p>Despite the conservative outlook of his publications, there always has been nagging <a href="https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2008/shafer-murdochs-a-political-opportunist-not-a-conservative/">speculation about the sincerity</a> of Murdoch’s ideological beliefs – whether they were tightly held or simply manifestations of political opportunism and his ability to anticipate the popular mood. Murdoch’s The Sun <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20120528-liveblog-former-british-pm-tony-blair-faces-leveson-grilling-london-godfather-murdoch">backed the center-left Tony Blair</a> when Conservative Party prime minister John Major fell out of favor in 1997.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two men in suits are seen through the back window of a car." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555590/original/file-20231024-27-kds6e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555590/original/file-20231024-27-kds6e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555590/original/file-20231024-27-kds6e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555590/original/file-20231024-27-kds6e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555590/original/file-20231024-27-kds6e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555590/original/file-20231024-27-kds6e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555590/original/file-20231024-27-kds6e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch, right, and his son Lachlan, center, in 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BritainPhoneHacking/140ab33fab704ff78a8a749681e4bf0f/photo?Query=murdoch%20lachlan&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=20&currentItemNo=2">AP Photo/Sang Tan</a></span>
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<p>His successes in the U.K. provided him with the strategic template for his eventual entry into the more lucrative U.S. market: Buy undervalued sources of content creation and then use their profits, along with a combination of emerging technology and political influence, to expand their distribution. </p>
<p>In the U.K., that meant the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/oct/12/rupertmurdoch.citynews1">secretive construction of a high-tech automated printing facility</a> that bypassed the labor unions. In the U.S., it might have contributed to a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/12/23/gingrich-45-million-book-deal-draws-fire/b6f90dae-1171-4401-899a-d0b6ca3c0b7d/">US$4.5 million book deal</a> for House Speaker Newt Gingrich with Murdoch’s publishing house HarperCollins. It came as the media tycoon was facing questions about where the money for his U.S. television properties was coming from – questions, it was suggested by critics, that the speaker’s influence could help smooth over.</p>
<h2>Building an American empire</h2>
<p>Murdoch’s American empire started in 1976 when he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1976/11/20/archives/new-jersey-pages-dorothy-schiff-agrees-to-sell-post-to-murdoch.html">purchased the tabloid the New York Post</a>. There, borrowing from his experience in the U.K., he flipped the newspaper’s ideology from liberal to conservative and used splash headlines and prurient content to more than double its circulation.</p>
<p>Also echoing a strategy he had employed in the U.K., he added the more respected <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118589043953483378">Wall Street Journal</a> to his holdings a number of years later, extending the reach of his influence from blue-collar to white-collar readers. </p>
<p>Anticipating the uncertain future of the newspaper business, Murdoch expanded his empire to include television.</p>
<p>He <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1985/03/21/murdoch-agrees-to-buy-a-50-percent-share-of-20th-century-fox-film/8862819b-50de-4ad3-aeb5-70ca84f109f1/">purchased the Twentieth Century Fox film and television studio</a> in 1985 to provide both production facilities and a library of content. The following year, he bought the television station holdings of <a href="https://www.company-histories.com/Metromedia-Company-Company-History.html">Metromedia</a> to form the distribution nucleus of what would become the Fox television network. </p>
<p>Doing so required a series of moves to meet Federal Communications Commission regulations. First, Murdoch would have to <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-09-04-mn-23112-story.html">become a U.S. citizen</a>. Second, Fox would have to limit its hours of broadcast in order to avoid meeting the official definition of a network and in so doing break FCC rules that at the time stated that a single company could not be both a network and a syndicator of programs.</p>
<p>Third, he would have to sell the New York Post, since another rule prohibited common ownership of a daily newspaper and television station in the same city. The FCC would later allow him to <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-03-30-fi-17004-story.html">repurchase the Post</a> out of bankruptcy in 1993, rather than see the newspaper fold.</p>
<h2>The birth of Fox News</h2>
<p>Unable to secure licenses for terrestrial television stations in the U.K., Murdoch <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/dec/09/from-launch-to-takeover-rupert-murdoch-and-sky">launched the Sky satellite service</a> in 1989 as both a content provider and a distribution system. Among Sky’s channels was Sky News, the U.K.’s first 24-hour news channel. Once Sky News had become profitable, Murdoch announced he would bring his brand of 24-hour news to the U.S. By <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/04/08/five-facts-about-fox-news/">October 1996, Fox News Channel</a>, led by former Republican Party strategist Roger Ailes, was on the air. </p>
<p>While Fox News is now very much associated with a viewership that skews older, conservative and white, the Fox broadcast network’s path to success with audiences and advertisers was initially based in its appeal to underserved audiences among young adults and African Americans.</p>
<p>Shows like “The Simpsons” and “Married … With Children” were seen as edgy in their representation of dysfunctional families. Meanwhile, “In Living Color,” “Roc,” “The Bernie Mac Show,” “Martin” and “Living Single” followed “The Cosby Show” playbook of focusing on Black authorship and autobiography to attract not just African Americans but <a href="https://www.penguinbookshop.com/book/9780195106121">audiences of all races and ethnicities</a>.</p>
<p>When Fox secured rights to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1993/12/18/fox-lands-contract-to-televise-the-nfl/7c20a84e-aa1b-4226-a0b4-fe724031cc17/">National Football League’s NFC games</a> in 1993, the network began targeting more mainstream audiences as well. As he had done in the newspaper business, Murdoch established his foothold in a niche market he perceived as being underserved and ripe for exploitation before setting his sights elsewhere.</p>
<h2>A less-than-graceful exit</h2>
<p>Despite his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2012/feb/20/sun-rupert-murdoch">reputation as a buccaneer</a> who took huge risks in expanding his holdings, skirting regulations and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/25/business/the-media-business-murdoch-s-company-wins-extension-on-bank-loans.html">delaying repayments of loans</a> from financial institutions, Murdoch avoided major legal and business setbacks for most of his career.</p>
<p>That only began to change in the mid-2000s.</p>
<p>First there was Myspace. <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-newscorp-myspace/news-corp-sells-myspace-ending-six-year-saga-idUSTRE75S6D720110629">News Corp. bought</a> what was then among the world’s most popular websites in 2005. But it soon went into decline, weighed down by failures to update its technology and features. Then, in 2011, a backlash from a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jul/10/news-of-the-world-10-years-since-phone-hacking-scandal-brought-down-tabloid">scandal involving the hacking</a> of cellphone accounts of a murdered teenage girl, British service personnel killed in action and a host of celebrities forced the closure of Murdoch’s first U.K. newspaper, the News of the World.</p>
<p>More recently, News Corp. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/11/24/938545344/fox-news-settles-with-seth-richs-parents-for-false-story-claiming-clinton-leaks">settled a lawsuit</a> brought by the parents of the late Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee staffer, after Fox News repeated right-wing conspiracy claims about the murdered man. It also <a href="https://time.com/6272910/dominion-settlement-fox-news-nightmare/">reached a $787.5 million settlement</a> with Dominion Voting Systems, which several Fox News hosts had accused of rigging the 2020 presidential election against Donald Trump. A <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/26/media/smartmatic-murdoch/index.html">similar defamation suit by Smartmatic</a> is pending.</p>
<p>For a man whose career was built on a shrewdness for reading the media landscape, such failures might well leave a bitter taste in retirement. But nonetheless, Murdoch will step down from his empire leaving mighty footprints.</p>
<p>It remains to be seen how his son Lachlan will fill them – or if he also inherited his father’s instincts and will lay down tracks for the empire in a new and unexpected direction.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214218/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bruce Drushel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As Rupert Murdoch prepares to hand over the keys to his media empire, what will his legacy be?Bruce Drushel, Professor of Media, Journalism and Film, Miami UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2141412023-09-22T01:50:29Z2023-09-22T01:50:29ZWhy is Rupert Murdoch stepping aside now and what does it mean for the company?<p>At age 92, media mogul Rupert Murdoch is <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-21/rupert-murdoch-steps-down-as-newscorp-chair/102887474">stepping down</a> as chairman of Fox Corporation and News Corp but will stay on in the role of chairman emeritus, presumably to help guide his eldest son Lachlan as the new head of the firm.</p>
<p>In many ways, the news was inevitable. The company is clearly planning its succession and how it manages Rupert’s decline. It has one eye on the market and one on ensuring the company maintains its direction.</p>
<p>But why now, and where to from here for the company? And what will Rupert Murdoch be remembered for?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-first-biography-of-lachlan-murdoch-provides-some-insights-but-leaves-important-questions-unanswered-192403">The first biography of Lachlan Murdoch provides some insights, but leaves important questions unanswered</a>
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<h2>Why now?</h2>
<p>Rupert’s departure was always going to come in one of two ways: either Rupert dropping off the perch or him leaving on this own terms. He has opted for the latter. </p>
<p>This means the company has chosen to manage the transition in a market-favourable way.</p>
<p>The transition to Lachlan looks, for the moment, to be well and truly secure. This gives him the chance under the leadership of Rupert to guide the company in the direction he – or Rupert – wants.</p>
<p>Rupert says he is in robust health but he was keen to hang on as long as possible. So, perhaps today’s news suggests his health is declining. We can only speculate but the man is, after all, 92.</p>
<h2>Would the recent lawsuits have played a role?</h2>
<p>Fox has been subject to several very expensive lawsuits in recent years, which caused a lot of turmoil internally. At the cost of US$787.5 million, Fox settled a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems over baseless claims made about its voting machines in the 2020 US presidential election. A different voting technology company, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/sep/21/rupert-murdoch-fox-news-lawsuits-donald-trump">Smartmatic</a>, is also suing.</p>
<p>But I doubt this played a huge role in Rupert stepping down because, in the end, a billion in lawsuits is nothing to a company that a few years ago made $70 billion by selling just some of its assets to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/09/21/fox-and-news-corp-stock-surges-as-rupert-murdoch-steps-down/?sh=37463b772a49">Disney</a>. </p>
<p>This is the price the company pays for its take-no-prisoners approach. It is proud of its uncompromising editorial stance, which is designed to pander to its right-wing audience. And there is no indication Lachlan will take it in a different direction. </p>
<h2>What next for Lachlan, with Rupert as chairman emeritus?</h2>
<p>In a sense, Rupert is not really stepping down. His new papal-like title of chairman emeritus recognises he will struggle to let go. But the new role is also about calming the market and saying, “Don’t worry, I haven’t gone away; I am still here and I have my hand on Lachlan’s shoulder.”</p>
<p>The best indication of Lachlan’s future stewardship of News Corp is his recent behaviour. He was at the helm of Fox News during Donald Trump’s presidential years and the immediate aftermath, when Fox News did enormous damage in its reporting on the 2020 election result. He was at the helm when Fox was making those baseless claims about Dominion Voting Systems. He had ample opportunity to guide the company in a different direction, but he didn’t. </p>
<p>So I think we can expect News Corp will continue to be the zealous right-wing media company it currently is.</p>
<h2>How might this affect the 2024 US election?</h2>
<p>News Corp has finally seen what millions of US voters saw at the 2020 election, which was that Trump was ultimately destructive as a leader. Now, outlets like Fox News are umming and ahhing about whether to back him. Some at Fox are clearly reluctant to let go of their adoration of Trump while others are disappointed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis isn’t emerging as a viable challenger.</p>
<p>If Trump continues to be the most popular Republican candidate, Fox will probably fall into line and support him, albeit with less enthusiasm than last time. </p>
<p>There is a sense of confusion within Fox about whom to back and where to stand, which reflects the chaos in US politics more broadly.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-the-earliest-years-of-his-career-the-young-rupert-murdoch-ruthlessly-pursued-his-interests-207829">From the earliest years of his career, the young Rupert Murdoch ruthlessly pursued his interests</a>
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<h2>So what’s Rupert’s legacy?</h2>
<p>It comes down to a ledger. Has this man done more harm or good in his life in the media?</p>
<p>On the good side, he has been a champion of newspapers. He has employed thousands of journalists and his outlets have often practised good public-interest journalism.</p>
<p>But I am afraid I believe the good is outweighed by all the harm done on Rupert’s watch.</p>
<p>His news media empire is fundamentally antisocial in the way it operates. I believe it’s caused so much harm to so many people along the way, and that cannot go unacknowledged. From the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-british-scandal-murdoch-20150611-story.html">UK phone hacking scandal</a> and beat ups to <a href="https://www.uts.edu.au/sites/default/files/Sceptical-Climate-Part-2-Climate-Science-in-Australian-Newspapers.pdf">climate denial</a> and the demonisation of minorities, News Corp can be counted on to dumb down complexity, make issues binary and turn one side against the other.</p>
<p>He has damaged democracy and civil discourse and journalism itself. The behaviour of News Corp has on occasions been reprehensible, for which I think Rupert must take the blame.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rupert-murdoch-how-a-22-year-old-zealous-laborite-turned-into-a-tabloid-tsar-204914">Rupert Murdoch: how a 22-year-old 'zealous Laborite' turned into a tabloid tsar</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214141/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Dodd is on the Public Interest Journalism Initiative's academic research advisory group. He is also a former media writer for The Australian, Crikey and the ABC. </span></em></p>This is a decision that was always going to come in one of two forms: either Rupert dropping off the perch or him leaving on this own terms. He has opted for the latter.Andrew Dodd, Director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2042792023-04-24T06:01:40Z2023-04-24T06:01:40ZLachlan Murdoch could well have won his Crikey lawsuit, so why did he drop it?<p>Late last week, Lachlan Murdoch <a href="https://www.fedcourt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/108692/NSD673-2022-Notice-of-Discontinuance.pdf">dropped</a> his defamation claim against key figures behind online publication Crikey.</p>
<p>Murdoch had a strong case. So why would he choose to drop it?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-fox-news-settlement-with-dominion-voting-systems-is-good-news-for-all-media-outlets-204095">Why Fox News' settlement with Dominion Voting Systems is good news for all media outlets</a>
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<h2>The facts of the case</h2>
<p>For those under a rock: Lachlan Murdoch is the son of Rupert. He is an Aussie-American-Brit leading News Corp and Fox Corporation. His empire includes Fox News in the US and Sky News in Australia.</p>
<p>Murdoch was suing over a June 2022 <a href="https://www.crikey.com.au/2022/06/29/january-six-hearing-donald-trump-comfirmed-unhinged-traitor/">article</a> on the subject of the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. The piece called Donald Trump a “traitor”, and Lachlan Murdoch Trump’s “unindicted co-conspirator” – a reference to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1974/06/07/archives/jury-named-nixon-a-coconspirator-but-didnt-indict-st-clair-confirms.html">Richard Nixon’s treatment</a> by a grand jury with respect to the Watergate scandal.</p>
<p>The underlying allegation was that Fox News had supported Trump’s “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2023/mar/09/trump-big-lie-2020-election-republican-supporters-congress">Big Lie</a>” that the 2020 US presidential election was stolen, which led to the insurrection; and that Lachlan Murdoch was responsible for Fox’s role in spreading the Big Lie.</p>
<p>After the article was published, Murdoch sent the publishers of Crikey a “concerns notice”, essentially threatening to sue them.</p>
<p>In response, the publishers <a href="https://fortune.com/2022/08/24/lachlan-murdoch-suing-crikey-defamation-capitol-insurrection-new-york-times-advert/">almost dared Murdoch to sue</a>. They even went so far as to take out an ad in The New York Times. According to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/nov/30/lachlan-murdoch-alleges-crikey-hired-marketing-firm-to-turn-legal-threat-into-subscription-drive">Murdoch</a>, those behind Crikey used his defamation threat as part of marketing campaign to drive subscriptions.</p>
<p>Challenging a billionaire to a defamation fight may not have been the smartest move. In September 2022, Murdoch <a href="https://www.fedcourt.gov.au/services/access-to-files-and-transcripts/online-files/murdoch-v-private-media">commenced proceedings</a> in the Federal Court of Australia. He sued the company publisher of Crikey, its editor, and the article’s author. Later, he also <a href="https://www.fedcourt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/107778/02.1-Amended-Statement-of-Claim-filed-31-January-2023.pdf">sued</a> the chair and chief executive of that company.</p>
<h2>Crikey’s defences may have failed</h2>
<p>The Crikey respondents were defending the case on a number of bases. Each of these defences relies on legal principles that excuse the publication of content that is defamatory for the sake of other important interests.</p>
<p>Perhaps their strongest defence was a new one: a statutory defence of “<a href="http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/da200599/s29a.html">publication of matter in the public interest</a>”. The defence became law in 2021. It means a defamatory publication is defensible if two conditions are met.</p>
<p>First, the publication must concern an “issue of public interest” – which the Crikey article clearly did. Second, the publishers must have “reasonably believed” that the publication of the matter (the article) was in the public interest.</p>
<p>The case may have turned on this second element of the new defence. What did the publishers believe? Was their belief about the public interest, or driving subscriptions for Crikey? There was a decent risk a court would have gone with the second option, and the defence would have failed.</p>
<p>If the defences had have failed, Murdoch would have won. So why would he choose to <a href="https://www.fedcourt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/108692/NSD673-2022-Notice-of-Discontinuance.pdf">discontinue</a> his case?</p>
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<h2>The backdrop of the Dominion v Fox case</h2>
<p>Just days ago, Murdoch’s Fox settled what would have been one of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/04/18/business/fox-news-dominion-trial-settlement">biggest defamation case of all time</a>. Dominion Voting Systems had sued Fox in the US, seeking a whopping US$1.6 billion damages.</p>
<p>It is extremely difficult to succeed in a defamation case against a media company under US law. But if ever there was a case where it could happen, this was it.</p>
<p>Through pre-trial procedures, Dominion had uncovered a treasure trove of evidence from people at Fox – including from the likes of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/business/media/fox-dominion-2020-election.html">Tucker Carlson</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/27/business/media/fox-news-dominion-rupert-murdoch.html">Rupert Murdoch himself</a>. </p>
<p>There was plenty of ammo for Dominion to argue Fox was deliberately spreading lies about Dominion, which would have been required for Dominion to succeed.</p>
<p>Just before the trial was about to start, Dominion agreed to put an end to the case in exchange for a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/18/dominion-wins-but-the-public-loses-fox-settlement-avoids-paying-the-highest-price">US$787.5 million payment</a> from Fox.</p>
<p>This was a steep price for Fox to pay but a loss would have cost substantially more in damages. And it would have cost more than money.</p>
<p>If the case had proceeded to trial, it would have caused tremendous damage to the Fox brand and that of its talking heads, further alienating the audience on which they depend. The evidence already uncovered was ugly, but it was about to get even uglier.</p>
<h2>Discontinuing the defamation case was a sound decision</h2>
<p>If Lachlan Murdoch continued the Crikey case, then all of the dirty laundry that was to be aired in the Dominion case could have been aired in Australia.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.alrc.gov.au/publication/traditional-rights-and-freedoms-encroachments-by-commonwealth-laws-alrc-interim-report-127/10-fair-trial/open-justice/">principle of open justice</a>, that evidence would have been heard in open court, with the global media watching. </p>
<p>Fox’s key benefit of the Dominion settlement – making the story go away, and not having to uncover further evidence – would have been destroyed. It would have been a massive own goal.</p>
<p>It’s likely Lachlan Murdoch himself would have been cross-examined.</p>
<h2>There are other reasons Murdoch would want the case to end now</h2>
<p>Say the case continued, and Lachlan Murdoch won. This would mean the Crikey respondents failed in their reliance on the statutory defence of “publication of matter in the public interest”. </p>
<p>The resulting judgment could set a precedent undermining the value of the new defence. </p>
<p>It is in Lachlan Murdoch’s ultimate interest that the defence remains strong: it will protect News Corp rags from publishing defamatory articles, which they are prone to do. Laying down his weapons now avoids that scenario.</p>
<p>And there is a reason <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/apr/21/lachlan-murdoch-drops-defamation-proceedings-against-independent-australian-publisher-crikey">Lachlan Murdoch has himself</a> given for ending his case: he does not want to give Crikey any more ammo for a marketing campaign to attract subscribers.</p>
<p>Murdoch insists he was confident he would have won his case. He may have won defamation damages but he could have lost far more.</p>
<p>Murdoch may end up having to pay the legal costs of the Crikey respondents. But this case was never really about money. <a href="https://www.afr.com/companies/media-and-marketing/ego-hubris-and-ideology-judge-blasts-crikey-v-murdoch-motives-20230404-p5cxwz">As the judge said a few weeks ago</a>, it was more about “ego and hubris”. Many defamation cases are.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/murdoch-v-crikey-highlights-how-australias-defamation-laws-protect-the-rich-and-powerful-189228">Murdoch v Crikey highlights how Australia's defamation laws protect the rich and powerful</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204279/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Douglas is a consultant in a litigation firm, where he has worked on defamation matters and acted for plaintiffs. He has been a member of the ALP and the Australian Republic Movement. </span></em></p>After the article was published, Murdoch sent the publishers of Crikey a ‘concerns notice’, essentially threatening to sue them. In response, the publishers almost dared Murdoch to sue.Michael Douglas, Senior Lecturer in Law, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2020832023-04-11T12:05:29Z2023-04-11T12:05:29ZAnyone can claim to be a journalist or a news organization, and publish lies with almost total impunity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520033/original/file-20230410-26-4zi81a.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3090%2C2046&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There are no standards for what it takes to be a journalist.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/participant-seen-holding-a-sign-outside-fox-news-hq-members-news-photo/1247874350?adppopup=true">Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Headlines in early March 2023 implied Fox News mogul Rupert Murdoch had <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/28/1159819849/fox-news-dominion-voting-rupert-murdoch-2020-election-fraud">made a damning confession</a>. He had affirmed that some of his most important journalists were reporting that the 2020 presidential election was a fraud – even though they knew they were propagating a lie. </p>
<p>It was an admission during pretrial testimony in a libel lawsuit filed against Fox by a voting machine company that says it was defamed by the lie. For journalism practitioners and devotees, the admission should signal the end of the Fox News empire. </p>
<p>Nope. It didn’t.</p>
<p>Such a disgraceful demise would seem inevitable when journalists – professionally trained truth gatherers, employed by a news organization, which is an institution that exists to provide truthful information – choose not to do so. </p>
<p>Nope.</p>
<p>That’s because a business that calls itself a news organization actually does not have to be one - but it does have to be a business. <a href="https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/lawevents/4/">Businesses exist primarily to make a profit</a> and doing actual news isn’t essential. Adam Serwer, reporting for <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/fox-news-dominion-voting-lawsuit-2020-election-conspiracy/673111/">The Atlantic</a>, wrote “sources at Fox told me to think of it not as a network per se, but as a profit machine.” </p>
<p>News businesses or profit machines can hire anybody who falls off a turnip truck and label them journalists because the job has <a href="https://www.bls.gov/ooh/media-and-communication/reporters-correspondents-and-broadcast-news-analysts.htm">no standardized requirements</a>. </p>
<p>The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics <a href="https://www.bls.gov/ooh/media-and-communication/reporters-correspondents-and-broadcast-news-analysts.htm">lists “None” as requirements</a> for work experience and on-the-job training for journalists but indicates a bachelor’s degree is typical. Accordingly, the Fox News business people could choose to spread election lies and insist, as court documents indicate, that it made good business sense to do so because much of their audience did not want the actual truth about that topic.</p>
<p>These are some of the troubling takeaways from Murdoch’s defense of his news business against <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20527880-dominion-v-fox-news-complaint">a libel lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting</a> Systems, the company implicated by Fox’s election fraud allegations. Fox essentially admits to publishing false information about Dominion, but argues it is nonetheless protected from liability. It is a defense grounded in the <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/">First Amendment</a>, which protects press freedom so robustly that it also protects the irresponsible use of that freedom. </p>
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<span class="caption">Lachlan Murdoch, left, and his father, Rupert Murdoch, lead the Fox corporation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rupert-murdoch-and-his-son-lachlan-murdoch-attend-the-news-photo/1027568416?adppopup=true">Jean Catuffe/GC Images</a></span>
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<h2>There’s lying … and there’s defamation</h2>
<p>Murdoch’s admission was contained in <a href="https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/dominion-fox-news/54e33f20f7fb6e8d/full.pdf">court documents</a> and was revealed in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/business/media/fox-dominion-2020-election.html">a New York Times story</a> published on March 7, 2023. The story was about the US$1.6 billion libel lawsuit <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20527880-dominion-v-fox-news-complaint">filed against Fox News</a> by Dominion, the company Fox journalists repeatedly - and falsely - accused of rigging the 2020 presidential election to make sure Donald Trump lost. </p>
<p>Internal Fox communications, reported by the New York Times, revealed that network journalists and their news executive bosses knew the 2020 election was not fraudulent, yet continued to allow lies about the election - told by hosts and their guests - to be spread to the public. </p>
<p>Dominion claimed Fox’s audience recoiled when its journalists truthfully reported that Trump had lost the election. Dominion’s attorneys asserted that Fox feared the audience would switch their viewing allegiance to upstart conservative news organizations Newsmax and One America News.</p>
<p>In a March 31, 2023, ruling, the judge hearing the case cited examples of Fox’s internal communications that demonstrated how journalism values were supplanted by the <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23736885-dominion-v-fox-summary-judgment">language and values of business</a>. Among them was this quote attributed to a Fox Corporation board member: “If ratings go down, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/02/27/business/media/dominion-fox-news.html">revenue goes down</a>.” The judge also referred to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/31/business/fox-dominion-defamation-case.html">Dominion’s claim</a> that Fox chose to publish the (false) statements to win back viewers. </p>
<p>Court documents show Dominion’s attorneys asked Murdoch: “What should the consequences be when Fox News executives knowingly allow lies to be broadcast?” Murdoch replied: “They should be reprimanded, maybe got rid of.”</p>
<p>That response aligns with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/editorial-standards/ethical-journalism.html#introductionAndPurpose">principles</a> widely touted by professional news organizations and established in the <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/The+Ethical+Journalist%3A+Making+Responsible+Decisions+in+the+Digital+Age%2C+3rd+Edition-p-9781119777489">ethical practice</a> of journalism. Although journalism scholars and practitioners vary in their definitions of what a <a href="https://www.cjr.org/special_report/disrupting-journalism-how-platforms-have-upended-the-news-intro.php">news organization is</a> and <a href="https://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/whos_a_journalist_zzzzzzzzzzzz.php">who can claim to be a journalist</a>, there is firm agreement that reporting facts, or at least making a good faith effort to do so, is an indispensable mandate for both. </p>
<p>Yet Murdoch has not indicated an intention to discipline en masse Fox News employees who violated that ethical principle. Nor is he required to. </p>
<p>Even the Society of Professional Journalists, the nation’s <a href="https://spj.org/">foremost advocate</a> for ethical journalism, <a href="https://www.spj.org/ethics-papers-code.asp">rejects punishments</a> for those who violate its principles. Its ethics code says in part: “The code is entirely voluntary. … It has no enforcement provisions or penalties for violations, and SPJ strongly discourages anyone from attempting to use it that way.” The organization concedes that news outlets can discipline their own journalists. Because journalists and their employers may be considered to be one entity, any disciplinary action is voluntary self-discipline. Neither journalists nor the news organizations they personify have to be truthful unless they want to. </p>
<p>Lying in the press is unethical but does not necessarily strip liars of the protections <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/567/709/">provided by the First Amendment</a>. There is an exception to this: the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/defamation">defamatory lie</a>, one that injures a person or organization’s reputation. That is what got Fox News sued.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520045/original/file-20230410-20-t0e1uv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A machine with the words 'Dominion Voting' on it, and a woman walking by in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520045/original/file-20230410-20-t0e1uv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520045/original/file-20230410-20-t0e1uv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520045/original/file-20230410-20-t0e1uv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520045/original/file-20230410-20-t0e1uv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520045/original/file-20230410-20-t0e1uv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520045/original/file-20230410-20-t0e1uv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520045/original/file-20230410-20-t0e1uv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The lawsuit filed by the maker of this voting machine, Dominion Voting Systems, charges that Fox News disseminated lies claiming that Dominion rigged the 2020 presidential election against Donald Trump.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/NotRealNews/4ef225a704cd42c383e7e24f7418b3a4/photo?Query=dominion%20lawsuit&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=38&currentItemNo=8">AP Photo/Ben Gray</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Assumptions fall</h2>
<p>Murdoch’s surprising statements were revealed in the lawsuit because his attorneys sought what’s called a “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/summary_judgment">summary judgment</a>” by the judge to decide the case without a trial, in order to avoid the prospect of facing a jury. That move makes sense given that some <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Law-of-Public-Communication/Lee-Stewart-Peters/p/book/9781032193120?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI7bmIi_-L_gIV3v_jBx0A-QzVEAAYASAAEgKm0fD_BwE">law scholars</a> have found that juries rule against media defendants three times out of four. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_56">By law</a>, summary judgment is available only when the parties agree on the material facts of the case. </p>
<p>That meant Fox and Murdoch had to admit to Dominion’s most damning allegations, including confessing to broadcasting untrue statements and engaging in other unethical journalism practices. Even with those admissions, the <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/889/actual-malice">First Amendment’s protection</a> could still give Fox a chance to win the lawsuit - particularly if a jury did not hear the case. </p>
<p>Without reaching trial or a verdict, the Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News lawsuit has already produced some unsettling results. It has challenged journalism disciples’ assumption that news organizations exist to <a href="https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/journalism-essentials/what-is-journalism/purpose-journalism/">provide the public with truthful information</a> about the most important issues in their civic lives. It has shaken journalism’s faithful who assume that <a href="https://niemanreports.org/articles/good-journalism-can-be-good-business/">good journalism is never bad</a> for the business of journalism.</p>
<p>Neither assumption is necessarily valid at Fox or anywhere. Anyone can claim to be a journalist, irrespective of their actual function. Any business can claim to be a news organization. Functioning irresponsibly in either role is largely protected by the First Amendment and is therefore optional.</p>
<p>Ethics imposed by independent state bar associations and state medical boards have made professional attorneys and physicians accountable by law as a means of ensuring responsible behavior in their roles, which are considered essential to society. Journalism ethics, which are news organization ethics, are wholly voluntary and can be set aside if they compromise profits. </p>
<p>But if the ethics violations are defamatory, a successful libel lawsuit can impose accountability with a financial cost - money damages.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202083/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John C. Watson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A news organization doesn’t have to publish or broadcast the facts or the truth. And there are no standardized requirements to be a journalist.John C. Watson, Associate Professor of Journalism, American UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1924032022-11-02T04:50:36Z2022-11-02T04:50:36ZThe first biography of Lachlan Murdoch provides some insights, but leaves important questions unanswered<p>The title of Paddy Manning’s <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/successor">The Successor: The High-Stakes Life of Lachlan Murdoch</a> tells us what is good and not so good about this biography.</p>
<p>It is a smart play on the title of the much-applauded HBO television series, <a href="https://www.hbo.com/succession">Succession</a>, which everyone except the show’s creators says is modelled on the decades-long corporate psychodrama within the Murdoch family. The Murdochs have said little about the Emmy Award-winning show, but in a knowing wink they chose to use Succession’s grandly jarring theme music in a tribute to Rupert at his 90th birthday party.</p>
<p>I say “Rupert” because he has long since joined the small club of globally famous figures known by their first name. Not so Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert’s third child but, importantly for him, his eldest son.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: The Successor: The High-Stakes Life of Lachlan Murdoch – Paddy Manning (Black Inc.)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The book’s subtitle is the giveaway. If a “high-stakes life” was Lachlan Murdoch’s defining feature, would it need to be spelt out? The subtitle of a biography of, say, Don Bradman, does not need to inform us of his “high-stakes” life as a cricketer.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492502/original/file-20221031-19-a0kbeu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492502/original/file-20221031-19-a0kbeu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492502/original/file-20221031-19-a0kbeu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492502/original/file-20221031-19-a0kbeu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492502/original/file-20221031-19-a0kbeu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492502/original/file-20221031-19-a0kbeu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492502/original/file-20221031-19-a0kbeu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492502/original/file-20221031-19-a0kbeu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<p>Lachlan Murdoch turned 50 last year. He is executive chair and chief executive of Fox Corporation, co-chair of News Corporation, founder of the investment company Illyria Pty Limited, and executive chair of Nova Entertainment. He was in his mid-twenties when he first headed the Australian arm of News Limited, as it was then known. In recent years, after several twists and turns, he has become the anointed heir to Rupert’s global media empire. But he still sits deep in the shadow of his father.</p>
<p>In June, the small independent news website Crikey published an <a href="https://www.crikey.com.au/2022/06/29/january-six-hearing-donald-trump-comfirmed-unhinged-traitor/">opinion piece</a> arguing the Murdoch-owned Fox Corporation bore at least some responsibility for the January 6 riots at the Capitol in Washington. Many read it as referring to Rupert, but it was Lachlan who <a href="https://www.crikey.com.au/2022/08/24/crikey-statement-lachlan-murdoch/">sued for defamation</a>.</p>
<p>The ensuing commentary noted that Rupert has never sued a journalist for defamation and asked whether Lachlan is thin-skinned. It is a fair question, given Lachlan has sued a journalist before for inaccurately reporting his use of the company’s private jet. </p>
<p>But it vaults over at least one reason Rupert has not sued: he has an army of his own journalists, who can be deployed to fight battles on his behalf. And they do. A relevant example is what happened to an authorised biographer, who slipped his minders and published a far less flattering portrait than had been anticipated.</p>
<p>Rupert gave more than 50 hours of interviews to Michael Wolff and greenlit his access to key senior people in News Corporation, but the resulting biography, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4846256-the-man-who-owns-the-news">The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch</a> (2008), reportedly infuriated Murdoch. It revealed, for instance, that the ageing media mogul was dyeing his hair to impress Wendi Deng, who is the same age as his second daughter, and who became his third wife in 1999. </p>
<p>The biography was not mentioned in News Corporation’s US outlets until March 2009, when the Murdoch-owned tabloid the New York Post reported Wolff’s marital troubles in its <a href="https://pagesix.com/2009/03/30/bald-truth-divorce-for-wolff/">Page Six gossip column</a>. “The bald, trout-pouted Vanity Fair writer, 55,” as Wolff was described, had been carrying on a “steamy public affair” with a 28-year-old intern, prompting his wife to evict him from their Manhattan apartment. So there.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rupert-murdoch-at-90-why-the-old-mogul-may-have-one-final-act-in-him-yet-156901">Rupert Murdoch at 90: why the old mogul may have one final act in him yet</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>An unauthorised account</h2>
<p>At least a half a dozen biographies have been written about Rupert, but The Successor is the first biography of Lachlan Murdoch. That alone makes it noteworthy. It is unauthorised and Lachlan was not interviewed for it, so it draws primarily on interviews with friends, colleagues and enemies, and on secondary sources, notably a good use of overseas media sources. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492503/original/file-20221031-15-8wzpb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492503/original/file-20221031-15-8wzpb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492503/original/file-20221031-15-8wzpb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=881&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492503/original/file-20221031-15-8wzpb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=881&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492503/original/file-20221031-15-8wzpb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=881&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492503/original/file-20221031-15-8wzpb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1107&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492503/original/file-20221031-15-8wzpb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1107&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492503/original/file-20221031-15-8wzpb6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1107&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lachlan Murdoch at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party, February 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Evan Agostini/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It draws less heavily on the voluminous academic literature about the Murdoch media, though when it does, Yochai Benkler, Robert Faris and Hal Roberts’ book <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/26406">Network Propaganda</a> (2018) is quoted to good effect. Discussing the role of the Fox News television network, they write: “Conspiracy theories that germinate in the nether regions of the internet stay there unless they find an amplification vector”.</p>
<p>What do we learn about the person who wields so much media power and influence? About Lachlan himself, not much. About Lachlan as a businessman, a bit more. About how Lachlan compares with Rupert and what that might mean for the media – and us, the audience – a good deal more.</p>
<p>The portrait that emerges of Lachlan is drawn in bright colours – he has an adventurous spirit, tattoos, boyish good-looks; he is friendly and easygoing – but it does not have much depth. There are endless descriptions, in real-estate brochure mode, of overlong yachts and stylishly appointed bathrooms in multi-million dollar mansions dotted across the globe. And there are numerous gossipy accounts of parties with Tom and Nicole and Baz. </p>
<p>Manning plumbs the standard biographical sources of his subject’s formative years, but they yield little of much import. At several points Joe Cross, a futures trader friend, is wheeled in to provide testimonials that are the verbal equivalent of eyewash. Here he is on Lachlan meeting his future wife, Sarah O’Hare:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was on […] he’s like, hook, line and sinker gone. And fair enough! With Sarah, she’s the whole package, she’s like a completely down-to-earth knockabout Aussie, being a supermodel didn’t hurt, and she loves all the things that Lachlan loved […] and she’s got a whole group of fabulous friends that now come together with his tight group of mates, and everyone gets on.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>More fruitfully, Manning recounts how Lachlan, for his final year thesis in an arts degree at Princeton, wrote about Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative as inflected by the ideas in the Bhagavad Gita. The thesis was good, according to his supervisor, Professor Beatrice Longuenesse. But what stayed with her, as reported by a journalist who interviewed her many years later, was how Lachlan resembled many other graduates of elite universities, who “glide to the highest reaches of the business world, which they do not tend to disrupt with the lofty ideas they explored as undergraduates”. </p>
<h2>Family business</h2>
<p>Perhaps the most interesting insight is the extent to which Lachlan is conscious of his family and its history. The family business and the business of the family are pillars around which his life revolves, both by birthright and by choice. He remembers everything negative written about his father, and is fiercely protective of both him and the memory of his grandfather, Keith Murdoch, who for many years headed the Herald and Weekly Times. </p>
<p>Surprisingly for an accomplished journalist, Manning tacitly accepts an abiding myth of the Murdoch family – Keith’s heroic role in writing the so-called “Gallipoli letter” during the first world war. Lachlan retold the story when his grandfather was inducted into the Melbourne Press Club’s Hall of Fame in 2012. </p>
<p>That Sir Keith’s letter was, in important ways, misleading and sensationalised has been discussed by several journalists and authors, including Les Carlyon in his bestselling book <a href="https://www.panmacmillan.com.au/9781743534229/">Gallipoli</a>, Mark Baker in his biography of another Gallipoli correspondent, <a href="https://insidestory.org.au/the-myth-of-keith-murdochs-gallipoli-letter/">Phillip Schuler</a>, and by Tom Roberts in his award-winning 2015 <a href="https://theconversation.com/book-review-before-rupert-keith-murdoch-and-the-birth-of-a-dynasty-49491">biography of Keith Murdoch</a>. </p>
<p>Not that Lachlan has always deferred to his father. Manning recounts his subject’s fury when, in 1999, Rupert reneged on an agreement with his second wife Anna, Lachlan’s mother, who had “given up her claim to an equal share of Rupert’s fortune precisely to ensure that Prudence, Elisabeth, Lachlan and James would not have to share the control or assets of the Murdoch Family Trust with any children from Rupert’s marriage to Wendi Deng”.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492903/original/file-20221102-28436-59h8xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492903/original/file-20221102-28436-59h8xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492903/original/file-20221102-28436-59h8xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492903/original/file-20221102-28436-59h8xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492903/original/file-20221102-28436-59h8xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492903/original/file-20221102-28436-59h8xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492903/original/file-20221102-28436-59h8xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492903/original/file-20221102-28436-59h8xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lachlan Murdoch’s parents, Rupert and Anna, in 1997.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alan Berliner/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Manning’s biography shows it is not well known that Lachlan and Anna, whose marriage to Rupert lasted much longer than his other three wives, staved off an attempt by Rupert and Elisabeth to sack James after the News of the World phone-hacking scandal. The unfolding scandal overlapped with the period between 2005 and 2014 when Lachlan had left the family company, because his father had not backed him when he was being monstered by executives in the US arm of the business.</p>
<p>Manning also recounts scenes from this period seemingly drafted for Succession. The then head of News Limited in Australia, John Hartigan, was forced to mediate between father and son over the amount of access Lachlan could have to the company’s Sydney headquarters. “Don’t let him into the fucking building,” Rupert is reported as saying. “When you’re out, you’re out.” </p>
<p>Later, the Murdoch siblings began attending family counselling, where they discussed working together to “hold Rupert to account to be a mentor to James and not undermine him, as he had done with Lachlan so many years before”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fox-news-donald-trumps-cheerleaders-and-the-journalists-who-challenged-his-narrative-149575">Fox News, Donald Trump's cheerleaders and the journalists who challenged his narrative</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Failures and successes</h2>
<p>Even Rupert Murdoch’s foes concede he has been a highly successful media businessman; what about Lachlan?</p>
<p>He has had some searing failures. He led News’ role in the 1990s rugby league wars. With James Packer, he made a multi-million dollar losing investment in the internet service provider OneTel. Worst of all, he lost his $150 million investment in Channel Ten, which for a time he headed. </p>
<p>He has also had some notable successes. He invested around $10 million early in a standalone online classified advertising site, realestate.com.au, that is today worth billions. He bought a share of an Indian Premier League cricket team, the Rajasthan Royals, whose value increased dramatically. And he bought into Nova Entertainment, successfully re-setting the pitch of its radio stations, notably Smooth FM. </p>
<p>On the evidence presented in Manning’s biography, Lachlan is a good businessman, if not in the same league as his father, which is admittedly rarefied air. He was given a start in business few others have enjoyed. Sifting the benefits of privilege from natural ability and hard work is not straightforward, but Manning lays out a telling statistic. In 2022, Lachlan’s wealth was estimated at $3.95 billion in the Australian Financial Review’s annual rich list. The same list gave the wealth of his older sister Prudence at $2.58 billion. She “had not worked a day for their father’s business and had mostly escaped the Murdoch spotlight”.</p>
<p>Prudence may well be a savvy investor, and her second husband worked for many years in News Corp. She may also have an eye to what happens to News and Fox in the future. The latest speculation among Murdoch watchers, which Manning discusses, is the possibility that after Rupert Murdoch’s passing, three of the four siblings who retain shares in the family company, Prudence, Elisabeth and James, will combine to oust Lachlan. According to one Wall Street analyst, who has followed News for decades and is privy to the breakdown in the relationship between the siblings, it is “fair to assume Lachlan gets fired the day Rupert dies”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492891/original/file-20221101-23-53u5du.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492891/original/file-20221101-23-53u5du.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492891/original/file-20221101-23-53u5du.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492891/original/file-20221101-23-53u5du.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492891/original/file-20221101-23-53u5du.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492891/original/file-20221101-23-53u5du.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492891/original/file-20221101-23-53u5du.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492891/original/file-20221101-23-53u5du.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lachlan, Rupert and James Murdoch at the Television Academy Hall of Fame, Beverly Hills, California, March 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Steinberg/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/courting-the-chameleon-how-the-us-election-reveals-rupert-murdochs-political-colours-149910">Courting the chameleon: how the US election reveals Rupert Murdoch's political colours</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Right and wrong</h2>
<p>It is hard to know whether this is real or just speculation. It is also not clear how much of the breakdown in family relationships is sibling rivalry and how much is fuelled by ideological differences. James Murdoch has severed ties with News and Fox. He is on the record criticising the company’s reporting on climate change and its coverage of former president Trump’s efforts to reject the electorate’s decision in the 2020 election.</p>
<p>The core question The Successor raises in this reader’s mind, though, is how the portrait of Lachlan as a decent, socially progressive family guy in the first half of the book squares with the picture in the second half of a hard-nosed businessman who endorses the extreme, inflammatory opinions broadcast nightly on Fox News. Does he do this because it attracts viewers or because he actually believes Tucker Carlson’s ravings about the racist “great replacement” theory? </p>
<p>Where does Lachlan stand on these issues? Like his father, he has an abiding love of newspapers, but appears most engaged with them as a business, where Rupert has always had an almost visceral sense of news, both for itself and for what it can do for him and his companies. Manning reports Lachlan’s speeches espousing the virtues of press freedom and his interviews defending Fox, but the speeches are boilerplate and the comments unconvincing. Asked in one interview about Fox’s role in polarising America, Lachlan pointed to criticism of Fox from the far right, saying: “If you’ve got the left and the right criticising you, you’re doing something right.”</p>
<p>Or something profoundly wrong. This is the evidence of several media analyses reported in The Successor. Manning acknowledges that at a key point in the vote-counting for the 2020 presidential election, Fox News correctly called the result. But in the following two weeks the network cast doubt on the result at least 774 times, according to the watchdog group Media Matters. </p>
<p>Media Matters is a left-leaning organisation, so its count might be dismissed as partisan, but an investigation earlier this year by the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/us/tucker-carlson-gop-republican-party.html">New York Times</a> of 1100 episodes of Tucker Carlson Tonight found that he had amplified the great replacement theory 400 times. The number of guests who disagreed with Carlson was found to be decreasing, while the length of his monologues was increasing to double, even triple their earlier length. </p>
<p>When the US congressional hearings into the January 6 riot at the Capitol were held earlier this year, Lachlan, according to Manning, decided to air them not on Fox News, but on the little watched Fox Business channel. This was in stark contrast not only to the prominence other television networks gave to the historic hearings, but to the vast amount of airtime previously given on Fox News to the </p>
<blockquote>
<p>wild and false claims of a rigged election by Rudy Guiliani and Sidney Powell […] once again calling into question whether the channel was really in the news business at all. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Lachlan has argued that, however florid the opinions aired on Fox, the network’s news coverage is professional and balanced. Its coverage of the congressional hearings belied this claim. It was aired late at night, from 11pm. Apart from muted acknowledgement of the force of some of the testimony, Manning writes, “the rest was about sowing doubt and trying to move on”. </p>
<p>By this point, most have realised that Lachlan is further to the right than his father, whose primary outlets in America, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, have denounced as shameful former president Trump’s role in the Capitol riot. The effect, then, of the second half of The Successor is to undermine the portrait of Lachlan in first half, rendering it almost meaningless. The two can’t be squared. </p>
<p>Ultimately, Lachlan has to take responsibility for what Fox News does and the impact of its broadcasts. If he won’t, there are two multi-billion dollar lawsuits underway to focus his attention. The voting-machine companies, Smartmatic and Dominion, are alleging Fox News knowingly and maliciously spread a false narrative accusing them of election fraud.</p>
<p>Lachlan is still young by the family’s standards. His grandmother, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, died aged 103, which Rupert described, perhaps apocryphally, as an early death. As the first biography of the current head of a powerful media empire, The Successor is well worth reading. It probably won’t be the last biography; nor should it be, as there is more to know about Lachlan Murdoch, the enterprise he heads, and the siblings who appear to covet it. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cruelty-pettiness-and-real-estate-in-confidence-man-maggie-haberman-wields-eye-popping-anecdotes-to-plumb-the-trump-phenomenon-191684">Cruelty, pettiness and real estate: in Confidence Man, Maggie Haberman wields eye popping anecdotes to plumb the Trump phenomenon</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192403/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Ricketson is the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance's representative on the Australian Press Council. </span></em></p>He is the heir-apparent of a global media empire, but how much to we really know about Lachlan Murdoch?Matthew Ricketson, Professor of Communication, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1892282022-08-24T02:58:58Z2022-08-24T02:58:58ZMurdoch v Crikey highlights how Australia’s defamation laws protect the rich and powerful<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480688/original/file-20220824-11-lq8kfh.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C0%2C2002%2C1462&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lachlan Murdoch, far left, with his father Rupert and brother James in 2014</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Steinberg/AP/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is no better example of how Australia’s defamation laws enable the rich and powerful to intimidate their critics than Lachlan Murdoch suing Crikey.com over a comment piece concerning Fox News, Donald Trump and the Washington insurrection of January 6 2021.</p>
<p>Crikey says it has <a href="https://www.crikey.com.au/2022/08/22/lachlan-murdoch-letters-crikey-why/">published the correspondence</a> between its lawyers and Murdoch’s in order to show how media power is abused in Australia. </p>
<p>The correspondence begins with a “concerns notice” Murdoch sent to Crikey, which is the essential first step in launching an action for defamation. In it, Murdoch claims that the <a href="https://www.crikey.com.au/2022/06/29/january-six-hearing-donald-trump-comfirmed-unhinged-traitor/">Crikey commentary</a> by Bernard Keane, published on June 29 2022, conveyed 14 meanings that were defamatory of Murdoch.</p>
<h2>Murdoch’s allegation and Crikey’s defence</h2>
<p>According to Murdoch’s claims, Keane’s piece alleges that Lachlan Murdoch illegally conspired with Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 US presidential election result and incite an armed mob to march on the Capitol to prevent the result from being confirmed.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/web-activists-avaaz-put-lachlan-murdochs-media-interests-under-the-spotlight-7083">Web activists Avaaz put Lachlan Murdoch's media interests under the spotlight</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>Crikey has responded by disputing that these meanings are conveyed, saying they are
“contrived and do not arise”. Crikey also argues that whatever it published could not possibly have done serious harm to Lachlan Murdoch’s reputation. </p>
<p>In order to get an action for defamation off the ground, Murdoch, the plaintiff in this case, has to satisfy the court that serious reputational harm has been done. The court may well decide this is the case.</p>
<p>Crikey says that given what much bigger media companies such as the Washington Post, the New York Times and the ABC (American Broadcasting Company) have already published about Murdoch’s Fox News and its propagation of the “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen, what Crikey has published cannot further harm Murdoch’s reputation.</p>
<h2>US vs Australian defamation protections</h2>
<p>This brings us to the first way Australia’s defamation laws facilitate intimidatory action by the rich and powerful.</p>
<p>Since those two big American newspapers have published similar material to that published by Crikey, the question naturally arises: why has Lachlan Murdoch not sued them? The answer is that in the United States, there is a “public figure” defence to defamation. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-defamation-suits-in-australia-are-so-ubiquitous-and-difficult-to-defend-for-media-organisations-157143">Why defamation suits in Australia are so ubiquitous — and difficult to defend for media organisations</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In the US, Lachlan Murdoch would easily qualify as a public figure, being executive chairman and CEO of Fox Corporation. If he sued there, he would have to prove malice on the part of the newspapers. That means he would have to prove that the newspapers lied or were recklessly indifferent to the truth.</p>
<p>No such defence is available to the media in Australia, despite decades of intermittent campaigning by the media that it is needed. The reasons these efforts have gone nowhere are twofold.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480694/original/file-20220824-12-swa4nd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480694/original/file-20220824-12-swa4nd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480694/original/file-20220824-12-swa4nd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480694/original/file-20220824-12-swa4nd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480694/original/file-20220824-12-swa4nd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480694/original/file-20220824-12-swa4nd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480694/original/file-20220824-12-swa4nd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480694/original/file-20220824-12-swa4nd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Murdoch claims that Crikey’s piece alleges that he illegally conspired with Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 US presidential election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>First, Australian politicians are among the most avid users of defamation laws, and it would be unrealistic to expect they would change this convenient state of affairs. This has been illustrated recently by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/nov/05/friendlyjordies-%20defamation-case-jordan-shanks-apologises-to-john-barilaro-to-settle-claim">successful defamation action</a> taken by the former deputy premier of NSW, John Barilaro, against an online satirist, Jordan Shanks, aka friendlyjordies.</p>
<p>Second, the tradition of accountability in public life is weak in Australia and the tradition of secrecy is strong, as vividly demonstrated by Scott Morrison’s behaviour in the affair of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/16/scott-morrison-five-more-secret-ministries-minister-portfolio-ministry-including-treasury-home-affairs">multiple portfolios</a>.</p>
<p>Another major factor in the chilling effect that the Australian defamation laws exert on the media is the extravagant damages the courts have awarded to plaintiffs that sue media companies, as well as the high cost of litigation. This has caused large media companies to settle cases even when they had an arguable prospect of defending themselves.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-law-says-the-media-cant-spin-lies-entertainment-magazines-arent-an-exception-132186">Australian law says the media can't spin lies – 'entertainment magazines' aren't an exception</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>A recent example was when the biography of the AFL player Eddie Betts was published, confirming what had happened at the now notorious training camp held by the Adelaide Crows in 2018. At the camp, Betts alleged he was targeted, abused and the camp “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-02/eddie-betts-autobiography-adelaide-crows-training-camp/101294046#:%7E:text=Former%20Adelaide%20star%20Eddie%20Betts,from%20the%20club's%20leadership%20group">misused personal and sensitive information</a>.” </p>
<p>However, when The Age broke the story initially, it was sued by the company that ran the camp. The newspaper <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/afl-players-betrayed-by-a-win-at-all-costs-culture-%2020220804-p5b78a.html">issued an apology</a>, although it did not admit the story was wrong.</p>
<p>The Age said its parent company, Nine Entertainment, had made a “business decision” to settle the case. In other words, it did not want to risk the costs and damages involved in contesting the suit.</p>
<h2>Liabilities for online publication</h2>
<p>A third main factor is the failure of the Morrison administration to bring to finality stage two of the defamation law reforms, which concern the liabilities and defences for online publication. </p>
<p>Currently, anyone who publishes a website or a blog is liable for the comments made there by <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-08/high-court-rules-on-media-responsibility-over-%20facebook-comments/100442626">third parties</a>. Continuously moderating comment streams for potentially defamatory material is onerous and expensive at a time when media organisations have far fewer resources than they did in the pre-digital age.</p>
<p>Against this backdrop, it is hardly surprising that Lachlan Murdoch feels he can use his immense wealth and power to intimidate and silence a relatively small outfit like Crikey.com. Behind him stand corporations with a market capitalisation of billions. Crikey says its company, Private Media, is valued at less than $20 million.</p>
<h2>Murdoch’s demands</h2>
<p>Murdoch wants Crikey to take down the story and issue an apology. In
pursuit of his case, he has filed suit in the Federal Court.</p>
<p>In defiance of Murdoch’s claim, Crikey has published his 2014 oration at the State Library of Victoria named in honour of his grandfather, Sir Keith Murdoch, as part of its <a href="https://www.crikey.com.au/2022/08/22/lachlan-murdoch-letters-crikey-why/">publishing of the legal correspondence</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Censorship should be resisted in all its insidious forms.
We should be vigilant of the gradual erosion of our freedom to know, to be informed
and make reasoned decisions in our society and in our democracy.
We must all take notice and, like Sir Keith, have the courage to act when those
freedoms are threatened.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Quite.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189228/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Denis Muller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Australia’s defamation laws have been inadequate for years - as this case starkly shows.Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1224492019-08-27T20:04:48Z2019-08-27T20:04:48ZLachlan Murdoch and scores of other business chiefs want to put people before profits? Really?<p>The legitimacy crisis facing corporate America must be starting to scare its affluent elite. The US Business Round Table has just published an <a href="https://opportunity.businessroundtable.org/ourcommitment/">open letter</a> arguing that it’s time for business to put people before profits.</p>
<p>Signed by chief executives of some of the world’s richest firms – including Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, Apple boss Tim Cook, and Fox’s executive chairman Lachlan Murdoch – the statement admits that in the past business leaders believed “corporations exist principally to serve their shareholders”. </p>
<p>But it says the times have changed. Corporations should now also focus on helping workers, the environment and other vulnerable “stakeholders”.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Since 1978, Business Roundtable has periodically issued Principles of Corporate Governance that include language on the purpose of a corporation. Each version of that document issued since 1997 has stated that corporations exist principally to serve their shareholders. </p>
<p>It has become clear that this language on corporate purpose does not accurately describe the ways in which we and our fellow CEOs endeavor every day to create value for all our stakeholders, whose long-term interests are inseparable.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Like many similar proclamations by the ultra-wealthy clique of American chief executives, the statement is meant to look as if capitalism is changing its ways.</p>
<p>Big business is no longer just about increasing shareholder value but “investing in our employees” as well as supporting communities, the environment, and suppliers. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289390/original/file-20190826-8868-5ktbcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289390/original/file-20190826-8868-5ktbcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/289390/original/file-20190826-8868-5ktbcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289390/original/file-20190826-8868-5ktbcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289390/original/file-20190826-8868-5ktbcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289390/original/file-20190826-8868-5ktbcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289390/original/file-20190826-8868-5ktbcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/289390/original/file-20190826-8868-5ktbcr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://opportunity.businessroundtable.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Business-Roundtable-Statement-on-the-Purpose-of-a-Corporation-with-Signatures.pdf">US Business Roundtable, August 2019</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When <a href="https://www.apple.com/leadership/tim-cook/">Tim Cook</a> speaks, people listen.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/19/business/business-roundtable-ceos-corporations.html">New York Times</a> prominently featured news about the letter on its website, announcing a sea change in how America does business.</p>
<p>But looking through the platitudes about caring for “stakeholders”, an ulterior motive emerges.</p>
<h2>Less than it seems</h2>
<p>In the long wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, when working people carried the brunt of the US recession while Jeff Bezos increased his wealth by <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com.au/how-much-jeff-bezos-richest-billionaires-make-every-day-2018-3?r=US&IR=T">US$107 million every day</a>, the business elite needs to periodically tell people that it really does care, that corporate capitalism is a force for good and not evil.</p>
<p>There are signs in the statement that point to its strategic nature. </p>
<p>For example, it says the tenets of neoliberalism and free markets are basically sound and do not require reform: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We believe the free-market system is the best means of generating good jobs, a strong and sustainable economy, innovation, a healthy environment and economic opportunity for all.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is the free-market system that gave us the global financial crisis, income inequality on an unprecedented scale, unattainable house prices and, in Australia, wage growth that has stagnated for half a decade. Economies in the US and Europe are a mess, and Australia’s isn’t looking good. </p>
<p>The underlying sentiment in the statement is business-as-usual, plus “ethical fluff”.</p>
<h2>And much is missing</h2>
<p>What it doesn’t mention speaks volumes. </p>
<p>Nowhere does it broach the thorny issue of tax. Several of the signatories of the letter – including <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/business-42830383/blackrock-chief-larry-fink-praises-trump-tax-cuts">Larry Fink</a> from Blackrock – praised President Donald Trump’s corporate tax cuts. Their effect on inequality isn’t canvassed.</p>
<p>The elite often dismiss criticisms of corporate capitalism as pie-in-the-sky: tax is complex, we’re told. But don’t be fooled. A practical step would be a simple change in tax laws that makes <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/15/amazon-tax-bill-2018-no-taxes-despite-billions-profit">Amazon</a> and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-01/google-facebook-make-billions-in-australian-sales-pay-little-tax/11060474">Google</a> pay more than the minuscule percentage of revenue in tax that they current do.</p>
<p>Statements of “corporate social responsibility” – where oil firms, mining conglomerates and others pledge to do more for the environment or for workers or “stakeholders” – are often designed to ward off regulations that could limit their ability to make profits. They are often pre-emptory, designed to get in first.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/one-big-problem-with-how-jeff-and-mackenzie-bezos-are-spending-a-small-share-of-their-fortune-103311">One big problem with how Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos are spending a small share of their fortune</a>
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</em>
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<p>They are like inoculations: business leaders get a tiny jab of the dose to immunise themselves against the real thing. </p>
<p>Or perhaps they mean it. We’ve yet to see signs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122449/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Fleming does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>181 business leaders say they’ve changed tack. From now on they’ll look after “stakeholders” as well as shareholders, but it’s not clear they mean it.Peter Fleming, Professor, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/806132017-07-12T20:07:10Z2017-07-12T20:07:10ZNetwork Ten’s future is all about media power, not economics<p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jul/04/channel-10s-billionaire-shareholders-signal-intention-to-take-over-network">future of Network Ten</a> is not primarily about business or economics. It is primarily about power. Yet the formal processes the network’s proposed sale has to go through take no account of this reality.</p>
<p>At present there is an offer on the table from Lachlan Murdoch and Bruce Gordon. Until recently they were on the Ten board as chair and director respectively. Then they, along with James Packer, pulled the plug on their guarantees underwriting the Commonwealth Bank’s A$200 million overdraft that keeps the company afloat.</p>
<p>When that happened, the board called in the administrators. Then, last week, the bank appointed receiver-managers, and it is they who are now formally presiding over the network’s future.</p>
<p>So far, two parties have emerged to express interest in buying it. One is from Murdoch-Gordon through their private companies Illyria and Birketu respectively, and the other is from a US investment management outfit, Oaktree Capital.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-05/accc-confirms-network-ten-joint-bid-by-gordon-and-murdoch/8680160">The first regulator</a> to look at this is the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). Its remit is all about business and economics.</p>
<p>In preparing to review bids for the network, the ACCC has asked questions about the competition for content, and the capacity for Ten to strike favourable content deals with production companies.</p>
<p>Doubtless there will be further questions – about competition in the advertising marketplace, for instance.</p>
<p>If the Oaktree overtures go anywhere, the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) would get involved.</p>
<p>Neither of these agencies is in a position to ask the central question: what would be the political and social effects of concentrating media power across newspapers, radio stations, free-to-air TV, pay TV, and a major online news site in one pair of hands?</p>
<p>As a matter of principle, it doesn’t matter whose hands they are. As <a href="https://acton.org/pub/religion-liberty/volume-2-number-6/power-corrupts">Lord Acton’s dictum</a> states: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>No-one person is more susceptible than another: everyone is equally vulnerable.</p>
<p>There has never been the opportunity for such a concentration of media power before. When Paul Keating put in place the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/the-history-of-media-ownership-in-australia/6831206">existing media ownership rules</a> in 1987, there were only three media platforms: newspapers, radio and TV.</p>
<p>Now, digital technology has given us the internet, which both extends the reach and multiplies the outlets of media content-makers. It has also created means by which the various types of platforms converge: newspapers broadcast audio and video; radio and TV stations publish text.</p>
<p>If the Murdoch-Gordon joint venture were to acquire Network Ten, then the Murdoch empire in Australia would acquire an unprecedented share of media power in a landscape that is already one of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-is-australias-level-of-media-ownership-concentration-one-of-the-highest-in-the-world-68437">most concentrated in the Western world</a>. It would achieve this because Lachlan Murdoch is also co-chairman of News Corp, part of his father Rupert’s global media operations.</p>
<p>Rupert has a long history of using his media platforms, especially his newspapers and his Fox News network in the US, to prosecute his political agenda.</p>
<p>So, the effect would be to place unprecedented concentration of media power in the hands of a proprietor who shamelessly uses that power for political ends. This would confront the federal government with an acute dilemma.</p>
<p>Digital technology has made nonsense of the current media ownership laws. It is nonsense to have rules preventing a media owner from reaching more than 75% of the national audience when the national audience can get anything from anywhere on digital platforms.</p>
<p>It is nonsense to have a rule that says one owner can have only two out of three of the original platforms – print, radio and TV – in the one market when the distinctions between them have been more or less erased by digital convergence.</p>
<p>But if these rules are removed – and the legislation to do that is now before the Senate – the way will be open for the Murdoch-Gordon joint venture to acquire Ten.</p>
<p>Ten is the weakest of the three commercial TV channels, so it is unlikely that the ACCC will object to this on competition grounds.</p>
<p>That leaves the political question: will the federal government be prepared to act to prevent such a concentration of media power in a single pair of hands, regardless of whose hands they are? It is not just an anti-Murdoch question, although his propensity to use his media platforms for political purposes gives it a sharper edge. It is a question about power.</p>
<p>How much power is the government prepared to allow any single media proprietor to have, and what would be the consequences for the Australian body politic of allowing that to happen?</p>
<p>It would be preferable for this question to be addressed in parliament, where voters could see who was saying what to whom. However, it is entirely possible that it would be decided in a room made up entirely of senior politicians and interested businesspeople.</p>
<p>There is a precedent. In 1991, the Canadian newspaper proprietor Conrad Black <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/fairfax-didnt-want-to-dance-with-a-devil-20071211-1gga.html">obtained a 14.9% interest in Fairfax</a>, enough to give him effective but unstable control. In 1992, he asked Prime Minister Paul Keating to let him have 25%.</p>
<p>According to Black in his <a href="http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1686992">1993 autobiography</a>, Keating had privately promised to let him raise his Fairfax stake if the newspapers’ political coverage was “balanced”. Keating denied having made any promises, but confirmed that he had told Black: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We’ll think about it, but we want a commitment from you that the paper will be balanced.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Forget your receiver-managers, your ACCCs and FIRBs. Forget the public interest. When the crunch comes, that’s how media policy gets done in Australia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80613/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Denis Muller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The most pertinent issue is how much power the federal government is prepared to allow any single media proprietor to have.Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/248842014-03-28T00:22:42Z2014-03-28T00:22:42ZLachlan Murdoch and News: the first-born son is ahead … for now<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44864/original/3dvtsbj2-1395885091.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lachlan Murdoch, oldest son of Rupert, has returned to the position of preferred heir to the throne of News Corp and 21st Century Fox.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Andrew Gombert</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>After nearly nine years down under doing his own thing with <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/building-another-murdoch-empire-20111118-1nmqv.html">Illyria</a>, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/lachlan-murdochs-messy-legacy-at-ten-20140327-35kaw.html">Network Ten</a> and <a href="http://www.novafm.com.au/article/lachlan-murdoch-becomes-chairman-dmg-radio-australia">Nova</a>, Lachlan Murdoch’s <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/news-corp-names-lachlan-murdoch-nonexecutive-chairman-20140326-35isb.html?rand=1395869065328">return to the family business</a> as non-executive co-chairman of News Corp and 21st Century Fox has been widely reported as an “end” to Rupert Murdoch’s succession dilemma. The first-born son has returned to the position of preferred heir to the throne.</p>
<p>That seems like a fair reading of the news, even as younger sibling James is promoted to co-chief operating officer of the company alongside Rupert’s trusted lieutenant Chase Carey. “Co-chief operating officer” in one of the world’s largest media empires is a position of power and authority, no doubt. But it smacks of the mundane, day-to-day stuff, pursued under the watchful eye of the older, more trusted Carey. </p>
<p>It was Carey who, in the immediate wake of the UK phone hacking scandal that <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/may/01/james-murdoch-phone-hacking-report">brought James Murdoch down</a>, was <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/10/us-newscorp-idUSTRE77967X20110810">mentioned by Rupert</a> as a possible future chairman of the company. Now, it seems his role is to keep James out of trouble by immersing him in the operation and administration – rather than strategic direction – of News Corp.</p>
<p>That’s not such a bad outcome for the younger son, who testified himself into a corner at the 2011 UK Commons select committee <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/culture-media-and-sport-committee/news/news-international-executives-respond-to-summons/">hearings on phone hacking</a>. </p>
<p>Then, in the white heat of public outrage about Milly Dowler, and with the US regulatory authorities keeping a close eye on proceedings and what they revealed about the fitness of the Murdochs for corporate governance, James <a href="http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/live-rupert-and-james-murdoch-give-evidence-to-mps-on-hacking/s2/a545236/">denied</a> that as News International chairman since 2007 he had direct knowledge of phone hacking or other illegal newsgathering activities.</p>
<p>James <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/22/world/europe/22murdoch.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">also insisted</a> that he had authorised a large out-of-court settlement to a celebrity victim of phone hacking solely on legal advice, and not in any way to avoid further damaging publicity around the emerging criminality of elements in the News International operation. He was innocent of impropriety, he pleaded, and guilty only of not knowing enough about what his subordinates were up to. This was also Rupert’s line before the same committee.</p>
<p>The committee members found this to be a case of implausible deniability, and said as much. James avoided criminal prosecution, but <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/feb/29/james-murdoch-resigns-news-international-chairman">had to resign</a> his UK News International positions. He oversaw the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14070733">closure of the News of the World</a> and the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/jul/13/rupert-murdoch-gives-up-bskyb-bid">collapse</a> of News Corp’s potentially lucrative takeover bid for a 100% stake of BSkyB. </p>
<p>But if James avoided being further embroiled in the phone hacking scandal by claiming in essence to have been elsewhere at the time, he thereby revealed himself to be a recklessly hands-off executive. He became a tainted figure, far removed from the “clean hands” management style required by a post-Rupert News Corp in the United States. His defence strategy was at the same time his downfall. </p>
<p>To this day, as the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/mar/27/rebekah-brooks-pa-denies-lying-police-hacking-inquiry">court cases</a> against former News International executives and journalists continue to trundle through the English courts, the Murdoch and News brands are deeply tarnished in the UK.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44954/original/55zf5yjk-1395957931.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44954/original/55zf5yjk-1395957931.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44954/original/55zf5yjk-1395957931.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44954/original/55zf5yjk-1395957931.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44954/original/55zf5yjk-1395957931.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44954/original/55zf5yjk-1395957931.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44954/original/55zf5yjk-1395957931.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">During the phone hacking scandal, James Murdoch revealed himself to be a recklessly hands-off executive.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/PA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lachlan, on the other hand, was clean, free of any involvement in News’ UK excesses. Having asserted his independence by <a href="http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/14302/">walking away</a> from a senior News Corp role in 2005 for a future in Australia, he rushed to his father’s side when the hacking scandal broke. This added to his reputation for independence and business propriety, plus he demonstrated the virtue of family loyalty and a readiness to stick up for his dad. </p>
<p>From that moment, and assuming the continued absence of daughter <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_Murdoch_(businesswoman)">Elisabeth Murdoch</a> from Rupert’s succession plans, Lachlan became the man to watch.</p>
<p>But being made co-chairman doesn’t necessarily mean Lachlan will succeed his father at the helm of News Corp and 21st Century Fox. Post-hacking, the board of which he is now co-chairman view the Murdochs with <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/oct/16/rupert-murdoch-shareholders-news-corp-agm">far less deference</a>.</p>
<p>Lachlan Murdoch’s future at News Corp will be determined not by his father’s desire to keep the company in family hands, but by business success the shareholders can dine out on.</p>
<p>In that context, it may or may not be significant that Lachlan’s recent period in Australia has been spent not in the news media, but with entertainment-driven companies such as Nova and Network Ten. He would appear, on the basis of that record, to be more suited to running 21st Century Fox than News Corp. The former is the real cash cow and the most important to shareholders. The latter is Rupert’s baby, and he will go to the grave ruling it with an iron fist. </p>
<p>If that is a fair prediction, then the new division of executive labour at the top of the Murdoch empire will see Rupert retaining control of News Corp, while Lachlan takes 21st Century Fox into the digital future.</p>
<p>As for Elisabeth, who has previously <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2014/03/murdochs-missing-daughter.html">made clear</a> her personal distaste for the more rabid sectors of News Corp journalism, the time may be coming when she can return to a more visible role in the company.</p>
<p>If and when Lachlan becomes the only chairman of the board, Elisabeth may feel it is safe to go back to the family business. She could perhaps even work to restore the reputations of those news divisions whose standing Rupert and James allowed to become so comprehensively trashed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24884/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian McNair receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>After nearly nine years down under doing his own thing with Illyria, Network Ten and Nova, Lachlan Murdoch’s return to the family business as non-executive co-chairman of News Corp and 21st Century Fox…Brian McNair, Professor of Journalism, Media and Communication, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/188352013-10-06T19:26:24Z2013-10-06T19:26:24ZBook review: Breaking News – Sex, Lies & the Murdoch Succession<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32387/original/4ypgw9hq-1380781155.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Media mogul Rupert Murdoch on his 'most humble day' before a British parliamentary inquiry into phone hacking. Paul Barry's new book delivers an insight into his rise and recent troubles.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Press Association</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The best lines in investigative journalist Paul Barry’s new book - <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/default.aspx?page=94&book=9781741759785">Breaking News: Sex, Lies & the Murdoch Succession</a> - are supplied by Lord Conrad Black of Crossharbour, that connoisseur of corporate integrity once imprisoned for fraud and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23728144">recently barred</a> from holding company directorships in the United States.</p>
<p>Formerly owner of London’s Daily Telegraph and of a controlling interest in Fairfax, Black watched his long-time rival Rupert Murdoch <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/world/most-humble-day-of-my-life-20110719-1hndl.html">appear</a> before the House of Commons Culture Committee to answer for the phone hacking scandal, and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/conrad-black/rupert-murdoch-news-corp-_b_1017372.html">knew what he saw</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[Rupert’s] old possum routine…Bumbling into a parliamentary hearing…supported on each arm like a centenarian semi-cadaver, mumbling about humility.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Such was Black’s assessment of Murdoch’s now widely-lampooned statement that “this is the most humble day of my life”.</p>
<p>But was it humility, in fact, that Murdoch was seeking to express? Or was it a statement with as many meanings as a listener cared to read into it? Murdoch is a master of the English tongue and masterful in creating ambiguity of just this kind. Could he have been saying it was a day on which he found himself in a more demeaning position than ever before? Or did he mean “humbling”, which might have indicated remorse? Or “humiliating”, which might have indicated a sense of shame?</p>
<p>No. Murdoch chose “humble”, which conveyed the impression of humility but not necessarily the substance.</p>
<p>A few months later Murdoch <a href="http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5026/transcript-rupert-murdoch-recorded-at-meeting-with-sun-staff">told his journalists</a> on The Sun that the whole police investigation into their bribery of the police to obtain information was “laughable”, “outrageous” and “over next to nothing”.</p>
<p>Here Murdoch was talking to a different audience. These were people who were in danger of losing their jobs and perhaps their liberty as a result of corrupt behaviour at his newspaper. He avoided acknowledging any responsibility for their crisis, but clearly sought to create an impression of solidarity.</p>
<p>To these two performances, there was a common thread: avoid responsibility, but create impressions suited to the occasion, even if they are contradictory. </p>
<p>Contradictions like this seem not to bother Murdoch. He is willing to tell people whatever he thinks it is in his interests to tell them, regardless of truth or logical consistency. Through this book, a picture emerges of a man with a disordered personality, so obsessive about business success that norms of civilised behaviour, the processes of reason and his treatment of people - including his children - are ruthlessly subordinated to it.</p>
<p>Murdoch even contrives at one point to present himself as a victim of the hacking scandal, a delusional inversion of the truth if ever there was one.</p>
<p>Barry writes at one point about there being two Ruperts - the charming Rupert and the cynical Rupert. The evidence of the book suggests that there is in fact only one: it is the cynical Rupert, and the charm is cynically deployed in order to help him advance his business interests.</p>
<p>Barry’s book has three main benefits. First, he untangles the numerous inquiries, case histories and court cases arising from the hacking scandal, and sets them out in a coherent fashion. This makes the book a valuable reference and summary.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32388/original/2sw479sp-1380781295.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/32388/original/2sw479sp-1380781295.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=837&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32388/original/2sw479sp-1380781295.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=837&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32388/original/2sw479sp-1380781295.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=837&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32388/original/2sw479sp-1380781295.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1051&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32388/original/2sw479sp-1380781295.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1051&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/32388/original/2sw479sp-1380781295.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1051&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Allen & Unwin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The book also keeps public attention on the criminal wrongdoing at Murdoch’s British newspaper operations. This serves the public interest.</p>
<p>Finally, it helps us see with greater clarity the real nature of Murdoch’s power. He has the power to destroy lives. He uses it unscrupulously to intimidate people in public life so that his business or political interests are advanced, or to take revenge on people he sees as enemies.</p>
<p>The impact of his use of this power to target individuals is clear-cut: we can see the victims of the hatchet jobs, we can see what happens to their lives. Harder to quantify is the extent of Murdoch’s power to alter political destinies or achieve political objectives beyond the field of his own business interests – media and communications. The impact of this power is questionable, as has been demonstrated by another valuable book, <a href="http://www.allenandunwin.com/default.aspx?page=94&book=9781742373522">Rupert Murdoch: An Investigation of Political Power</a>, by author and academic David McKnight.</p>
<p>Murdoch trades on the idea that he can make and unmake governments. In fact, history tells us he is adept at picking prospective winners and then backing him or (in Margaret Thatcher’s case) her.</p>
<p>Whether his backing makes any difference is a moot point, but politicians clearly think it does. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin_MacKenzie">Kelvin MacKenzie</a>, a former editor of The Sun, is reported by Barry as having said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The most incredible aspect I have seen in my lifetime is the queue of politicians lining up to kiss Rupert’s backside.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So there are strong reasons to welcome this book, even though the amount of new material is limited. Part one is a brief Murdoch biography. Part two consists of extended profiles of the three Murdoch children who are involved in the business and seem destined to be part of the succession, and part four gives an account of the recent division of the empire in which the loss-making newspapers were hived off from the profitable broadcast operations.</p>
<p>The book’s real strength is in part three. This is where the entrails of the phone hacking scandal are laid out, and where Murdoch’s capacity for manipulation and treachery is most vividly on display.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18835/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Denis Muller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The best lines in investigative journalist Paul Barry’s new book - Breaking News: Sex, Lies & the Murdoch Succession - are supplied by Lord Conrad Black of Crossharbour, that connoisseur of corporate…Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/70832012-05-17T22:51:19Z2012-05-17T22:51:19ZWeb activists Avaaz put Lachlan Murdoch’s media interests under the spotlight<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/10754/original/3sjpfvrw-1337233627.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lachlan Murdoch's familial and professional links with News Corporation - as well as Channel 10 and radio network DMG - are cause for concern for internet activists Avaaz. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The worldwide online activist group <a href="http://www.avaaz.org/en/">Avaaz</a>, which claims over 14 million members and operations in 193 countries, has this week <a href="http://www.avaaz.org/en/australia_investigate_lachlan_murdoch/?cUcEAbb">launched an Australian campaign against Lachlan Murdoch</a>.</p>
<p>The group has written to the chair of the Australian Communication and Media Authority (ACMA), Chris Chapman, seeking an inquiry into Lachlan Murdoch’s links with News Limited, Channel 10 and radio networks DMG and Nova.</p>
<p>In an one-line email response to The Conversation, an ACMA spokesperson indicated that normal practice is not to comment on complaints.</p>
<p>According to Avaaz’s letter to ACMA, the group is alleging that Lachlan Murdoch could be in breach of the Broadcasting Services Act because he might be in a position of influence and control over three media companies that operate in the Sydney radio licence area.</p>
<p>The Broadcasting Services Act outlines a situation of “unacceptable three-way control”, where an individual is in a position to exercise control over a commercial radio licence, a newspaper and a television station in one metropolitan market.</p>
<p>The claim hinges on two factors: Lachlan Murdoch’s non-executive directorship of News Corporation (headquartered in the USA) and his family ties to father Rupert and brother James.</p>
<p>The Murodchs’ Australian operation, News Limited, is a wholly owned subsidiary of News Corp and Avaaz argues that Lachlan’s “strong associations” with his father – chairman and CEO of News Corp and chairman of News Limited in Australia – are enough to suggest he is in a position of influence and control over News Limited.</p>
<p>Lachlan is also on the board of Network Ten and has been chair of DMG radio since 2009. Avaaz further suggests that Lachlan’s association with the Murdoch family trust and the dual share structure of News Corp, which gives the Murdoch family effective control over the company, points to his ability to control what News Limited is doing in Australia.</p>
<p>Avaaz is relying on definitions of “associate” and “control” in the Broadcasting Services Act. An associate can be a person or a company that acts in concert with another person or company to exercise control over relevant media assets in the designated radio licence area. Control is also broadly defined to include control as a result of, or by means of, trusts, agreements, arrangements, understandings and practices, whether or not these have legal or equitable force and whether or not they based on legal or equitable rights.</p>
<p>However, in a statement released to the media, ACMA says that Lachlan Murdoch does not appear on the regulators schedule as a controller of News Limited assets in Australia. As such, he is not in breach of the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/bsa1992214/s61aea.html">cross-media ownership rules</a> and there is no “unacceptable three-way control” situation.</p>
<p>When The Conversation sought clarification of this position, we were advised that the only statement ACMA would be making was a few lines issued the previous day via the Bloomberg news agency and published in the <a href="http://m.smh.com.au/business/news-shareholders-shrug-off-market-bloodletting-20120516-1yr7t.html">Sydney Morning Herald</a>.</p>
<p><em>“The ACMA’s public register of controllers does not include [Lachlan Murdoch] as a controller of the News Corp/News Ltd newspapers. It naturally follows that we don’t regard him as a controller. He’s only listed there as controller of radio and TV assets.”</em></p>
<p>After numerous phone calls and emails, we are no closer to understanding whether ACMA intends to take this matter any further, or if the “complaint” from Avaaz has been dealt with by way of Wednesday’s brief media statement.</p>
<p>Attempts to contact a local Avaaz spokesperson have also come to nought.</p>
<p><strong>The global chase</strong></p>
<p>Avaaz has been chasing the Murdoch family around the world for the past year. The group stages media events in London when Rupert or his sons appear in public. In April last year, members of the group <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/apr/24/avaaz-activist-network-rupert-murdoch">gathered outside the High Court</a> to highlight the News of the World hacking scandal.</p>
<p>Then in July last year another colourful demonstration (that included activists with Rupert masks) was held outside Westminster. </p>
<p>Avaaz was back again last week when former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks <a href="http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2012/05/11/Former-Murdoch-exec-speaks-before-inquiry/UPI-47271336754143/?spt=hs&or=tn">gave evidence before the Leveson inquiry</a>.</p>
<p>In Australia, Avaaz has previously campaigned against <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-06/accusations-fly-over-australia-network-decision/3714294">Sky News getting the Australia Network channel contract</a>, which the government eventually gave to the ABC under less than transparent circumstances.</p>
<p>Avaaz works through an online network and claims over 300,000 supporters in Australia. Alongside its colourful protest actions, Avaaz also campaigns through online petitions that it claims attract millions of respondents.</p>
<p>The group’s Australian targets also spread beyond the Murdoch clan. In February, Avaaz launched a petition opposing Gina Rinehart’s buy up of shares in the Fairfax Media group. However, it appears that the petition has not gained the 50,000 signatures the group was seeking before presenting it to Communications Minister Stephen Conroy.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Ms Rinehart is <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/editorial-pledge-bar-to-rinehart-fairfax-seat/story-e6frg8zx-1226358200439">keeping up the pressure</a> on the Fairfax Media board to give her two directorships. So far the board has refused, though chairman Roger Corbett is reportedly doing the rounds to shore up his “non-intervention” pact with other directors.</p>
<p>In February this year, Avaaz launched a petition to the British broadcasting regulator Ofcom. The group describes News International as the “Murdoch mafia”.</p>
<p>Over 50,000 have so far signed the online form to <a href="http://www.avaaz.org/en/end_the_murdoch_mafia/">support the petition</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Kiwi regulators to take a look at Sky too</strong></p>
<p>Its also been reported this week that the New Zealand competition regulator is examining business deals involving local News Corp assets.</p>
<p>After giving a green light to join venture plans between TVNZ and Sky to launch <a href="http://www.igloo.co.nz/pages/home.php">Igloo</a>, a low-cost pre-paid <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPTV">IPTV</a> operation, the NZ Commerce Commission has signaled <a href="http://www.comcom.govt.nz/media-releases/detail/2012/commission-finds-igloo-joint-venture-unlikely-to-lessen-competition-in-pay-tv-market">another investigation</a> into Sky’s dealing with ISPs that may have competition implications.</p>
<p>Shares in Sky New Zealand apparently fell in response to this news and it seems that News Corporation and its local subsidiaries in several countries are now firmly in the cross-hairs of <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-rupert-murdoch-safe-from-australian-regulators-6875">regulators, politicians and activists</a> alike.</p>
<p>All this attention must make it uncomfortable for Rupert and his children when they have discussions with other board members, or field questions from shareholders.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/7083/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Hirst is a member of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance.</span></em></p>The worldwide online activist group Avaaz, which claims over 14 million members and operations in 193 countries, has this week launched an Australian campaign against Lachlan Murdoch. The group has written…Martin Hirst, Associate Professor Journalism & Media, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/51872012-02-04T01:06:41Z2012-02-04T01:06:41ZMedia moguls or corporate looters? Rinehart’s raid marks a changing of the guard<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/7382/original/md5q93j3-1328313409.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What are Rinehart's real intentions?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>James Packer, Lachlan Murdoch, Kerry Stokes, John Singleton and Gina Rinehart. While Stokes and Singleton have been around media traps for a few years now, the return of a Packer, a Murdoch and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/gina-rinehart">addition of Rinehart</a> represents a changing of the guard for Australian media dynasties.</p>
<p>But this will not necessarily mean a return to a past where empires and family fortunes are entirely entwined. Perhaps, ironically, it signals the end of the dynastic age and the emergence of new corporate battles for control of media assets.</p>
<h2>Why buy?</h2>
<p>Much attention has been focused this week on Australia’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart. Her play for Fairfax Media assets and her well-known disdain for “communist” journalists are a potent mix in these post-News Of The World days.</p>
<p>There has been speculation and rumour about her motives, none of it substantiated, but all interesting.</p>
<p>I particularly like <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/02/02/mayne-now-is-not-the-time-for-gina-rinehart-to-be-be-saying-look-at-me/">Stephen Maynes’ theory</a> that Rinehart’s decision to raid into Fairfax was an act of hubris and rage at the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/management/the-iron-lady-20120116-1q1u6.html">unsympathetic portrait</a> by Jane Cadzow in Good Weekend (published by Fairfax). From published accounts this seems a typical Rinehart approach to solving a problem.</p>
<p>Others raise the possibility that Rinehart and Singleton will now join forces to create a super network of right wing shock-jockery to campaign against Labor in the 2013 election. This is an attractive theory that aligns well with the suggestion Rinehart is a fierce warrior for conservative forces in Australia. It would be easy to do as Fairfax radio assets have been in play and Singleton’s Macquarie Network is a keen buyer.</p>
<p>Then there’s my favourite theory: Rinehart will grab the Fairfax papers, leaving the rest of the company behind. She will gut the current communistic news staff and hire a bunch of young Liberal communications majors; thus turning the SMH and the Age into simulacra of The Australian’s right-wing bile factory.</p>
<p>All equally attractive propositions to Rinehart’s lovers and haters alike. There’s no doubt her actions have polarized the media landscape and created turmoil in the already fragile media asset market.</p>
<h2>Sinking ships</h2>
<p>This is an exciting spectacle and it has generated a great deal of imagining about the future of Fairfax Media, the Ten network, and many of the other major media players. Fairfax may yet be broken up under Rinehart’s assault on its share register; but it is not the only media company facing an uncertain future.</p>
<p>Let’s not forget, for example, that Nine has some rather <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2011/s3386052.htm">big bills falling due</a> and creditors are in no mood to take a bath on this expensive-to-run white elephant. Nine’s troubles began when James Packer sold out of the company to concentrate on casinos, now the equity capitalists are wondering who might bail them out.</p>
<p>Kerry Packer is gone; Rupert is hardly here anymore, and no one much under 40 would know the connection between <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/syme-david-4679">David Syme</a>, <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/fairfax-sir-warwick-oswald-12475">Warwick Fairfax</a> and dried up rivers of gold. It seems the new media saviours may yet be riding out of the rusted West, in the larger-than-life form of Rinehart and her posse of cashed-up angry miners. </p>
<p>It’s not quite the <a href="http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/eureka-stockade">Eureka Stockade</a>, but we should perhaps not underestimate the resentment in conservative circles at the perceived sins of the liberal media dominated by the elites on the eastern seaboard. </p>
<h2>Moguls in the making?</h2>
<p>She’s already “princess of the Pilbara”, but does Gina Rinehart also hold ambitions to become the “<a href="http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion/politics/rinehart-has-many-obstacles-to-becoming-princess-of-print-20120201-1qsuk.html">princess of print</a>”? </p>
<p>Some think she does, others believe her actions are purely financial. Rinehart hasn’t said anything yet, but the company she keeps only adds to the speculation.</p>
<p>Rinehart already shares the <a href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/board.asp?ticker=TEN:AU">Ten Holdings board table</a> with Lachlan Murdoch (he owns nearly 9% of Ten). Murdoch is also on the board of News Corp, Fox and Sky. He will have some of his father’s fortune to play with one day and could have ambitions to build his own media empire in Australia</p>
<p>Rinehart is also well acquainted with Australia’s last remaining old-style media boss, Kerry Stokes who runs the Seven Network and was also a shareholder in Ten until a few days ago (<a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/broadcast/no-confirmation-on-reports-stokes-has-sold-his-stake-in-ten/story-fna045gd-1226257701800">apparently</a>). Stokes is a fellow Western Australian and could offer Rinehart valuable media advice.</p>
<p>Are we looking at a new set of moguls gathering force here? It seems eerily like the children of a top Chinese cadre following in the footsteps of the father.</p>
<h2>Dynasty – now in re-runs</h2>
<p>If the Rinehart story were a soap opera, Joan Collins would be cast and also Larry Hagman. Rhinestones and wealth dug out of the ground; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynasty_%28TV_series%29">Dynasty</a> meets <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_%281978_TV_series%29">Dallas</a>.</p>
<p>The old media dynsasties are crumbling: many grand families who once owned the great American newspapers are reduced to ghostly collections and fading memories. <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6ecf98c2-4e8a-11e1-8670-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1lMzGfWfM">Berlusconi</a> may yet go to jail and the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16276956">Russian oligarchy</a> looks nervously down the <a href="http://www.saint-petersburg.com/virtual-tour/nevsky-prospect.asp">Nevsky prospekt</a> in St Petersburg. The current reigning global mogul, Rupert Murdoch is, metaphorically at least, on his last legs.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/kerry-packer-australias-richest-man-dies-at-68-520784.html">Packer</a> was the last family name associated with Nine and even though Fairfax Media bears the name of the founding fathers, there is currently <a href="http://mumbrella.com.au/fairfaxs-severed-ties-with-founding-family-not-a-reflection-of-poor-corporate-strategy-67012?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mumbrella+%28mUmBRELLA%29">no Fairfax representation</a> on the board and the substantial Fairfax family holding was sold out a few months ago.</p>
<p>Can we now suggest that the age of the media family dynasty may finally be over? Is the old family ties relationship between the media and owners being replaced by hard-nosed corporate types who have no sentimental attachment to news or entertainment?</p>
<h2>Who’s who in Fairfax</h2>
<p>In the context of the Rinehart putsch it is interesting to look at some other Fairfax board figures; as their public resistance may prove difficult to overcome.</p>
<p>The board is chaired by <a href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=8626996&ticker=FXJ:AU&previousCapId=313055&previousTitle=WAL-MART%20STORES%20INC">Roger Corbett AO</a>. He is the former CEO/managing director of Woolies, which means has a <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/11/09/with-roger-corbett-it%E2%80%99s-a-question-of-character/">past involvement with pokies</a>. He’s a major shareholder in <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/corbetts-sideline-may-well-become-a-gusher/story-e6frg9lo-1226260030677">a shale gas operation</a> in the US, and <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/rinehart-pitted-against-fairfax-boss/story-e6frg996-1226260018798">opposes Rinehart</a> on the mining tax.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.xmedialab.com/mentor/greg-hywood">Greg Hywood</a> is the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Fairfax. He recently gave the <a href="http://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/futurestudents/2011/11/02/a-n-smith-lecture-in-journalism-greg-hywood-talks-media/">2011 A N Smith lecture</a> in which he defended journalistic integrity at Fairfax and didn’t mention the cost-cutting he’s carried out which has resulted in more than <a href="http://ethicalmartini.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/sorry-mr-hywood-you-missed-the-point-its-not-about-quality-its-about-money/">500 news-related jobs disappearing</a> over the past couple of years. </p>
<p>Hywood may claim Rinehart’s politics are an anathema to his, but he is grimly aware of the many problems at Fairfax and could probably work with her. In December last year Hywood <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/fairfaxs-digital-strategy-is-working-insists-greg-hywood/story-e6frg996-1226213614111">told The Australian</a> he was not interested in “big hairy takeovers”, but would work to restructure the company and trade out of difficulties (such as the $390 million loss in 2010).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entrepreneurship/news/article.cfm?c_id=190&objectid=10372253">Sam Morgan</a> is the Kiwi wunderkind who founded <a href="http://www.trademe.co.nz/">TradeMe</a> and sold it to Fairfax for NZ$700million in 2006. He doesn’t have a media background, but if Fairfax is restructured or broken up, he might be in the market for the New Zealand operations.</p>
<p>Linda Nicholls AO, is another professional director and it <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/orbis-australia-wont-back-fairfax-board-seat-for-australias-richest-person/story-e6frg996-1226259498017">has been suggested</a> she and Sandra McPhee would support a spot on the board for another woman. </p>
<p>More potent at the moment is the opposition coming from other institutional investors and figures not on the board. Orbis Australia fund manager Simon Marais was <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/orbis-australia-wont-back-fairfax-board-seat-for-australias-richest-person/story-e6frg996-1226259498017">pretty scathing</a> of Rinehart and her reasons for wanting to join the Fairfax Board (if that’s what she wants to do). </p>
<p>He told The Australian that Rinehart’s seat on the board is not guaranteed and that he would need to be convinced it would be in the interests of shareholders. Marais also strongly defended the independence of Fairfax journalists; not something Gina Rinehart will be keen to hear much of in coming weeks.</p>
<h2>Mining for media influence</h2>
<p>Gina Rinehart has a lot to learn about being a media mogul. If she aspires to wield the influence of generations of Packers and Murdochs before her, she has a long way to go.</p>
<p>Her father’s brief foray into newspapers 50 years ago is not going to be enough training for this more difficult assignment.</p>
<p>Rinehart is now the biggest individual shareholder in Fairfax Media, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/fairfax-shares-rocket-on-rinehart-raid-20120131-1qrh7.html?skin=text-only">just ahead of the Commonwealth Bank</a> with 12.37% and in front of the next seven biggest institutional investors.</p>
<p>We will know soon if she is going to be a dynasty builder, or just a corporate raider.</p>
<p>But it’s interesting that another mining behemoth has echoed Rinehart’s sentiments about the quality of Fairfax journalism. <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-03/clive-palmer-considers-turning-media-mogul/3808710">Clive Palmer told Lateline</a> this week that he would consider buying some Fairfax stock himself and really give the place a shake-up.</p>
<p>“Fairfax looks very exciting,” Mr Palmer said. “You could have an east-west play with Fairfax. Gina could come from the west and buy 15%, and we could buy 30% from the eastern side of Australia and really get the place humming again.”</p>
<p>It seems the members of the Fairfax board may well have to make some more room at the boardroom table for a new generation of mogul-magnates ready to dig up the media landscape.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/5187/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Hirst a member of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance. He is the author of News 2.0: Can journalism survive the Internet. He blogs at Ethical Martini.</span></em></p>James Packer, Lachlan Murdoch, Kerry Stokes, John Singleton and Gina Rinehart. While Stokes and Singleton have been around media traps for a few years now, the return of a Packer, a Murdoch and the addition…Martin Hirst, Associate Professor Journalism & Media, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.