We all have skin in the Murdoch succession game
Opinion
The battle for succession in the Murdoch family is turning out to be even more dramatic than fiction, and just as emotionally charged, with the outcome in Reno potentially affecting everyone in the media.
The impact of what looks like dull litigation in a court in Reno, Nevada over changing the terms of a long-established trust could be explosive.
The last vestiges of Murdoch family unity are at stake.
It was billed by Rupert Murdoch, apparently without irony, as Project Harmony. We now know, thanks to The New York Times getting access to sealed court documents, that there is precious little harmony involved.
The 93-year-old, mindful of his political legacy after his death, wants to give “permanent exclusive control” of the $20bn trust to his eldest son, Lachlan, to ensure the Murdoch media empire remains right-wing. Former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger described the move as “post-mortem politics”.
Lachlan, already in charge of the Fox and News Corp businesses, is at least as right-wing as his father, if not more so. The other three eldest children — James, Elisabeth and Prudence, at the moment equal members of the trust — are all more liberal.
James resigned from Fox over what he saw as Fox News’ promotion of climate-change-denial conspiracy theories. He supported Joe Biden in the last election and contributed financially to the Democrats. His views on Kamala Harris are not yet known, although he is likely to be sympathetic, while Rupert was still hanging around the Republican Convention that nominated Donald Trump.
Financial benefit
The Murdoch family trust is supposed to be “irrevocable”, but it can be varied in narrow circumstances. Changes have to be done “in good faith” and with the purpose of benefiting all members.
That is not how three of the Murdoch children see it.
Apart from trying to extend his political views into the next generation, Rupert claims his approach is financial and that those three trust members will benefit as a result.
His argument is that “a lack of consensus” would impact the strategic direction of both companies, “including a reorientation of editorial policy and control”. In layman’s language, it’s the right-wing crap that brings in the money and the “liberal” three would suffer financially if that were ever to stop.
That said, it is far from clear just how financially astute it is for Fox News to peddle conspiracies.
It has already paid $787m to Dominion Voting Systems for broadcasting that the company was involved in rigging the vote against Trump in 2020. Earlier this year, another voting machine company, Smartmatic, was given permission to proceed with a $2.7bn claim against Fox.
‘Good faith’ argument
This week, it emerged from the usually well-informed PoliticsVideoChannel that former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was seriously considering suing Trump, Fox and the Republican Party for mega-billions for defamation.
Clinton let it be known that she thought the attacks on her were getting close to the “actual malice” threshold needed to sue for libel in the US.
Even if that one fails to fly, Fox — in a post-Trump world in the US and facing possibly a decade of Sir Keir Starmer in government in the UK — might run into chilly financial winds in the future if it does not respond to changing times.
Already potentially billionaires several times over, the Murdoch three are still said to be livid that the very old man is trying to sideline them in terms of degree of control and political influence over the companies they will inherit.
Who knows what the best trust lawyers that money can buy will eventually come up with?
But it is more than possible that the “good faith” stipulation will come under attack, given that three of the four trust members are vehemently opposed.
The argument that the change would be in the best interests of the three despite their opposition sounds very paternalistic. It also narrows the argument down to mere cents and dollars (albeit a lot of them), leaving no room for beliefs, hopes and ambitions beyond the family enclosure.
Implications for others
As for us — the overall media and, indeed, citizens of the US, UK and Australia: we all have skin in this game, even if we have no legal representative in that Reno court come September.
Rupert presided over the phone-hacking scandal in the UK. While complaining he was misled, he was still in charge.
The Sun was encouraged to promote one duff Conservative prime minister after another until the electorate caught up with it. The paper also relentlessly pushed for Brexit even though, according to Bloomberg, it is costing the UK £100bn in lost output every year.
It’s much more serious in the US, where Fox perpetuated the lie that Biden stole the election from Trump. And that’s before you get to the thousands of unnecessary Covid deaths that could have been the result of airtime given to anti-vaxxers on Fox News.
Rupert may have believed in the media and the future of newspapers, at least until recently, but the charge sheet continues to grow and the legacy has been in deep moral deficit for years now.
It is therefore vital that the Murdoch three win their case in Nevada. It would mean, in a post-Rupert era, they could out-vote the other one if they chose to do so and set a more rational course for some of the more extreme outposts of the empire.
They might also find that such a course, in rapidly changing political circumstances, could be good for business.
In the lull after the Olympics, events in Reno should at least offer a blood-sport alternative.
Raymond Snoddy is a media consultant, national newspaper columnist and former presenter of NewsWatch on BBC News. He writes for The Media Leader on Wednesdays — read his column here.