How Rupert Murdoch created a media empire — and 'broke' his own family

TERRY: [00:00:00] This is Fresh Air, I'm Terry Gross. In 2023, Rupert Murdoch officially named his oldest, most conservative child, Lachlan, as the successor to the Murdoche Media Empire. It includes Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, and more. The lawsuit to amend the Murdock Family Trust ended last year. The other three oldest Murdock children received $1.1 billion each in a buyout. It's a Shakespearean drama that journalist Gabriel Sherman details in his new book, Bonfire of the Murdochs. He spoke with guest interviewer, Sam Fragoso. Here's Sam. [00:00:39][39.2]
SAM F: [00:00:40] Rupert Murdoch was just 21 years old, a student at Oxford, when he inherited his first newspaper. It was in 1952, after the death of his father, Sir Keith Murdoche, and the paper was The News of Adelaide, published out of Southern Australia, with a circulation of about 75,000. Ruper was undaunted, though, and used the modest publication as a springboard to build a vast conservative media empire that currently includes Fox News, The New York Post. In the Wall Street Journal. But despite the size and scope of his continued efforts, Murdoch has long seen News Corp as a family business, one to be left behind to his children, as his father did for him. In recent years, however, there's been a riff over how the family sees the future of the company, resulting in a legal dispute that pitted the eldest four siblings—Lachlan, James, Elizabeth, and Prudence against each other. The argument, spearheaded by Rupert and his most politically like-minded child, Lachlan, went something like this. If James, Liz, and Prudence succeeded in turning Fox News liberal, they would destroy the right-wing business model and tank the family fortune. As Ruperts saw it, writes our guest, Gabriel Sherman, Murdoch's conservative media empire was protecting the Western civilization from liberal forces bent on its destruction. James' plot to destroy Fox News was a threat. To the English-speaking world," Murdoch said. In this way, Murdoche now saw James less as a son than as the embodiment of the elites he'd been fighting his entire life, and who'd been finding him." Last fall, Murdoch and his son Lachlan resolved the matter by buying out the shares of the remaining siblings, with each receiving $1.1 billion. The protracted public battle and Shakespearean family struggles have become tabloid sensations, even inspiring shows like HBO's Succession, but as Sherman details in his new book, Bonfire of the Murdochs, how the epic fight to control the last great media dynasty You broke a family and the world. The damage was already done. Sherman has been covering the conservative ecosystem for the past two decades. His previous book was a biography on Roger Ailes called The Loudest Voice in the Room. He's also written the screenplay for the film The Apprentice, which chronicled Donald Trump's early years as an ambitious real estate developer in New York City. Sherman has also been reporting on the Murdoch family since 2008, and is currently a special correspondent for Vanity Fair. Gabriel Sherman, welcome back to Fresh Air. [00:03:21][160.7]
GABE: [00:03:21] Good to be back. [00:03:22][0.5]
SAM F: [00:03:23] As I mentioned, you've been covering the Murdoch family for nearly 20 years now. Why was now the time to write this book? [00:03:31][8.2]
GABE: [00:03:32] Well, as you said, this is a story I've been following basically for my entire journalism career. And we're at the point in the story now where Rupert Murdoch is turning 95 this March. And I felt like we got to the point where we could start to see the full sweep of this family's story. And I started reporting this book in earnest in 2023. And I continued to report up until I, several months ago when we finally had a true ending to the story, uh, which was the resolution of the Nevada estate trust battle, where the Murdoch children were fighting over Rupert's decision to hand the company to his oldest son, Lachlan. And they reached a financial settlement, which determined the, uh succession race that had been playing out for my whole career. So yeah, I felt like we, we finally saw the resolution. Of the story and it felt like the right time to tell it in book form. [00:04:34][62.0]
SAM F: [00:04:35] When you look at the big picture of Murdoch's efforts to expand, the movie studio at Fox, the publisher HarperCollins, Wall Street Journal, his endless fascination with the markets in Asia, it appears like a man, at least from your book, trying to create an empire. Or as Sumner Redstone, the billionaire and media magnate once said, Rupert Murdoche basically wants to conquer the world and he seems to be doing it. And yet Murdoch himself throughout the book and in recent interviews insists on treating News Corp like a family business and talks often about how his conglomerate's entire reason for existence is for his children, whom he hoped one day would take the mantle, just as his father did for him back in Australia. How did Rupert go about opening the doors and introducing the company to his children? Before all the succession battles, how did he do that? [00:05:30][54.6]
GABE: [00:05:30] You know, one of the tragedies, maybe the central tragedy of the book is that Rupert Murdoch said that his dream was to build a family business. And what he built was a business that destroyed his family. But going back to the beginning, he expected and wanted his children to be apprenticed in the business from the time that they were essentially old enough to read. There's an amazing anecdote in the book about how Ruper Murdoche, who, as you mentioned, traveled the globe buying media companies, expanding his. His empire. When he did come through New York where he was raising his children, his second wife Anna would wake the children up at dawn, make them put on a blazer and a tie and come to the breakfast table where they would get a precious few moments with Rupert and discuss the news of the day or the latest deal machinations that he was doing. And it was basically a finishing school in the art of building a media business. And these were, you know, children 8, 9, 10, 12 years old, and Rupert never felt closer to his children than when he was discussing the business. [00:06:34][63.1]
SAM F: [00:06:35] How would you describe the four eldest children? [00:06:38][2.7]
GABE: [00:06:39] Yeah, they almost have become sort of literary archetypes in their own right. We'll begin with Prudence, who's the product of Rupert's first marriage. So Prudents really was the only child who didn't play a role in the business. She evinced no desire to, and she really lived and continues to live a private life. Elizabeth, the second oldest daughter, the product Ruperts second marriage to his wife, Anna. You know, she falls into the classic literary archetype of the daughter who is trying to prove herself in a patriarchal family. She's the only one who has built a significant business on her own outside of the family empire. She's proved herself as a business person. Lachlan, the firstborn son, was the favored son. He was the golden child, but he was a reluctant heir. I think Lachland felt the burden of his father's expectations. And then James, Loughlin's younger brother. Was the kind of family rebel. He tried on various different identities over the years. He grew up in New York City and at the Horace Mann School, the elite private school where many of the children of the city's power brokers go. He wore long trench coats and bleached his hair blonde and to his father's dismay, got his ear pierced and grew a beard. So James didn't really know where to fit into the business. And he tried to sort of find a role that would finally earn his father's approval. [00:08:08][88.4]
SAM F: [00:08:09] Given that their father had so little attention for them really from the jump. He was busy traveling building this empire How would the kids vie for his attention were they competitive early on? [00:08:22][13.1]
GABE: [00:08:24] Competition was a mainstay of the Murdoch household from the very beginning. The children would debate politics and argue at the table when Rupert was home over meals. On vacation at their house in Aspen, there's a famous story about how Lachlan and James would do pull-up contests on the wooden rafters in the ski chalet to prove who was the strongest. Games of charades over the fireplace were ruthlessly competitive. They went skiing together, swimming and yachting. I mean, this was a family that competition played out kind of against the backdrop of the billionaire lifestyle. And again, when you kind of strip away the trappings of wealth and power that they all enjoyed, there was something, there's something very universal about the way these children were competing amongst each other to earn the attention of their very busy and sometimes withholding father. [00:09:23][58.5]
SAM F: [00:09:24] Very busy and withholding would also be a way to describe Rupert's father, Sir Keith Murdoch. He was a newspaperman whose career began in tabloid journalism under the edict that, quote, a newspaper is to be made to pay. Let it give the public what it wants. By the time Ruper was born in Australia, Murdoche, his father, was the editor of the Melbourne Herald. Was there a guiding journalistic philosophy that Ruperts father tried to instill in him from a young age. [00:09:53][29.0]
GABE: [00:09:54] You know. Sir Keith Murdoch was trained by Lord Northcliff, who was one of the sort of defining press barons of London tabloid journalism in the early 20th century. And the philosophy was that a newspaper is to be made to pay. Sensationalism, news and scoops and gossip, all of it was a seductive package that Sir Keith expected and wanted Rupert to learn. And Ruperts media properties from the London Sun, to the New York Post, to even Fox News Today. They all evince that same DNA of news as entertainment, news as profit. And that was the philosophy that Sir Keith had. I think one of the things Rupert also learned from his father, which would guide him going forward, was the perils of not being an owner. You know, you mentioned Sir Keith Murdoch was the editor of the Melbourne Times Herald Group. And he built the Times Herald into an Australian national media conglomerate, but he was just an employee. He was not an equity owner of the business. And when his time came near the end of Sir Keith's career, he was sort of kicked upstairs and pushed to the side by the owners of the company. I think Rupert felt very betrayed by that and saw the way his father was treated. And that is why if you look today, one of the constants of the Murdoch family business. Was that they would secure control of the company through a special class of stock that ensured that the Murdochs would always be majority owners of the businesses. [00:11:33][98.7]
SAM F: [00:11:34] In the face of controversy, he would often say, quote, I answer to no one but the public. They tell me what they want, and I give it to them. When Murdoch decides to try his luck in America in the mid 70s, does that same approach, that same publishing philosophy, does it work out for him here in the States? [00:11:54][19.9]
GABE: [00:11:56] It does, but it takes some time. I think, you know, Rupert's foray into the United States in the mid-70s, he moved here in 1973. I mean, he had been coming to the states throughout his life. I mean Ruperts likes to talk about how he's met every American president since Harry Truman. But when he relocated to New York in earnest in 1973, he a lot of trouble breaking into the American media market. And his philosophy. Is basically you take what you can get. And one of his first major acquisitions in the United States was in San Antonio, Texas of all places. There was two struggling newspapers in San Antonio that were put up for sale. And Rupert thought that this could be kind of a laboratory for him to try out his sensationalist form of British tabloid journalism in America. And that's what he did. He went West and in the kind of out of the way, Yes, sort of. Off the radar of the New York elites, you know, he used San Antonio as as a way to show that he could Increase his readership. He boosted the circulation of these papers through just sensational and outrageous stories that you know had headlines like headless corpse found in gutter and you know Only news value which was to shock the readership and that's what if you look at Fox News and things he's done subsequent, it's a through line that has gone throughout his entire career. [00:13:26][90.9]
SAM F: [00:13:28] You know, when he leaves San Antonio and goes to New York, you know, in this period of acquiring the New York Post and then New York Magazine, did he have a mission statement in mind? Like he's arriving on the heels of Watergate, Woodward and Bernstein are there. There's kind of a renewed passion and pride about journalism in the country. Where did he see his place in the media landscape? [00:13:50][21.9]
GABE: [00:13:52] I mean, he had been moving basically rightward from the time he graduated university. He was to the left in his early years in Australia. He was kind of center, center left in the UK. By the time it gets to America in 1973, he is firmly to the political right. And he saw Watergate as evidence of what an out of control liberal, quote, liberal press could do to a society. You know, he saw Watergate, he told people that Watergate was kind of a run-of-the-mill political dirty trick. It was clumsy. Yes, it was Unseemly, but it wasn't it was in no way something that Nixon should have been forced out of office for and So Rupert saw himself he didn't think Watergate. It wasn't impeachable offense. Not at all No, I mean, I me Ruper has this is also I think one of his business advantages But I think deficiencies in terms of his character, you know Rupert has a philosophy that basically everyone's corrupt, everyone does it, so the fact that Nixon got caught doing it is bad, but the Democrats were no better. You know, he always would say, look at the Kennedys. And so I think he saw himself as a bulwark. I think by the mid 70s, when the mainstream media, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CBS News, kind of the the pillars of our let quote legacy media. I think Rupert saw himself as a corrective. And as a way to give conservatives a voice. [00:15:19][87.7]
TERRY: [00:15:20] We're listening to guest interviewer Sam Fragoso's conversation with journalist Gabriel Sherman, author of a new book about the succession battle within Rupert Murdoch's family to head the Murdochi media empire. The book is titled Bonfire of the Murdocks, how the epic fight to control the last great media dynasty broke a family and the world. More after a break. This is fresh air. This is Fresh Air. Let's get back to our guest interviewer, Sam Fragoso's conversation with journalist, Gabriel Sherman, who's covered Fox News and the Murdochs for years. His new book is about the drama within the Murdock family about who would had the family empire, including Fox News, after the patriarch Rupert stepped down. The winner was the oldest, most conservative son, Lachlan. The book's called Bonfire of the Murdocks. [00:16:43][82.8]
SAM F: [00:16:44] You know, the battle within the family seems to be Lachlan and Rupert are to the right. The other three kids are a little bit more left. What was the tipping point for the three sort of democratic children? Was there a moment where they felt they needed to extricate themselves from their father and the Fox brand? [00:17:02][18.1]
GABE: [00:17:05] I wish I could say it was a moral reckoning where the three politically liberal, more liberal children saw a line, whether it was January 6th or any number of outrages that was too much. But I think- Why do you wish you could say that? Because I think the truth is much more human and the truth as much messier. I think that the fact that Rupert unilaterally engineered Lachlan's ascension to the throne angered the other siblings, most of all, James. James's opposition to the editorial direction of the company really only catalyzed after he was pushed to the side and after it was very clear that Loughlin was the chosen one and Loughin would be the one to take over and that's when James, started giving interviews to, he gave one to Maureen Dowd and he sent a letter to the ADL protesting the Charlottesville. A white nationalist rally and condemning that and that email promptly obviously was leaked to the media. James really made his political opposition known after the fact that he was cast to the side. And so I think some of this, yes, is a matter of politics, but I think it's also a reflection of he was the loser, he lost, and it was only after he lost everything did he feel willing to speak up. [00:18:29][84.3]
SAM F: [00:18:31] Eventually, once the lawsuit is decided and it actually rules in favor of James, Elizabeth and Prudence, they do agree to a buyout. And I wonder, did their moral awakenings, because they spent a lot of time talking about, you know, what Fox News has done to the country, their disdain for some of the coverage, their frustration with the dominion lawsuit, the endless ways in which Fox News has further divide of the country. They've talked about how they hated that, how they did not see themselves in that image. Ultimately, did their moral awakenings, did they have a price tag? [00:19:13][42.2]
GABE: [00:19:14] We know the price tag. It was about $1.1 billion each, which is what Loughlin and Rupert paid Prudence, James and Elizabeth to relinquish their boating shares and give up any control over the future political direction of the empire. So yes, we actually do know the prize. And I think that's something that, you know, they joke that if James was truly people close to Loughln, one of Loughlan's closest advisors told me. You know they see that as part of the hypocrisy of of james horrified by the source of his wealth in his privilege will then he could give the money back and of course he's not doing that and so i think that gets to the kind of the the the messiness of that there's no real heroes and there's a real heroes are villains in the story there's just a family [00:20:01][46.5]
SAM F: [00:20:03] When they received the 1.1 billion dollars, did it come with the non-compete clause? I guess what I'm really trying to ask is, if they are mortified by the Murdoch name and what it has produced, what is their willingness to use their own money, collectively 3.3 billion, to combat their own father's legacy? [00:20:22][18.9]
GABE: [00:20:23] They could do that. I mean, they are doing some things on the margin, right? So, James and his wife, Catherine Murdoch, are investors in The Bulwark, which is a kind of anti-Trump conservative publication that's supposed to trying to advocate for a intellectually rigorous conservatism, a fact-based conservatist, that's the antidote to the MAGA movement. So they are things on margin to try to... Change the politics of the country that their father shaped but these are you know, these are like, you know Tiny these are, like a bb gun on a battleship. I mean they're doing their things but they're not I think if what you're asking is are they you know plowing billions of dollars into funding A political movement to counter fox news. No, the answer is no [00:21:10][46.9]
TERRY: [00:21:11] We're listening to guest interviewer, Sam Fragoso, who hosts the podcast, Talk Easy, speaking with journalist, Gabriel Sherman. Sherman's new book about the real succession story of the Murdoch media empire is titled, Bonfire of the murdochs. We'll hear more of the interview after a break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air. [00:21:31][20.0]
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TERRY: [00:23:30] This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to our guest interviewer, Sam Fragoso's conversation with journalist Gabriel Sherman. He's covered the Murdoch family for nearly 20 years. His new book is called Bonfire of the Murdocks, how the epic fight to control the last great media dynasty broke a family and the world. Sherman is also the author of the loudest voice in the room about the late Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. And he wrote the screenplay for the 2024 film The Apprentice about Donald Trump's early years in New York and his relationship with his mentor, lawyer Rory Cohn. [00:24:08][38.1]
SAM F: [00:24:10] In July of last year, the Wall Street Journal, which Murdoch owns, published a correspondence between President Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. According to the piece, Trump contributed a signed drawing of a naked woman as a gift for Epstein's 50th birthday. Happy birthday, the card read, and may every day be another wonderful secret. Trump promptly sued Murdoche $10 billion, posting on True Social, I look forward to getting Rupert Murdochi to testify in my lawsuit against him. In his, quote, pile of garbage newspaper, The Wall Street Journal. The Wall street Journal has continued to stand behind the accuracy of the reporting, but Murdoch and Trump have had a fairly symbiotic relationship since the president won the Republican nomination back in 2016. What is their dynamic look like these days? What is Murdochs influence on Trump at this moment? [00:25:01][51.4]
GABE: [00:25:03] Well, I think at this very moment, as we speak, Murdoch has had a lot of influence in pushing Trump to walk back from the abyss in Minneapolis of the immigration crackdown that ICE has been doing. The Murdochi New York Post published a scathing editorial talking about how Trump is going to destroy his presidency by the terrible images we're seeing coming out of Minneapolis. And Trump has has walked back, has deescalated with, you know, that pushback. Fox News, Brian Kilmeade, the popular morning host of Fox and Friends, kind of did an open call out to Trump to get him to deesclate in Minneapolis. So on this one particular issue, at this one particular moment, he actually is having a lot of influence. That said, I think it waxes and wanes. You know, Rupert and Trump have a very complicated love-hate relationship. I think it goes back to the very first. Candidacy in 2015. Rupert famously did not think he was qualified to be president. And when Fox News broadcast the first Republican primary debate, Ruper told then Fox News chief Roger Ailes that Fox News needs to draw a line and directed Megyn Kelly and the other anchors to pepper Donald Trump with aggressive questions. And that was when Megyn Billy asked the now infamous. Question about Trump's history of misogyny and since then Trump has been very suspicious of of Murdoch so even though they're allies I think they are allies of convenience not they're not there's not a core a deep deep connection between these two men I think there like two lions in a cage they circle each other and they'll work together when it benefits them but they I think neither of them trust each other [00:26:59][115.9]
SAM F: [00:27:00] What does Murdoch love about Trump and what does he hate about him? He said it was a love hate relationship. [00:27:03][3.5]
GABE: [00:27:05] Well He loves that Trump pokes the establishment in the eye. I think he gets, Rupert gets a kick out of the hysteria in Ruperts eyes that Trump causes amongst the left. He's found a kinship in that. Yeah, Rupert of course obviously likes the deregulation, the low taxes, that part. But we have to remember Ruper is an immigrant himself. He became an American citizen in 1985. He was one of the He was one of the leaders in the loudest voices on the right of pushing for comprehensive immigration reform, um, in the mid, in the mid two thousands. And so, um I think Rupert sees Trump's, um. Hard crack down his nativism as not in the best interests of, uh, of the country, um and I also think he Ruper is for a very muscular foreign. Policy. He's much more in the neo-con, neo-conservative, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher foreign policy than the kind of skeptical isolationism that we see in the MAGA movement. Rupert is also very pro-Israel. And I think the anti-Semitism that has bubbled up on the right is distressing to him. So there are very serious policy disagreements. But I think a lot of it also just comes down to. To style, I think Rupert just doesn't think Trump is qualified to be president. He doesn't, Ruper doesn't respect Trump as a business person. And I think he has seen, Rupert sees Trump's serial bankruptcies and kind of his many business failures as he doesn't respect him as an equal, as a business person [00:28:50][105.4]
SAM F: [00:28:52] In a recent interview when you were asked about whether you would write a book on Trump, you said, quote, I don't think I would want to spend every day of the next three years thinking about Donald Trump. And yet you did spend the last few years thinking about Murdoch. You also wrote the film The Apprentice about Donald's early years, and of course your book on Roger Ailes, The Loudest Voice in the Room. So you do seem to have like this preoccupation with these types of characters. Do you see a common denominator between the three of them? And what do you think it is that keeps pulling you back to the page? [00:29:26][34.2]
GABE: [00:29:27] I have, um, I do have a fascination with power and I do have a fascinating with the dark side of power. Um, I had a very unhappy childhood for reasons which I don't want to fully get into here, but I think part of my way of understanding the world is trying to understand how things that I am personally, um upset about or offended by things that I find. Distressing, I try to understand them as sort of, I approach them with a curiosity. I just, I think I, I see somebody like Roger Ailes, who did so much to poison, uh, the idea of fact-based journalism and, and trust in journalism. And I try understand how did he amass that much power? I think, um, similarly with Trump, I saw him as like an outer borough hustler, um the younger son of a of a middle-class housing developer from Queens who wanted to just be somebody in Manhattan. I think like these characters who defy the odds, I just find endlessly fascinating. And I don't have to like them or agree with their politics, but I just, I think it comes from a place of deep curiosity of trying to understand darkness in a very human way. And that's what I tried to do is understand them as people. And we can see a universality, I think, both between Roger Ailes, Donald Trump, and Murdoch. I think there is this desire for power that transcends any kind of moral or ethical lines. And they get up in the morning and they look in the mirror and I don't imagine they see themselves as the bad guy. And I think that's fascinating. And I wanna just understand how that works. So maybe when we see the next character who is in that vein. We will understand and maybe be able to be ready for it. We won't, you know, we seem to be repeating these patterns of these kinds of characters who amass power through deceit and bullying. And I just, I don't know, I'm drawn to it, I guess. [00:31:35][127.8]
SAM F: [00:31:35] You know, is there something in writing about these people, Ailes, Trump, Murdoch, that has helped you contextualize a part of your childhood that has helped to understand? You mentioned that it was a painful one. Like was there, is something in riding about them that has help you with that or some insight that you've had. [00:31:57][22.0]
GABE: [00:31:59] I think the three of them, Ailes, Murdoch, and Trump, and I actually have never said this or thought about this until now, I think they all had very traumatic and unhappy childhoods in their own right. Roger Ailes' father physically abused him. Donald Trump's father was disrespectful and didn't share Trump's ambition to build in Manhattan and Rupert's father, as we talked about, is withholding and judgmental. And so I think I find understanding the humanity of the bully to be something that I am endlessly fascinated by. When people ask me, are you ever gonna write another book or are you working on a new movie? I tell them that I know a project is my next project when I wake up every day thinking about the subject and I'm not bored by it and I wanna understand it on a deeper level. And with these characters, these character types, I think I just every morning, I naturally just wanna keep understanding them. [00:33:06][66.8]
SAM F: [00:33:07] There's a fine line though, because I think some people listening to this will go, you know, what are the limits of empathy? What are the limit of trying to understand? [00:33:15][8.3]
GABE: [00:33:17] Yeah, that's a valid question. I think, of course, it's something I think about. I think my metric or my baseline is I always lead with curiosity and understanding my subjects. And at the same time, I never wanna let them off the hook. So here's an example. When I was writing the screenplay for the film, The Apprentice, it was... It's essential for me that the scene at near the end of the film, spoiler alert, so stop listening if you haven't seen it, that depicts Donald Trump sexually assaulting and raping his then wife, Ivana, which was documented under oath in her divorce deposition and Trump denied it. She in later years walked some of it back, but I felt that scene in the film had to stay because Trump has been credibly accused of sexual assault by dozens of women and that has to show That's not his entire character, but that is very much a part of the dramatic character I was writing. And so that's an example of there are scenes in the film that are very humanizing and you see Trump being insulted by his father and disrespected by Roy Cohn, and you're like, oh, okay, he's really trying to make him, you know, look, feel sorry for the guy here. But that scene, I would not have put my name on the movie if it had been taken out because then it would just be a disingenuous movie. It would be a whitewash. So for me, I guess the line is, do I feel that I am showing the person in all of their true colors and not letting them off the hook, while at the same time, understanding that they had parents, they had a childhood? And I guess it's up to the reader to decide whether I have, you know, successfully done that. And as Rupert says, the readers can decide. [00:35:03][105.6]
SAM F: [00:35:04] On the subject of accountability, when it comes to Fox News, do you think Rupert has lost control of the outrage machine originally built by Roger Ailes? [00:35:14][9.6]
GABE: [00:35:15] I do. I think Rupert is sort of now a captive of a prison that he built. He's not in control of the MAGA movement. I think the best example of that is the dominion lawsuit, the exodus of viewers after the 2020 election when Fox News tried to report the truth that Biden won. And very quickly, Fox News had to buy into the Trump stolen election conspiracy or else their business would collapse. I think one of the tragedies is that Rupert's desire for ratings and profits have unleashed the populism. That now are far bigger than Fox News or any of his media properties. And so he's sort of now a surfer. I think my sort of mental image of Murdoch is he's now surfing, he's surfing a wave that he set in motion, but he can't stop the wave. And all he can do now is try to ride it. [00:36:11][55.2]
SAM F: [00:36:12] So Murdoch is riding the wave, but I'm curious about the ripples. You know, Tucker Carlson, Candice Owens, Megyn Kelly, all became stars at Fox and left, and have arguably become bigger stars since leaving. I mean, all of those broadcasters have shows that consistently rank within the top 50 of all podcasts. On YouTube, they have upwards of four to five million subscribers. Fox News is said to have around 2.5. Million viewers per day, you know, their audiences, the audience is attracted to those shows from Megyn Kelly, Candice Owens, Tucker Carlson. They're all more vocal and to the right of what Fox News offers. How is Rupert reckoned with the fact of their existence and their success? [00:37:04][51.8]
GABE: [00:37:06] Well, I think you can look at it two ways. I think, you can influence and you can you can look at money. On an influence basis, you're right. You know, Tucker Carlson is probably the most influential voice in conservative media today. Megyn Kelly is another. Candice Owens on the kind of conspiracy right is obviously a big player. So they're very influential, and they make money. But the size of the money is very, very small. Fox news is business the profits that fox news generates the more than a billion dollars of profit Dwarfs the size of their podcast and their own personal media companies So I think murdoch reconciles it just fine when he looks at the money that his company is making but yes as a matter of influence the the Bar is shifting towards digital media towards um, personal brands versus a network and I think that speaks to the larger story of what's happening, um, in the conservative media and just media more generally is the atomization of, of the audience of people, of sort of audiences, gravitating around personalities, whether it's through TikTok, Instagram, podcasts. And that is a space in which the Murdochs don't really have a huge footprint. They're not pioneers, I should say in the kind of shift to, to digital, um uh, vertical video that we're seeing. Um, and that's an open question now of what's going to happen. You know, Fox news is audience continues to get older by the year. So it's a bit of an actuarial game. Like how long can the Fox news audience, um, continue to be a profitable business as it gets older and older. [00:38:49][102.6]
SAM F: [00:38:50] Rupert is 94 years old with four children, the eldest ones, of varying levels of estrangement. After 70 years of RuperT talking about building a family business, do you think he still thinks of it that way? [00:39:05][15.5]
GABE: [00:39:07] He does, I think he sees handing the empire to Lachlan as a triumph, he's always wanted to do that. I think, he sad, I mean, I do think of course, who wouldn't be disheartened that your children are estranged from you and to some extent each other. But I do the fact that he has held the business within the family, I the fact that his son Lachland is the CEO. And majority that they have ownership and control over the business. It is still a family business. And that is the measure by which I think Rupert measures success. I don't think he measures success by how close of a relationship he has with the children. If he had had to sort of merge the company or sell it to someone else, that would be a failure because it would no longer be a family, business. But he has actually done what he set out to do was to pass the company to one of his children. And at the cost of destroying the nuclear family that in which they all grew up in [00:40:06][59.1]
SAM F: [00:40:08] You know, since the time he was a teenager back in Australia, Murdoch has been saying, my only palpable goal is to change the world. Having nearly spent the last 20 years covering Rupert Murdoche, how do you think he'll be remembered? Did he do just as he set out to do way back when in Australia? [00:40:30][21.5]
GABE: [00:40:32] I think without question, he's one of the most consequential people of the 20th and early 21st century. There's few people that have had more effect on global politics than he has. I happen to think he's been an incredibly destructive force on global politics. But there's no doubt, regardless of whatever you think of, if you're left, right, center, He is a consequential figure. He did change the world. I think unfortunately now we're all going to be living with the consequences. [00:41:06][33.6]
SAM F: [00:41:07] Gabriel Sherman. [00:41:08][0.3]
GABE: [00:41:08] Thank you. Thank you for having me. [00:41:10][1.9]
TERRY: [00:41:11] Gabriel Sherman is the author of Bonfire of the Murdochs. He spoke with guest interviewer, Sam Fragoso, host of the interview podcast, Talk Easy. [00:41:11][0.0]
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