Rupert Murdoch is trying to screw three of his adult children so a fourth can keep the toxic propaganda spewing after the mogul's death.
I never saw any of the Succession series but I do know it was loosely based on the Murdochs and Fox News. Now it seems that for the Murdoch family, life is imitating art.
The New York Times got the scoop about Rupert Murdoch’s efforts to amend his irrevocable trust:
The trust currently hands control of the family business to the four oldest children when Mr. Murdoch dies. But he is arguing in court that only by empowering Lachlan to run the company without interference from his more politically moderate siblings can he preserve its conservative editorial bent, and thus protect its commercial value for all his heirs.
Those three siblings — James, Elisabeth and Prudence — were caught completely off-guard by their father’s effort to rewrite what was supposed to be an inviolable trust and have united to stop him. Lachlan has joined on Mr. Murdoch’s side. Remarkably, the ensuing battle has been playing out entirely out of public view.
Last month, the Nevada probate commissioner found that Mr. Murdoch could amend the trust if he is able to show he is acting in good faith and for the sole benefit of his heirs, according to a copy of his 48-page decision.
A trial to determine whether Mr. Murdoch is in fact acting in good faith is expected to start in September. Hanging in the balance will be the future of one of the most politically influential media companies in the English-speaking world.
Oh, my! Tell me more!
The Times also reported that Rupert Murdoch called his effort “Project Harmony” because he hoped it would avoid a family fight after he died. But the result has been to so estrange three of his children that only Lachlan attended Murdoch’s wedding to his fifth wife in June.
But wait, there’s more. It turns out the guy “leading Mr. Murdoch’s effort to rewrite the trust,” as The Times put it, is none other than weasel extraordinaire and probably much worse, Bill Barr. Yesterday, before I read The Times’ article, I wrote about how Bill Barr helped stymie a DOJ investigation into what looked a lot like an illegal $10 million donation to Donald Trump from the government of Egypt. (My post should be available on Crooks and Liars today, at 12:30 PM ET)
The New York Times podcast, The Daily, discussed this story yesterday. Times reporter Jim Rutenberg said the three Murdoch siblings do not want to turn Fox News liberal but, as he put it, make it “more The Wall Street Journal editorial page and less Infowars.”
Apparently, conservative disinformation is what Murdoch wants for his son, Lachlan, and the rest of us.
Rutenberg’s closing line in the podcast is a doozy: “So think about it this way: the fate of the most influential conservative media empire in the entire English-speaking world and, by extension, the politics of the English-speaking world and beyond all rest on these few siblings finding a way to finally get along.”
You can listen to the podcast below.
(Photograph of Rupert Murdoch by Monika Flueckiger, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
