James Murdoch Reportedly Behind ‘Whisper Campaign’ Designed to Tank Brother Lachlan’s Standing at Fox

Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

James Murdoch, the one-time would-be heir to the Rupert Murdoch media empire and brother to current Fox CEO Lachlan, is reportedly behind a “whisper campaign” to undermine Lachlan’s position at the company, according to Business Insider.

“In April, The New York Times reported that [Lachlan’s] remoteness had ‘intensified the perception … that Mr. Murdoch does night have a tight grip on the reins.’ According to a source close to the family, Lachlan’s younger brother, James, the once heir apparent, ‘is running a whisper campaign that Lachlan is not good at his job and that he doesn’t deserve it.’”

The story then adds that Murdoch, who is based in Australia, is “eager to prove critics wrong,” and paints a picture of a corporate leader whose “schedule includes an 8 p.m. bedtime so he can wake in the middle of the evening for midnight Zooms and conference calls.”

Aside from the alleged Succession-style family-and-corporate intrigue, the Insider story addressed Murdoch’s defense of Fox News star Tucker Carlson, who made headlines for appearing to promote “replacement theory” on his show. Carlson has also recently come under fire for questioning the efficacy of the coronavirus vaccine.

In an interview with Insider, Murdoch “called [Tucker] Carlson and some of his viewpoints, which he says caters to what many Americans are quietly thinking, ‘brave.’” He defended Carlson’s repeated citations of the CDC’s VAERS database, which allows people to submit unverified and unproven claims of adverse side effects of vaccinations, saying that Carlson “basically just went into the CDC data … so there’s nothing the CDC itself isn’t saying.”

Murdoch also reiterated his satisfaction with where Fox News falls on the political spectrum.

“Trump was attacking us nonstop, and we didn’t bend to that,” Murdoch told Insider. “Obviously our opinion is center-right. We held our own. We were happy with where we were. In a strange way, if you’ve got the left and the right criticizing you, you’re doing something right. You really are in the middle.”