Rupert Murdoch and Children (from top) Prudence, Elizabeth, Lachlan, and James.  Courtesy of The New York Times.

Dear Commons Community,

If you are interested in what is happening with the control of Rupert Murdoch’s  media empire including Fox News, The New York Times had a featured article in it Magazine Section on Sunday.  At thirteen pages, it is a long read but well worth it to understand the intrigue (maybe nastiness) that is going on among Rupert and his family namely children Lachlan, James, Prudence, and Elizabeth.  The focus is a family trust that leaves all of Rupert’s holdings to  four of his children.  However, there is grave concern for Rupert and Lachlan, who currently controls the family’s media business.  Should Rupert pass on (he is 93 years old), the four children would have equal control.  The article painstakingly (it reviews 3,000 pages of court documents) explains why the trust cannot be changed unless “it benefits the heirs.”  The issue is that Rupert and Lachlan suspect that the three other children will take the family-media empire in another direction editorially and end its right-wing bent. There is a lot of judicial maneuvering but right now the trust remains intact leaving Rupert and Lachlan scurrying to change it.

I found it illuminating and rooting for James, Prudence, and Elizabeth.

Tony

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.