5 Most Bonkers Revelations From Rupert Murdoch’s Left-Leaning Son On His Family And Fox News
AP Photo/Mary Altaffer
James Murdoch, son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, sat down with The Atlantic for a lengthy, explosive interview on “sibling rivalry” and the “war for the family media empire.”
McKay Coppins spoke with Murdoch and the result only adds to the mystery surrounding the family and the media mogul behind Fox News, New York Post, and more.
Here are the most explosive revelations from the sit-down:
1. James Murdoch splits family by calling Fox News a ‘blight’: The Atlantic’s lengthy piece mainly hones in on the reported rivalry between Rupert Murdoch’s sons, Lachlan Murdoch, and James. The latter is far more left-leaning than his family and in a family struggle where it was up in the air who would take over the family media empire, James Murdoch made it clear he felt Fox News had become a “blight” on their reputation. James served as Fox News CEO from 2015 to 2019.
James Murdoch’s criticism of Fox and what was perceived by some as his father’s obsession with tabloid reporting culminated in a legal fight over the family trust and how control of the empire would be divided.
From The Atlantic:
He was right that his younger son did not share his vision for the family business. James had come to see Fox News as a blight on his family’s name and a menace to American democracy. He believed that drastic changes were needed to save the companies from the consequences of his father’s reckless mismanagement. (“If lying to your audience is how you juice ratings,” he would tell me, “a good culture wouldn’t do that.”) Determined to retain a voice in the business, James and his older sisters had moved to block Rupert from changing the trust.
2. Too busy to say happy birthday? During the legal fight surrounding Rupert Murdoch’s trust, James Murdoch said he faced some uncomfortable questioning from his father’s lawyers, including on why he had not said happy birthday.
The questions included:
Have you ever done anything successful on your own?
Why were you too busy to say “Happy birthday” to your father when he turned 90?
Does it strike you that, in your account, everything that goes wrong is always somebody else’s fault?
James Murdoch theorized his father was sending questions to his lawyer during the deposition.
“He was texting the lawyer questions to ask,” he said. “How fucking twisted is that?”
3. Succession obsession: Much has been debated about the HBO show Succession and how closely the family at the center of the series resembles the Murdochs and their infighting over a conservative media empire. According to James, he couldn’t make it through the pilot, but some family members are downright obsessed with how closely the show resembles real life.
From The Atlantic:
Some of these stories felt strangely familiar, having appeared in slightly altered forms on Succession, the HBO drama about a fictionalized family very much resembling the Murdochs. James had never watched the series; he’d tried the first episode, but found it too painful. But other members of the Murdoch clan were obsessed with the show; certain scenes and storylines seemed uncannily true to life. Throughout my reporting, I heard constant speculation about which family members might secretly have leaked to the show’s writers.
James and Kathryn, I was told, thought his sister Liz was responsible. Liz swore she wasn’t, though for a while she was convinced that her ex-husband was talking with the writers—and in fact she later learned that he’d repeatedly offered his services, but the showrunner, Jesse Armstrong, had declined. Armstrong told me that he and his writers simply drew on press reports. “I think there’s a bit of psychodrama around this sort of thing,” he told me.
4. Family therapy goes…not so well: According to the report, Rupert Murdoch invited his family to a “family-counseling retreat” in Australia to settle any differences, and things did not go well.
The sessions reportedly fell into “posturing, gaslighting, and recriminations,” with every family member spinning their own version of past events.
“It was a car crash,” James Murdoch said. “Everyone was more alienated from each other at the end.”
5. ‘Our old man has gone crazy’: A true line-in-the-sand moment between James Murdoch and his father appeared to come after a report about News of the World hacking the phones of families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan — among many others. The revelations came to light shortly after Murdoch took his position in 2008.
After his father arrived in London to deal with the fallout, James Murdoch said he texted his brother to express concerns over Rupert’s leadership.
“Dude, our old man has gone crazy,” James Murdoch reportedly told his brother. “This is terrible.”
According to The Atlantic’s account, James’s sister Liz, ultimately recommended making him the scapegoat for the debacle, something she said she regrets. The report added:
Liz, who lived in London and had sold Shine to News Corp earlier that year, had been a constant presence throughout the crisis, offering advice and comfort to their father. At one point, while talking with Rupert in the office he’d commandeered as a war room, she made the case that a member of the family would have to take the fall—and that person should be James. He’d already been planning to leave Europe to work under News Corp’s chief operating officer in New York. Why not reframe his resignation as a kind of Murdoch mea culpa?
Rupert said he’d think about it. The next day, he told Liz he liked the idea.
Read the full Atlantic report here.
