(1/3)

Murdoch family drama plays out in court with fate of Fox News at stake

If #Rupert #Murdoch, 93, prevails in his legal effort to change voting rights of the #family #trust
to ensure that his chosen successor and conservative-leaning eldest son, #Lachlan Murdoch, 53, runs the company after his death, little may change.

The proceedings pit Murdoch, 93, and his chosen successor, Lachlan, against his three more liberal-leaning siblings, Prudence, Elizabeth and James,
over future control of Murdoch’s #Fox Corp and #News Corp through the family’s control of the global empire’s share structure via an irrevocable trust set up in 1999.

According to the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal, Murdoch is arguing that
“shifting voting control of the trust to Lachlan should be allowed because it is in the best interest of all the beneficiaries, including his other children”.

️But if the patriarch loses, the younger brother #James Murdoch, in concert with his sisters #Prudence and #Elizabeth, could force Fox News to move away from the conservative news alignments of their father and brother.

That would be an earthquake in American politics.

No other media power in the US has the impact that Fox News has had in the last two decades.

It has become a driving force of American conservatism, feared for its power by both Republicans and Democrats.

And condemned by many for its conservative bias and numerous show hosts who have become darlings of the US right and powerful players on their own.

Figures such as Sean #Hannity are hugely powerful within the Maga world, while the former host Tucker #Carlson
– now exiled from the station where he rose to power
– has withered outside it and been largely unable to recreate the influence he had while broadcasting to Fox’s viewers.

Gaming out the different scenarios at stake in Reno is water cooler talk at Fox News’s midtown New York headquarters,
with TV hosts discussing a reposition of their own personal brands if liberal-leaning James wins
and opening back-channel communications with him if his father and rival brother prevail.

But despite their immense importance the legal arguments over the Murdoch Family Trust presented within the impenetrable walls of a 1960’s annex court extension in Reno last week are known only to the judge and court staff, Rupert Murdoch, his first and second set of children and an army of lawyers, including Trump’s attorney general William Barr.

“A family trust like the one at issue in this case … is essentially a private legal arrangement,”
the Washoe county probate commissioner Edmund J Gorman Jr, wrote in an 18-page recommendation before the parties convened.

James, Elisabeth and Prudence, want the trust to be maintained and oppose Murdoch’s proposed change giving Lachlan control because they would stand to lose voting power.

Yet while Lachlan’s politics are comfortably rightwing and match his father’s,
the opposing other siblings have a different world view.

James Murdoch even hosted Joe #Biden in his home for a fundraiser in 2022 and has endorsed #Kamala #Harris to beat Trump in 2024.

But it won’t be Fox politics under discussion so much in Reno.
Instead, much of that argument will be couched in an examination of US corporate governance conventions that allow for a family to control a business they do not majority own by a so-called #dual #class structure of shares
– in effect the family shares have more power than others.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/sep/22/murdoch-family-fox-news-court?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other