Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, September 10, 2017 in New York (AFP/Archives/Jewel SAMAD)
At 92, the feared media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who influenced political life in Great Britain and the United States, will let go of the reins of his conservative media empire and hand over to his eldest son Lachlan at the helm. of the News Corp media group and Fox Corporation.
On the air of the Fox News news channel, the press release from the two companies announcing the news was read soberly by a journalist, who praised the “indelible mark” of his boss on the “global media landscape”.
Rupert Murdoch leaves a controversial legacy, accused of having, through his newspapers and television, favored the rise of populism in Anglo-Saxon countries, symbolized by Brexit in Great Britain and the rise of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States in 2016.
In a memo to his “colleagues” at Fox, Rupert Murdoch assures them that “the battle for freedom of expression, and ultimately, freedom of thought, has never been more intense.”
– President “emeritus” –
In his usual style, the patriarch castigates “the bureaucracies”, “the elites (who) openly despise those who are not part of their disconnected class”, as well as “most of the media (which) are in cahoots with these elites, peddling political narratives rather than seeking the truth.”
Lachlan Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch, and new boss of News Corp, July 18, 2011 in London (AFP/Archives/LEON NEAL)
The American channel Fox News has, on the contrary, been accused of fueling disinformation about anti-Covid vaccines and allegations of a supposedly rigged presidential election in 2020 in the United States to the detriment of Donald Trump.
This media coverage earned him a very hefty bill. Fox News agreed in April to pay the staggering sum of $787.5 million to electronic voting machine manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems, at the center of Trumpist conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, and whose channel had echoes.
In this context, Rupert Murdoch will leave the chairmanship of the boards of directors of Fox Corporation, parent company of Fox News, and the global group News Corp, to become chairman “emeritus”, as of the next general meeting of shareholders of the two companies mid-November.
Without real surprise, he hands over to his son Lachlan, 52, already president of Fox Corporation and favorite to take over from his brothers and sisters, James, reputedly more liberal, Prudence and Elisabeth, in a race for inheritance which inspired the hit American television series “Succession”.
But the knighting of Lachlan Murdoch does not extinguish questions about the direction of the empire after the death of Rupert Murdoch, because his four children will then have the same voting rights within the group.
– Empire thinned –
In the immediate future, Lachlan Murdoch will lead an empire that had been resized by the sale in 2017 of the 21st Century Fox entertainment group and its vast catalog of films to Disney.
Rupert Murdoch, with his sons Lachlan (l), and James (d), on March 5, 2016 in London (AFP/Leon NEAL)
Rupert Murdoch is stepping aside at a key moment, one year before the 2024 American presidential election, for which Donald Trump is once again the big favorite in the Republican primary.
“This change in direction comes at a difficult time for Fox,” summarizes Third Bridge analyst Jamie Lumley.
After the out-of-court settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, Fox News remains sued for defamation after the 2020 presidential election by another IT company, Smartmatic, which is seeking $2.7 billion in compensation.
“Questions remain about how Fox will approach its programming and coverage of the 2024 election cycle, a year that will see political ad dollars pouring in,” adds Jamie Lumley.
In the wake of the Dominion affair, Fox News lost one of its star and most controversial presenters, Tucker Carlson, whose departure resulted in a loss of audience.
So far, Lachlan Murdoch has never given any sign of wanting to soften the conservative line at Fox News.
– Tabloid –
His father, the most powerful and best-known press boss in the world, started from a simple daily newspaper in Adelaide, in his native Australia in the early 1950s, built a global empire and his newspapers and television channels had considerable influence in Great Britain and then in the United States.
Fox News, born in 1996 to compete with CNN, was seen as playing a central role in the political rise of Donald Trump, even if the Murdoch group’s media (New York Post, Wall Street Journal) do not always spare the Republican billionaire. .
By reinventing the “tabloid” style, a mixture of sensational news, scandals, sport and sex, Rupert Murdoch enjoyed success but also a series of controversies.
Like the British newspaper News of the World, whose employees had hacked the phones of dozens of people, including members of the royal family, to secretly gather juicy information. The weekly had gone out of business after 168 years of existence.
© 2023 AFP
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