Global News Podcast - Bonus: The Global Story - The secret battle for the Murdoch empire

Episode Date: September 22, 2024

A bonus episode from The Global Story. Rupert Murdoch is locked in a secret court battle with three of his eldest children, over the future of his media empire.

Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Thank you. Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson. I'm here to introduce you to the Global Story Podcast,

which brings you a single story in depth with insight from the BBC's best journalists. There's a new edition every weekday. Just search for The Global Story wherever you get your pause. And be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a single episode. Here's my colleague, Lucy Hawkins. Today, the not-so-secret battle to control a personal media empire. Rupert Murdoch, the mogul who controls some of the world's most

influential news organizations, is this week pitted against three of his children in a bitter legal contest taking place behind closed doors. After dramatically stepping down as chairman of Fox and News Corp last year, the mercurial Mr. Murdoch hoped to pave the way for his so-called favorite son to become the sole heir to his throne. But his efforts to Amanda Family Trust, intended to share out the billionaire's voting rights, are being challenged by Lachlan's siblings. We're asking why all this matters, and should the public have the right to hear about what's going on. With me today is the BBC's culture and media editor, Katie Razzell, and also Brian Stelter, CNN's chief media analyst and author of Network of Lies, the epic saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the battle for American democracy. Hello. Great to be here. Good to

have you both with us. I have to start with a bit of a confession. I actually haven't watched Succession, but that doesn't mean I haven't been fascinated by the Murdoch family dramas for years. And I wanted to ask both of you, why did it work? Did it work so well and was so popular because it was actually linked to real life people and events?

It had enough juicy content that could possibly have been real that people were fascinated by. I was going to say that Jesse Armstrong, the writer, has kept us guessing because everybody assumed as soon as the show started that this was really about the Murdochs. And particularly, you know, there's the three main kids and we knew that he has the three main media executive kids. Obviously, there are other children, but those three children in that felt like they depicted the Murdoch children. And actually, he kept sort of teasing us, Jesse Armstrong, about whether it was related to Murdoch. But I think he put that to bed in a way that satisfied us all, actually, because he was at the Edinburgh TV Festival.

And he did say that he originally wrote a script about Rupert Murdoch and his family. He morphed and based it on other people as well. But I think we all, I don't know what you think, Brian, but I think we all spotted a lot of similarities. Right. There are other dysfunctional media mogul families, several of them actually. But Succession was clearly inspired by the Murdochs. And now we're at the point where life is imitating art because storylines from the show are actually playing out in real life in Nevada. So Katie, tell us a little bit about this man, this mercurial, influential media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, who created this massive media empire. Tell us about him and what that empire looks like today.

Well, yes, because I mean, he is characterised by many as the most powerful and recognisable media mogul in the world. Certainly a shrewd and ruthless businessman, somebody that politicians have had to pay homage to for many decades with an empire that spans three continents. He's Australian, educated at Oxford University and began by inheriting a newspaper from his father in Australia in Adelaide and quickly clearly showed a sort of natural flair for journalism and also I think an understanding of popular tastes and expanded that empire into the UK into the US. Mr Murdoch we've called this program who's afraid of Rupert Murdoch and it seems that many people are afraid principally because they can't believe that you won't interfere

and alter the character of the newspapers you've bought, the Sunday Times and the Times. What do you say to that? Well, I certainly didn't buy them to change them, and the Times, of course, it'll depend on the new editor. What happens? Well, somebody like yourself, as was said in the film, with a powerful personality and liking intervention,

it will be very difficult, won't it, for you not to get involved directly in the stories that are in the paper and the way it's written, the headlines and all the details that actually make up what a newspaper is. Oh, extremely difficult. But if I see things in the paper which I think are incorrect, I'll certainly point it out and say, so-and-so made a mistake here or this wasn't as good a reporter as was in the opposition newspapers.

I certainly have the right to insist on excellence. And these days he is no longer, he's stepped back. He's now called Chairman Emeritus. What he owns is two major entities, News Corp and Fox Corp. And News Corp is a whole load of papers mainly, including the Wall Street Journal in the US, the New York Post, the Times and Sunday Times in the UK, as well as The Sun. It's also HarperCollins, one of the big book publishers globally. And then

Fox Corporation, you know, the most famous part of that is Fox News, which is one of the most watched news networks, cable news networks in the US. So Katie, this week, we're all watching what's happening at a court in Nevada. Can you outline what the case is about? Well, we're all watching what's happening at a court in Nevada. Can you outline what the case is about? Well, we're all watching what's happening without actually knowing, to be fair, because it's all completely secret. But this is about a trust that was set up after Rupert Murdoch's divorce from his second wife, Anna, who is the mother of three of the children, James, Lachlan and Elizabeth. And that was a trust that was set up and was supposed to

be irrevocable. So Anna, I'm told, could have taken half of everything, but she wanted to ensure the future legacy of her three children and her stepdaughter, Prudence. And what this trust does, it says that after Rupert Murdoch dies, they have equal voting rights over what happens to the business. He has two other daughters, daughters with Wendy Deng, his third wife, but they were actually only added to this trust as financial beneficiaries. So what we know is that Rupert Murdoch wants to change the terms of the trust to give his elder son Lachlan full power after his death. And he's arguing that that is in the interest, the financial interest and the wider interest of all the children. But that's not how it went down with the other three children who are fighting back.

And it's what's happening in this secret court is that a Nevada probate judge essentially has to decide is the change that he wants to make in the interest of all equally and made in good faith. And Brian, like all families, we are fascinated by the relationships within the family and the dynamics within the family. So who is this favorite son, Lachlan, and what are his politics? In some ways, Lachlan is even more conservative than his dad. But Lachlan is not as public about this. He doesn't talk about politics often. He doesn't hobnob with Donald Trump the way Rupert used to. He's a more private person, but he is known to be more conservative.

He has those values. He has expressed them occasionally in speeches. The damage done to the American psyche through unrelenting attacks on its core values and via the destructive rewriting of history is very real. In 2019, the New York Times published the first of a series of essays called the 1619 Project, which recast American exceptionalism as racist from inception. A project to recast American history and long accepted values through a radical and radically divisive lens. And most importantly, expresses them through Fox News. For listeners who are not familiar,

who don't watch Fox News on a regular basis, Fox is the dominant right-wing player in the United States. It is like the McDonald's or the Coca-Cola of right-wing media. Fox has so much to do with Donald Trump's election and then, frankly, his loss in 2020, but then his reemergence in 2024 as the Republican nominee. Lachlan Murdoch, for better or for worse, is responsible for a lot of that. So when we look at Lachlan Murdoch, the older son, the chosen son, he is the one who is the representative now of Fox and of Fox News as his father has stepped off to the side. Rupert was once close with his other son, James. What went wrong there? I feel like as we look into this famous and dysfunctional,

now worrying family, there's only so much we can really tell from the outside. What was the breaking point? What went wrong? But we do know that for a long time, Rupert was trying to involve James in the family business, giving him high-ranking positions. And in recent years, James has been viewed as the more moderate or even liberal son, working with his wife, Catherine, to donate to climate change organizations, supporting President Biden and now endorsing Kamala Harris for president. That's a dramatic break from Rupert and Loughlin. Again, these guys don't say it in public very often, if ever. But James has told his friends and associates that he believes Fox News is dramatically hurting the United States, is poisoning the public

discourse, is misinforming millions of people. And James even has a plan to fix it. James would like to drag Fox more to the middle. But he can only do that if he's able to convince his sisters to overthrow his brother Lachlan. And that's where this gets really interesting and really weird. And that's where it starts to sound very like Succession. So there's this fight, Katie, over the future of Fox News. But there was also that very damaging legal battle that Fox went through with Dominion. How does that influence things? Yes, there was.

So back in the 2020 election, Fox broadcast claims of election fraud. And essentially what happened was that they were forced to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, which was one of the companies that had voting machines that were used during the election. And basically Fox anchors had defamed that company by endorsing false allegations of election fraud in 2020, including claims that the voting machines were rigged against Donald Trump. Good evening and welcome to Tucker Carlson tonight. Thank you for watching. We appreciate it. In case you haven't noticed, it's hard to trust anything

you hear right now. We want to begin tonight by assessing some of the things no doubt you have heard about last week's presidential election. There are conflicting versions of virtually every part of that story. But as of right now, here's what we think we know. What it's meant is that, I mean, it's an absolutely huge payout. They settled for, we understand it's $787.5 million. Today's settlement represents vindication and accountability. Lies have consequences. In the aftermath of that, they also had to fire the most popular conservative host, Tucker Carlson, from Fox because of his incendiary comments. James Murdoch looked at that from the outside and says,

this is exactly why there needs to be regime change. But what's striking about the Nevada situation now is the three siblings are up against the other sibling and the father. So right now it is three against one. But because Rupert Murdoch, 93 years old, is alive and well, he is the one trying to rewrite his own trust. In other words, Rupert is trying to ensure that his other children cannot change Fox's political identity. And it's interesting because I've had some pushback on the idea that the three other children, the three older children will vote to oust the older some. But actually, clearly, it's obvious Rupert Murdoch thinks they will because otherwise he wouldn't be trying to change

the terms of this trust. What are you hearing on that, Brian? I've had sources close to James say he knows this is very sensitive. It's very complicated. He would have to have the support of his sisters. He would have to persuade them. And according to these sources, James is playing a long game. And that's what's so awkward about this.

It's all incumbent on his father dying. We don't know if Rupert Murdoch will be with us for another year or another decade or another two decades. But in the event of his death, because it comes for us all eventually, there will be this struggle for control of the family businesses. There will be this battle. Whether James prevails or not is an unknown. But the fact that his father's trying to cut it off now and ensure this can't happen, you know, that's a plot twist that no one saw coming 25 years ago when this trust was created. And Rupert has recently remarried again.

This could give him a whole new lease on life. And at the wedding, these other kids weren't there. So on a personal level, this is heartbreaking. I mean, you've got to think about that moment when your dad comes to tell you that he wants to change the terms of a trust. And he's trying to tell you as I understand it that this is a good thing that he's doing this in your interests and you're

sitting there as Elizabeth or Prudence or James thinking it doesn't feel like this to me dad I mean whatever however many millions and billions you have in the end you want your dad to love you and treat you equally and I guess they think he's not. So, we know what this case is all about. Coming up, we'll ask what it means for the wider media landscape. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story,

plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. This is The Global Story. We bring you one big international story in detail five days a week. Follow or subscribe wherever you listen. With me are the BBC's culture and media editor, Katie Razzell,

and CNN's chief media analyst, Brian Stelter. Katie, you told us about the size of the Murdoch empire and its vastness, but can you give us a sense of how closely involved he is with all of his titles editorially? Well, it may be different now because obviously he did make this announcement that he was stepping back. 92-year-old media magnate Rupert Murdoch announcing he'll leave his role as chair of Fox and News Corp in mid-November, becoming chair emeritus of both businesses. His son Lachlan will take the reins, part of a long-standing succession plan. But more broadly, every time, in my experience, certainly here in the UK, that an editor is asked publicly how involved Rupert

Murdoch has been in their newspaper title, they say, no, not really involved at all. We have full editorial freedom. He's a wonderful proprietor and we can do what we like. But behind the scenes, in my experience, people do say different. He's been very hands-on through his career. We've got to leave with it, obviously. And this is some tremendous news. But I think the line in it to answer this controversy is to say, forgive the individual by all means, but you can't forget it. Well, of course, we should take the offensive, in other words,

about this controversy, and if it keeps it boiling for six weeks, so much the better. Just ahead of the UK election in July, I did a story about how The Sun, one of his titles, The Sun newspaper, was going to switch course and endorse Labour for the first time in a very long while because it's traditionally been a Conservative-backing newspaper and then here in the UK, very a very long while, because it's traditionally been a conservative-backing newspaper. And then here in the UK, very famously in 1997,

when Tony Blair became prime minister, ahead of that, The Sun switched courses. I spoke to The Sun editor from back in 1997, who told a fabulous and interesting story about how that change came about, and just that it comes from the top. Rupert Murdoch made this decision. He told them that's what he wanted. He'd obviously been being wooed and had been wooing Tony Blair

for a very long time at that point. But this Sun editor, he said, we pushed back. We were conservatives. We were a conservative paper. We didn't want it. But in the end, you do what Rupert Murdoch wants. And there have been several scandals under his leadership. I think the most notable that people will remember, Katie,

is that long-running phone hacking scandal at News of the World. This involved allegations that were then proven that news international journalists were hacking people's phones for information. Now, phone hacking, for people who don't know, was a technique essentially that you listen to people's mobile voicemails. And reporters and a private investigator working for the News of the World, which was the Sunday sister title to The Sun, used it to target people in the news. So that was celebrities, politicians. this absolutely horrific bombshell emerged once it became clear that the News of the World had listened to the voicemails of a schoolgirl who'd been murdered called Millie Dowler.

In the days after she went missing, Surrey police kept her pay-as-you-go phone topped up with credit in case she switched it on. This evening, the Guardian says it has a well-placed source who alleges an investigator paid by the News of the World accessed phone messages on Millie's mobile. The awful thing, even more shocking than that, was that her parents were given hope that she was still alive because it sounded as if, from the phone, that their daughter had been listening to her own voicemail.

So they were given hope that she was alive, and of course she wasn't, it was journalists listening. And this caused a huge furore quite rightly here in the UK and Rupert Murdoch took the decision to close the news of the world they admitted that huge scale of hacking that had been going on dating back many years it was really a huge humiliation for Rupert Murdoch personally, came also at huge financial cost and actually isn't really over because News Corp says this only happened on one newspaper, the News of the World, but there have been people battling saying of course that's not true, that it happened at the Sun as well, but News Corp has never ever accepted that, has pushed back on that and every time there's been some high-profile people like Sienna Miller

and indeed Hugh Grant who've tried to take them to court over phone hacking when it comes to the sun, and that's never seen the light of day. So despite the scandals that we've been talking about, the Dominion case here in the US, and Katie, you referencing the phone hacking with News of the World, it's amazing, isn't it, Brian, how incredibly wily Rupert Murdoch is, you referencing the phone hacking with News of the World. It's amazing, isn't it, Brian,

how incredibly wily Rupert Murdoch is because his empire has actually changed a lot over the past decade. He's navigated things from a business sense in a very clever way. And did it start perhaps when Fox and News Corp split? Yes, it did. And then when Rupert Murdoch hatched a deal with Bob Iger to sell most of Fox's entertainment assets to Disney, say what you will about Rupert Murdoch, but his timing was exquisite. He was able to sell off the cable channels that have since declined in value, and he was able to provide this huge amount of programming that has supercharged the Disney Plus streaming service. So he was able to cash out at a key time, and he was able to give about

$2 billion to each of his children. That is now part of the battle in Nevada about how that money was split up and how Rupert has been a great caretaker, has been a responsible patriarch. Rupert was able to time the market well, but the result was that his company is now a shell of its former self. It's mostly a news and sports company. But those news assets are still very influential, not just Fox News, but also the Wall Street Journal, as well as his papers in the UK and in Australia. You'll notice that in these countries

where there are center-right or even far-right movements, it is the Murdoch media empire that is helping to lead that charge. That's really a common thread that we see in the countries, in the parts of the world where Murdoch is operating. What are your thoughts on that, Katie? Because we are seeing the declining reach of newspapers and cable TV, but being here in DC at the moment, you really do feel the power of networks like Fox. I wonder whether Fox is a very specific case. I mean, we really do feel the power of networks like Fox. I wonder whether Fox is a very specific case. I mean, we endlessly talk about the decline of what's called the legacy

media. And by that, we really do mean newspapers and the kind of public service broadcasters like, here at the BBC, social media, these big companies like Google have just taken away the business in a way that feels insurmountable. If you think, for example, about The Sun, one of the most influential newspapers. Back in 1997, the time I was talking about, 4 million people read that newspaper every day. Now, I mean, they don't even print their daily readership, but it's believed to be around 600,000. And that's not bad for a newspaper. I mean, the decline has been spectacular. And that does mean you start to question quite the influence that these newspapers have these days.

These newspapers are also pivoting to digital, some more successfully than others. The Sun would point to the fact they say they reach nearly 7 million people every day through a combination of digital and print. But I think Fox is a separate case. I don't know what you think, Brian. Yeah, I do think it's a separate case because Fox programming is addictive. It is pressing all the buttons every day, buttons about fear and rage and anger and resentment. When the Biden-Harris administration rolled out the red carpet for millions of migrants, they didn't just ship them to Texas and New York. Thousands were deposited into small towns across the country, like Springfield, Ohio. Violent crimes skyrocketed 142 percent. Car accidents spiked. Trash started piling up in the streets. There's even rumors

that people's pets have gone missing. And in so doing, Fox, much like Donald Trump does with his base, it really creates a powerful connection to the audience. That is something that is going to continue even as cable declines in the U.S. When Lachlan Murdoch fired Tucker Carlson, there was a ratings collapse. But the ratings did eventually bounce back. And it proved once and for all that Fox is bigger than any single individual. Now, that raises an interesting question. Is Fox also bigger than any single executive? Thanks to the Dominion case, we know that Rupert Murdoch was criticizing Trump in private, saying, we're going to turn him into

a non-person. We're going to pivot away from Trump. This is how Rupert Murdoch was talking in the immediate aftermath of the insurrection. And yet, because shows mainstream conspiracy theories about January 6th, because guests on Fox suggested maybe it was the government's fault and not the rioters' fault, because the ground was softened for Trump to have a resurrection, largely thanks to Fox, Trump is now back center stage, and Rupert Murdoch seems to be accepting it. And I wouldn't count the papers out either. The New York Post, for example, does a lot of great reporting. It also has a tendency to promote misinformation from time to time. I remember there was a story last year claiming that veterans were being picked out of hotels to make room for migrants. And of course, that's the kind of story that Fox jumped on and then it was highlighting for days. So that pipeline of

misinformation where something can make you really mad about immigration, it can spread from Rupert's newspaper to Rupert's network. That's a pipeline that remains really powerful, even though some of these individual properties might be shrinking in size. Katie, back to the case in Nevada. How much do you think we're actually going to learn about it? And even if there was a settlement, how much we would learn? Are there petitions to unseal the proceedings? Well, yes, there have been. And those include six national news outlets who are in a coalition.

That includes Associated Press, CNN, various others, Reuters, Washington Post. They have filed requests to access proceedings and unseal court records. And they're arguing, of course, that what happens to the empire is in the public interest. I read that and I thought, well, good luck. We know it hasn't happened because I don't think they're sitting in court right now. So I guess the question is, will we ever find out? Or do we have to wait until when he dies? I feel like we will based on the fact that somebody and I have no idea who, but somebody leaked the original stuff to The New York Times. I hope and I think that there will be some leak that tells us what the judge rules. But I don't know when that will happen, because to your point about The New York Times, Rupert started to make these moves almost a year ago, and it didn't leak for more than six months. Recently, though, there was a leak to the Wall Street Journal that

did seem to come from the other side, right? So Lachlan and Rupert do own some newspapers. They do have an ability to get the news out. So I hope that one way or another, we will find out what happens. The personal drama of the case and the family, Brian, is so compelling. It's that equal parts Shakespeare and today's headlines. But why should people actually care about this battle between these billionaires? for me, take it from Preston Padden. Padden was an executive who worked really closely with Rupert Murdoch in the 1990s, building Fox Broadcasting. And Padden recently broke with Rupert and said, Fox News is hurting America. The lies are hurting the country. He's even trying to petition the American government to revoke a license to make it harder for Fox to operate. And Padden said to me, it's so ironic, it's hypocritical that they print the dirty laundry of every other family in the world on the front pages of their tabloids. But they're blocking the media from gaining access to this trust proceeding.

And he said this proceeding matters for the following reason. It will impact the public by determining the control of the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, et cetera, et cetera. And that is, I think, why everyone should care about this, because this does trigger an important conversation about the content that these networks and newspapers are publishing. Whether you agree or disagree with the content, I look at Fox News and I think it's mostly opinion with a little bit of news added in once in a while. It's not really Fox News channel. It's more like Fox Opinion.

But it doesn't have to be that way, right? James Murdoch has a very different vision of what it could be. Maybe his sisters agree, maybe they disagree, maybe we'll find out someday. What's the future of Fox News? That's a question that can change the outcome of an American election, because it already has before, and it may again in the future. And just to add there, for anyone thinking that sounds US-centric, just remember, the outcome of the US election affects us all. And actually, you could argue that the President of America has more impact on foreign policy than they do in their own country. So fascinating to talk to you both. Katie, Brian, great to have you with us on the pod. Thanks.

Thank you. And thanks so much to you for listening. If you want to get in touch, you can email us at theglobalstoryatbbc.com or send us a message or a voice note on WhatsApp. You can find those details in our show notes. Wherever you're listening in the world, this has been The Global Story. Thanks for having us in your headphones. Goodbye. And if you enjoyed listening to The Global Story and would like to hear more, there's a new episode every weekday.

Just search for The Global Story wherever you get your BBC pods and be sure to click subscribe or follow. We'll have another edition of The Global News Podcast later. Until then, bye-bye. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story,

plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts.