Newsrooms have been experimenting with AI for several years now but, for the most part, those efforts have been just that: experiments. A relatively unknown startup, Symbolic.ai, wants to change that, and it just signed a major deal with News Corp, the media conglomerate owned by Rupert Murdoch.
News Corp, the major assets of which include MarketWatch, the New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal, is set to begin using Symbolic’s AI platform with its financial news hub Dow Jones Newswires.
Symbolic.ai, which was founded by former eBay CEO Devin Wenig and Ars Technica co-founder Jon Stokes, says its AI platform can “assist in the production of quality journalism and content” and that its tool has even led to “productivity gains of as much as 90% for complex research tasks.” The platform is designed to make editorial workflows more efficient, providing improvements in areas like newsletter creation, audio transcription, fact-checking, “headline optimization,” SEO advice, and others.
In general, News Corp has shown a willingness to integrate AI into its media operations. In 2024, the company signed a multi-year partnership with OpenAI, wherein it would license its material to the AI company. Last November, the media conglomerate signaled that it was considering branching out, and licensing its material to other AI companies.
The emails to and from Jeffrey Epstein released this week shine a light on the delicate relationship between reporters and their sources. And, as can be the case, bright light isn’t always flattering.
Messages between Epstein, the convicted sex offender who died by suicide in 2019, and journalists Michael Wolff and Landon Thomas Jr. are frequently chummy and, in one case, show Wolff giving Epstein advice on how to deal with the media —- a line journalists are taught not to cross. Wolff specializes in the “you are there” inside accounts that are possible with intensive reporting, though some of his work has been questioned.
People frequently see journalists in public settings, conducting an interview or asking questions at a news conference. Private phone calls, texts or messages — where reporters try to ingratiate themselves with sources who may not otherwise be inclined to give information — are inherently different. But ethical rules remain and are followed by most in American journalism.
Wolff’s advice came in a December 2015 exchange, where the writer said he heard CNN was going to ask then-presidential candidate Donald Trump about his relationship with Epstein. If we could craft an answer for him, Epstein wondered, what would it be?
“I think you should let him hang himself,” Wolff replied. “If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt.”
Advice on media relations for convicted sex offender
The exchange left some experts aghast.
Independence is vital for a journalist, and Wolff compromised it, said Dan Kennedy, a media writer and professor at Northeastern University.
Kathleen Bartzen Culver’s voice rises in anger just contemplating the example. Culver, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin, said there are plenty of ethical issues to maneuver every day, like whether a reporter should give $20 after interviewing a poor person who lost benefits during the government shutdown.
“Giving PR advice to a convicted sex offender isn’t one of them,” she said.
Wolff, a two-time National Magazine Award winner, wrote books like “Fire and Fury,” about the opening days of the first Trump administration, and “The Man Who Owns the News,” a biography of Rupert Murdoch. “Historically, one of the problems with Wolff’s omniscience is that while he may know all, he gets some of it wrong,” the late David Carr of The New York Times wrote in a review of the Murdoch book.
Wolff, who did not immediately return a message from The Associated Press, admitted on the “Inside Trump’s Head” podcast that some of the email messages were embarrassing. But he said his knowledge of the media offers “the kind of cachet that gives me a place at the table, which has gotten me the Epstein story, if anybody wanted to pay attention.”
At one point in 2016, Wolff turns the table, seeking counsel from Epstein on what he should ask during an upcoming interview with Trump. That’s a legitimate journalistic exercise, part of the reporting that goes into preparing for an interview.
A 2016 exchange with Epstein mixed a plea for an interview with some advice: “There’s an opportunity to come forward this week and talk about Trump in such a way that could garner you great sympathy and help finish him off. Interested?”
Wolff said on the podcast that part of his role is “play-acting” to get sources to reveal things they would not tell other people. And he took on his critics.
“These are not people that have written the kind of books that I have written,” he said, “and I often make the distinction between journalists who do what they do — daily reporters working for organizations, working within a very prescribed set of rules — and what I do. I’m a writer who manages to make relationships that let me tell a story in the ways that The New York Times or other very reputable journalistic organizations are unable to tell.”
Author Michael Wolff discusses his latest book on March 14, 2025, in New York. (Photo by CJ Rivera/Invision/AP, File)
Author Michael Wolff discusses his latest book on March 14, 2025, in New York. (Photo by CJ Rivera/Invision/AP, File)
A distinction that not every reader makes
Not everyone sees the difference when considering works of nonfiction. Culver cited journalism that took courage and skill to report and said, “I find it heartbreaking when that kind of work is sullied by this kind of garbage.”
Should a journalist act differently in public or private? They’re not supposed to. That explains why Connie Chung had a hard time living down her 1995 exchange with then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s mother. Gingrich initially ducked when Chung asked how her son felt about Hillary Clinton until Chung asked — on camera — “why don’t you just whisper it to me — just between you and me.”
Many of the exchanges between Epstein and the journalists are chatty, gossipy — seemingly harmless, yet not the sort of things one would like to see published years later. Northeastern’s Kennedy read some of the emails between Wolff and Epstein and said “it just seemed like kibbitzing with a child molester for no apparent purpose.”
In one email conversation, the former New York Times reporter Thomas mentions that he’s been getting calls from another journalist who is writing a book on Epstein. “He seems very interested in your relationship with the news media,” Thomas wrote. “I told him you were a hell of a guy :).”
Thomas also didn’t hide his feelings about Trump in one conversation — a personal opinion that most reporters learn to keep to themselves. “I am getting worried,” Thomas wrote in July 2016. “Is he ever going to implode?”
Relations between journalist and source: Step carefully
Journalists should take care to maintain boundaries, especially when dealing with people who are inexperienced with the media. There’s admittedly a fine line: A reporter needs a source’s trust, but it’s a form of deception if a source begins to think of the journalist as a friend who would never betray them.
People most commonly think of politics when considering bias in journalism. More frequently, bias shows up in relationships, whether a reporter likes or dislikes someone they are dealing with, Culver said.
“I advise my students to be human with their sources,” she said. “Not to be friendly or sweet, but to come at it with respect and understanding.”
Thomas stopped working at The Times in 2019 after editors discovered a violation of its ethical standards. National Public Radio reported that Thomas had solicited a $30,000 contribution from Epstein for a charity the journalist supported.
In one exchange that was widely noticed online, Epstein asked Thomas in 2015 if he would like photos of Trump and girls in bikinis taken in his kitchen. “Yes!!!” the reporter replied.
But The Times said no such photos were forthcoming.
The details keep trickling in on the American takeover of TikTok, though whether they actually provide clarity or just muddy the waters further is debatable. The latest tidbit offered by Donald Trump: Conservative media magnate Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan might be a part of the group of American investors who will be buying the social media platform from Chinese ownership at ByteDance.
In an interview on Fox News’ “The Sunday Briefing,” the president offered details in about the least certain way imaginable. First, he said, “A man named Lachlan is involved.” Luckily, there aren’t that many Lachlans with access to “Buying TikTok” money, but Trump did specify that he was indeed speaking of Lachlan Murdoch. He went on to say that the Murdoch men are “probably gonna be in the group,” then said, “I think they’re going to be in the group.” Sounds like a sure thing on a deal that has been short on details for some time now.
Trump lumped the Murdochs in with some other players who are believed to be involved in the deal to buy TikTok, including Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell. Ellison has been the most consistent name tied with the American-ized TikTok, and he’s had close ties to Trump dating back to his first administration. Ellison and his son also own a huge stake in Paramount, which has been rapidly turning CBS into a Trump-aligned news network, including reportedly preparing a major deal to bring in Bari Weiss. Michael Dell is a newer name in the mix, but perhaps not a surprising one given that the CEO has been talking up some of Trump’s policies in recent months.
Trump didn’t make specific mention of Marc Andreessen or his venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, nor investment firm Silver Lake, both of which the Wall Street Journal previously reported were expected to be involved in buying TikTok. He did say there were others involved, who Trump described as “really great people, very prominent people.”
The involvement of the Murdochs is certainly of note, though. Trump and Rupert Murdoch haven’t been on the greatest of terms, given that the Wall Street Journal, owned by Murdoch, has been leading the way in reporting on Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein. The two are currently involved in a lawsuit over the Journal’s reporting, but they also recently traveled to the United Kingdom together and have a much longer history than just this current spat.
It’s not hard to imagine why Murdoch wants in on the deal: his media conglomerate currently counts primarily on the extremely old audience that watches Fox News. TikTok provides an opportunity to serve his preferred brand of conservative slop to a younger generation.
On Monday, the House Oversight Committee released a letter that depicted a line drawing of a naked woman, with what appeared to be Donald Trump’s signature in place of her pubic hair. The letter, which also included an imaginary dialogue between Trump and the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, had been included in a book compiled for Epstein’s fiftieth birthday, in 2003, and was handed over by Epstein’s estate following a congressional request. Its publication seemed to vindicate the Wall Street Journal, which reported on the existence of the letter in July. Back then, Trump had angrily denied that such a document was real and said that he personally asked Rupert Murdoch, the Journal’s owner, to intervene; per Trump, Murdoch said that he would “take care of it,” but the paper pressed ahead with the story, and Trump subsequently sued it, and Murdoch. Not that the release of the letter prompted Trump to back down. The White House reiterated its claim that Trump never signed it, suggesting that it would support a handwriting analysis to prove as much. Trump himself told NBC that the letter is a “dead issue.”
It likely isn’t. But, as I see it, there were more important stories on Monday alone—including one that involved Murdoch. For the past couple of years, he has been locked in a Hollywood-esque successionbattle involving four of his children—Lachlan, James, Elisabeth, and Prudence—who between them held equal stakes in the trust that controls Murdoch’s global media business. Murdoch apparently became convinced that, after his death, James, whose politics are relatively liberal, would, with his sisters, gang up on Lachlan, a rock-ribbed conservative, and set about softening, or even ending, the empire’s right-wing orientation. Murdoch attempted to change the terms of the trust (even though it was supposed to be more or less irrevocable) to enshrine Lachlan’s control; the other children mounted a legal challenge. Following a secretive—and rococo—probate process, they won. So Murdoch and Lachlan bought them off. On Monday, it was announced that James, Elisabeth, and Prudence will each receive a little over a billion dollars to, essentially, go away. Veteran Murdochologists likened the news to a dramatic seasonfinale, and to Murdoch pulling “one final rabbit out of his hat.”
Taken together, these two stories appeared to present a contradiction. The publication of the Epstein birthday book was a significant development in a tense legal battle between Murdoch and Trump. And yet Murdoch securing Lachlan as his heir will doubtless rebound to Trump’s benefit by insuring the right-wing bona fides of Murdoch’s empire—and, in particular, Fox News, which has often propagandized on Trump’s behalf. There are various potential explanations for this discrepancy. The Journal and Fox may share an owner, but he has allowed them to cultivate different audiences and sensibilities; the Journal’s editorial board, although reliably conservative, isn’t afraid to give Trump a bloody nose, and its newsroom (although, perhaps, conservative in a subtler sense) has pursued rigorous reporting that has embarrassed the President. (Even before Trump took office for the first time, it was the Journal that broke the story of hush-money payments to the former Playboy model Karen McDougal.) Murdoch might simply love a salacious scoop above all else. And his relationship with Trump has long been contradictory, or, at least, love-hate.
I think that there’s truth in all of these theories. But, with talk of Murdoch’s legacy now swirling, none of them—nor the Epstein lawsuit itself—should obscure how much Trump has done to boost Murdoch and how much Murdoch has done to boost Trump. Their relationship, ultimately, deserves to be remembered not as one of occasional antagonism but one of persistent mutual benefit. Not that we’ve necessarily seen the season finale just yet.
The story of Murdoch and Trump’s relationship has certainly been peppered with colorful insults. Shortly after Trump announced that he would run for President, in 2015, the New York Timesdepicted them as a pair of clashing titans and reported that Murdoch viewed Trump as a “phony.” During that campaign, Murdoch was both privately skeptical of Trump’s odds and, on occasion, publicly disdainful of his policies, not least his nativist stance on immigration; at one point, Trump accused Murdoch of tweeting “evil” things about him. The author Michael Wolff would later write that, during the transition process after Trump won, Murdoch branded him a “fucking idiot.” (Murdoch denied this.) Four years later, after Trump’s efforts to stay in power culminated in an insurrection, Murdoch told a friend that he wanted to make Trump a “non person.” Ahead of the 2024 Republican primary, he appeared to support Ron DeSantis as a challenger; when that didn’t work, he reportedly lobbied Trump to pick anyone other than J. D. Vance as his running mate. (That didn’t work, either.) After Trump filed his Epstein lawsuit, he demanded that Murdoch testify promptly, on the indelicate grounds that he is ninety-four and might be “unavailable for in-person testimony at trial.” The Timesis talking of clashing titans once again.
During this same period, however, there was a lot more evidence of warmth between the pair. In 2016, Murdoch eventually got on board the Trump train; the following year, the Timesreported that they spoke often, that Murdoch would try to lift Trump when he was down, and that the relationship was “deeper and more enduring” than most in Trump’s life. Trump’s denialism in the wake of his 2020 election loss may have displeased Murdoch, but he later admitted that he didn’t prevent various Fox stars from endorsing Trump’s lies. (Murdoch made this acknowledgment under oath, as part of a libel suit brought by Dominion, a voting-technology company, that Fox would eventually settle for $787.5 million; a similar case filed by a separate company is ongoing, and recently threw up more embarrassing revelations of Trump sycophancy.) This year, Murdoch has been spotted at the Inauguration, in the Oval Office, and—just days before the Epstein story dropped—in Trump’s box at a soccer game. As of recently, they still talked.
This broader discrepancy, too, can be explained. I’ve written before that Murdoch both makes the weather and checks the forecast—strives to shape public opinion, in other words, while also anticipating or following it—and that these dual impulses are the key to understanding how he operates. He is hugely influential, but he has never been quite as omnipotent as some of his detractors believe. Murdoch himself has always seemed to recognize this; in his native Australia, and then in the U.K., he backed politicians that he perceived as friendly to his interests—and who, crucially, looked like winning horses—including liberals, such as the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. When Trump proved popular, Murdoch came around. As Jane Mayer wrote in this magazine, in 2019, he benefitted from several favorable regulatory maneuvers during Trump’s first term.
Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas previously worked at OpenAI. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Perplexity AI, a startup that has previously come under fire from online publishers, is attempting to rebuild trust with media players through revenue-sharing agreements. But that effort hasn’t stopped complaints about how the company surfaces content. Its latest challenge comes from Japanese media groups Nikkei and Asahi Shumbun, which today (Aug. 26) filed a joint lawsuit accusing Perplexity of copyright infringement.
Co-founded in 2022 by CEO Aravind Srinivas, Perplexity has quickly become a leader in A.I.-powered search and is currently valued at $18 billion. Unlike traditional search engines that return links, Perplexity responds to queries by summarizing information found online, accompanies by citations.
Perplexity did not respond to Observer requests for comment on the lawsuit.
Nikkei, which owns the eponymous Japanese newspaper and the Financial Times, and Asahi Shumbun claim that Perplexity has been storing and resurfacing their articles since at least June 2024, a practice the publishers describe as “free riding” on journalists’ work. The lawsuit, filed in a Tokyo District Court, demands that the A.I. company delete stored articles, stop reproducing publisher content, and pay each media company 2.2 billion Japanese yen ($15 million) in damages.
The suit also alleges that Perplexity ignored robot.txt safeguards implemented by the news publishers to block unauthorized crawling and sometimes presented articles alongside incorrect information, a move the publishers argue “severely damages the credibility” of their newspapers.
This is not Perplexity’s first clash with news publishers. Earlier this month, Yomiuri Shimbun, another major Japanese newspaper, filed its own lawsuit against the company. U.S. outlets have also raised challenges.
Last year, Condé Nast, Forbes and The New York Times all threatened legal action over alleged copyright infringement. Perplexity is currently battling a 2024 lawsuit from Dow Jones and The New York Post—both owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp—claiming that the startup misused content to train A.I. models. A court recently rejected Perplexity’s bid to dismiss that case.
For now, the media industry remains divided on how to handle the rise of A.I. Some, like the Associated Press, Vox Media and The Atlantic, have signed licensing deals with OpenAI. Others remain wary. The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft over unauthorized use of its content, while Canadian startup Cohere was hit with a similar lawsuit this year from more than a dozen news publishers. Thompson Reuters has also accused A.I. platform Ross Intelligence of copyright infringement in a case that dates back to 2020.
Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: New York Post
It’s hard to argue that the New York Post is exactly what it once was.
After Rupert Murdoch bought it and remade it in his Fleet Street image in 1976, the city woke up each morning faced with its brazen, often hilarious front page (a.k.a. “the wood”) and the fearsome, must-read “Page Six” gossip column. Everybody read it, from cop to CEO, and for decades it was the paper of record for the city’s id, helping set the agenda for the rest of the coverage, from glossy magazines to the nightly news, in the media capital of the world. Today, with information and outrage coming from a million different directions into your phones, that power is less so; the Post can often feel like it is playing catch-up to the internet. But by becoming more of a national tabloid — with lots of gossip, scandal, and right-wing spin — it’s doing better than most local newspapers, and even, in recent years, has claimed to be profitable.
Last month, I met up with Susan Mulcahy and Frank DiGiacomo, two New York Post veterans — Mulcahy from 1978 to 1985, DiGiacomo from the late 1980s to 1993 — who are out today with a 528-page oral history of the Post. We chatted over coffee at the Odeon, where copies of the New York Times, the Daily News, and, naturally, the Post were proudly — and somewhat anachronistically — displayed on the restaurant’s magazine rack, throwbacks to an era when everybody wasn’t just staring at their screens. Their book, Paper of Wreckage: The Rogues, Renegades, Wiseguys, Wankers, and Relentless Reporters Who Redefined American Media, tells the story of the Post during the Murdoch era through the voices of more than 230 current and former staffers who lived it. (Read an excerpt here.) “I feel like we’ve got sort of the pros, cons, the good, bad, and the ugly,” says DiGiacomo, whose oral history of “Page Six” for Vanity Fair in 2004 formed the basis for part of the book project, which was originally Mulcahy’s idea.
You’re both quoted in your own oral history.
Frank DiGiacomo: Yeah, well, we were kind of inspired by the [George] Plimpton book on Edie Sedgwick. And he’s in that.
Susan Mulcahy: We didn’t want to put too much of ourselves in.Several of my quotes in our book are from Frank’s Vanity Fair piece. Then there were a couple places where we were putting this whole thing together about outrageous Steve Dunleavy drunk stories. And Frank and I are talking about it. I’m like, “I’ve got one. I’m going swimming at this health club and Dunleavy …” Then Frank had a very different experience covering Trump than I did because it was so much later. So that was appropriate for him to put in his experience covering Trump. I don’t think we’re in it that much.
When did you work at the Post?
Mulcahy: I was there in ’78, so I wasn’t there when he first bought the paper, but I was there a year later. There were a lot of things I liked about working there, but there were many things I hated and I wanted to get out. At a certain point, I was trapped. I left town for ten years in part because I just felt like I was typecast by New York. So it just was like “Page Six,” “Page Six,” “Page Six.” But there was some of it, the political incorrectness, yes, some of it was offensive, but some of it was kind of funny … There were also no women in positions of power in the Murdoch era. It was all guys.
DiGiacomo: I was hired for a tryout on “Page Six,” and I was part time forever.
What was it like then?
DiGiacomo: Working on “Page Six,” you get this map of the power grid of the city and you see who’s pulling strings where. I don’t think I could have had the career that I had afterward if not because of that. I knew who to call. I had a huge rolodex, and it just was good. I mean, working for [longtime “Page Six” editor] Richard Johnson, who is a very underrated editor and a very funny guy to work for. People would call him, and he goes, “I got it, it’s at the bottom of my pile.” And he had great stuff. So there was that. I also learned you learn to take very complex stuff and condense it, which is very helpful now in this age.
Mulcahy: We checked out everything. When we would say “Rumor has it,” it was not a rumor. And “Page Six” was checked more, not only by the lawyers, but Joe Rab, who was a very long-term features editor there, was the final read.
Did “Page Six” feel all powerful then?
Mulcahy: “Page Six” was sort of an entity unto itself. So the power of “Page Six,” it was amazing to me, the politicians — I went to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner when there were no celebrities there. Trust me. Or the Inner Circle dinner. Have you ever been to that? Sometimes it can be amusing. It’s a big local political dinner. And the mayor always gets up onstage, whatever. And these politicians — they knew who I was, they all read “Page Six” — they’d have comments, and you’d get calls from their adviser. I don’t remember that I ever got a call from a specific politician yelling at me but from their advisers and political consultants.
DiGiacomo: Sean Penn — who then was at the height of his fame — calling to ask to “please don’t write this.” Or Mickey Rourke calling to say he was going to kick Richard Johnson’s ass. You had these people reaching out, and you were like, Okay, people are reading this. Robert De Niro called me a “fucking prick” once.
What happened?
Mulcahy: It’s different now. I mean, I still read “Page Six” and enjoy it and everything. But when I was doing it, it was like putting together a mini condensed version of a newspaper or magazine — media, politics, entertainment, Wall Street, society. You had to have a little bit of everything. You had to have a real balanced mix. And if you didn’t have any entertainment stories, you had to come up with one, because it had to be balanced. It was very powerful at the time.
DiGiacomo: The problem is that once the age of the internet hit, you had all of these sites coming up that were specialized. All of the subjects that “Page Six” covered and put together on one page were suddenly being taken away … And I discovered this when I went to work briefly for the Daily News. Once traffic became important, it just became about reality TV and the Kardashians. And I think it just sort of gives the sameness to things. But I will say this about “Page Six”: They get Elon Musk on the phone.
Rupert Murdoch directs coverage in the Post’s newsroom, 1977.
What was it like to cover Trump in the early days?
DiGiacomo:
Exhausting. I mean, that was really the heyday. It was the time of the “Best Sex I Ever Had” cover. And you would just be bombarded with stuff from all the desks. They were getting these tips, and they would come to you. And if the competition got it, and you didn’t, whether it was true or not, it just was like, “How did you miss that?” So that was a great deal of stress, and I was just exhausted by him.
How important was the Post in his rise?
DiGiacomo:
I can’t say the Post was solely responsible. I mean, because of the competition between the News and the Post, everybody wanted a piece of this. I think that’s why the Trump-Ivana-Marla thing still holds the record for the most woods in a row. It’s my theory that Trump learned to speak tabloid, which he still uses to this day — these very short, sort of general sentences that are exaggerated.
Has the Post lost too much of its New York–ness trying to make it on the internet?
DiGiacomo:
I do think that at least for the first period that Murdoch owned it, the Post did define New York. Graydon Carter says that when he came to New York, he read it to sort of know what he needed to know in the city and — especially with “Page Six” — the people he needed to know. And Letterman used it. Saturday Night Live used it. So I think it really defined New York then. And again, I think when he got it back, after breaking the union and stuff, there was that period in the sort of late ’90s and early 2000s where, again, it was really good at sort of capturing the Sex and the City era of New York. Now, I just feel that a lot of it is just creating fear.
It seems pretty obvious that Rupert Murdoch is less involved in the paper than he used to be.
Mulcahy:
He’s got so much else going on, and has had so much else going on, for such a long time. And at this point, it’s probably age. But you see, we had the anecdote that starts the book, when things were not going the way he wanted them, when Xana Antunes was the editor, he showed up at the editorial meetings and really chastised her in a public way.
DiGiacomo:
I think he gets involved when there’s an election at stake. I really do think that that’s when he’s really in it.
Mulcahy:
Although Gary Ginsberg told us that when Col Allan was the editor, he and Murdoch talked every day. So does he still talk to Keith Poole every day? I kind of doubt it, but I don’t know.
How did you go about asking people to participate?
DiGiacomo:
I think what was surprising was that a lot of people wanted to tell their stories. And the other thing that was very surprising is that even people who had been fired would say, “This was the best job of my career.” And there were those people who were difficult and some people just wouldn’t talk to us. And I think a few had NDAs or some issues —
Did you try Murdoch?
DiGiacomo:
Oh yeah.
Mulcahy:
We had his secretary’s email, which is way better than going through the PR person. And she strung us along for — how long? I don’t want to say “strung us along” — that’s not fair. But she didn’t say “no.” And so it was like at least two months, if not three. And I get these emails saying, “Well, I haven’t spoken to him yet. He’s out of the country.” Then, ultimately, I got a call from the PR people, and I thought, Okay, that’s the end.
DiGiacomo:
The other thing, I mean — it was frustrating, but I think understandable — was we approached a lot of celebrities who were stories and, to a person, except for Candice Bergen, they said “no.”
Mulcahy:
Well, we got John Waters and Isaac Mizrahi.
DiGiacomo:
It’s my opinion that no one wants to piss off the Post.
Mulcahy:
Alec Baldwin did talk to Frank for Vanity Fair but not for this book. No, he wouldn’t talk to us. Weird.
DiGiacomo:
Well, he was also going through a lot of legal stuff at that point.
Post legend Steve Dunleavy with Joey Buttafuoco Photo: Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty
What was the biggest challenge of doing the book?
DiGiacomo:
Well, I mean, constructing an oral history is super-hard. And we talked every Monday to sort of discuss, first, how are we going to break this up? Then what would happen was we’d each sort of work on chapters, then switch and add things, then we each sort of edited the chapters.
Mulcahy:
At the beginning, we did talk about — and we ran this by our editor — we were like, “Should we do a Dunleavy chapter; should we do headlines?” We did do a headlines chapter, but it worked chronologically. And at one point we had dates for every chapter. This chapter is ’78 to ’79, and it just didn’t work because we had so much, so what we ended up doing is breaking it into sections.
DiGiacomo:
I find it very frustrating when I read an oral history and it’s just quotes. Because you’re like, Where am I in the story, and the subjects keep changing? I mean, I do feel like we really worked hard to make this flow, if not exactly chronologically, close to it.
And also in the book people are — without knowing, obviously — in conversation with each other, just based on the way you’ve ordered it, which is so much fun.
Mulcahy:
We made sure we went back to everybody … Some of these phone calls were very difficult to make. I really like Peter Vecsey, and I like Phil Mushnick, but I had to call Vecsey and say, “Phil Mushnick says you’re a bully and a psychopath.”
And what was the best part about writing the book?
DiGiacomo:
While I was working there, I heard all these amazing stories and I was like, Are all these true? A lot of ’em were told at bars, and I was just like, “The stories are so great.” It was one of the reasons I pitched the Vanity Fair piece too. And the other thing, I mean, I was not exactly happy about it, but a lot of people we interviewed died because we were working during COVID. I feel a measure of pride that we got this stuff down. I don’t think the Post would’ve ever done it.
What’s your favorite story from the book?
Mulcahy:
I really got a kick out of so many of the Dunleavy stories. When I first started working here, I found Steve to be very funny. I enjoyed him as a character in the office, but he ultimately drove me out the door. I did not go to his funeral, but I did appreciate what a great character was. No one could believe he lived to be 81.
DiGiacomo:
Wayne Darwen’s story about Dunleavy having sex with his fiancée on a snowbank. I mean, that was a story that I’d heard forever. And it was like, “Can this really be true?” And it was.
Mulcahy:
The stories about the Christmas party in ’79. I was like a clerk on “Page Six” at that point — oh my God. The fistfights, the drinking, people just standing on desks and falling off. Then the next day, one of the two guys that got in the fistfight, Craig Ammerman and Daniel O’Donnell, one of them, I’m not sure which one, then got in his car, drove up on the West Side, then drove into the window of a big car dealership. I just thought, Wow, that’s not the kind of Christmas party I was expecting. So I love that my memory was valid because I thought I just remembered that being insane. And enough people who I talked to said it was like something out of a movie.
Looking back, do you miss it?
Mulcahy:
I think I had a love-hate relationship with the Post forever because I feel as though when I was a senior in college, when I started working there, I feel like I grew up there. Then doing this book made me appreciate some of the things that were positive about it. I’m still pissed off, but there was a little more positivity as I was remembering than at the time.
DiGiacomo:
I wouldn’t say it was necessarily a happy experience, but it was formative for me. And it really toughened me up as a reporter. And I also think that I was pretty naïve before I worked there. You lose that very quickly.
Mulcahy:
That’s true. You just have to have very thick skin.
Do you think the paper will survive after Rupert?
Mulcahy:
I don’t know that it’ll survive. If Lachlan becomes the definitive heir and the trust is broken up, I don’t think so. One person, Eric Fettmann, worked there for a long time. He says he thinks that Lachlan respects the Post brand and he would keep it going. But I don’t know. I don’t think the kids have the same attachment to it. That’s one thing that’s positive. Doing this book, we really learned there are obviously negative sides to Murdoch, but there are positive sides, and one of them is the guy loves newspapers. So that’s important. He also works really hard. That was amazing. People would talk about not only him in the office but calling — you never said to Murdoch, when he called in from wherever he was around the globe, you never said there’s nothing going on, because you would get an earful: “What do you mean?” You’d say, “We’re working on a great one.” If there’s a murder here, we’re following up on it. You never said there was nothing going on. So he really was very driven to have the paper be what he wanted it to be. But at this point, I don’t know.
DiGiacomo:
Yeah, I think you’re right. I think if Lachlan wins, there’s a chance. But if he’s not the sole, I think they’ll shut the Post down.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The government of Australia’s most populous state ordered all public employees to work from their offices by default beginning Tuesday and urged stricter limits on remote work, after news outlets provoked a fraught debate about work-from-home habits established during the pandemic.
Chris Minns, the New South Wales premier, said in a notice to agencies Monday that jobs could be made flexible by means other than remote working, such as part-time positions and role sharing, and that “building and replenishing public institutions” required “being physically present.” His remarks were welcomed by business and real estate groups in the state’s largest city, Sydney, who have decried falling office occupancy rates since 2020, but denounced by unions, who pledged to challenge the initiative if it was invoked unnecessarily.
The instruction made the state’s government, Australia’s largest employer with more than 400,000 staff, the latest among a growing number of firms and institutions worldwide to attempt a reversal of remote working arrangements introduced as the coronavirus spread. But it defied an embrace of remote work by the governments of some other Australian states, said some analysts, who suggested lobbying by a major newspaper prompted the change.
“It seems that the Rupert Murdoch-owned Daily Telegraph in Sydney has been trying to get the New South Wales government to mandate essentially that workers go back to the office,” said Chris F. Wright, an associate professor in the discipline of work at the University of Sydney. The newspaper cited prospective economic boons for struggling businesses.
The newspaper wrote Tuesday that the premier’s decision “ending the work from home era” followed its urging, although Minns did not name it as a factor.
But the union representing public servants said there was scant evidence for the change and warned the state government could struggle to fill positions.
“Throughout the New South Wales public sector, they’re trying to retain people,” said Stewart Little, the General Secretary of the Public Service Association. “In some critical agencies like child protection we’re looking at 20% vacancy rates, you’re talking about hundreds of jobs.”
Little added that government offices have shrunk since 2020 and agencies would be unable to physically accommodate every employee on site. Minns said the state would lease more space, according to the Daily Telegraph.
The change is a “game-changer” for languishing central city businesses, said Katie Stevenson, Executive Director of the Australian Property Council’s NSW branch. “More workers mean more life, more investment, and more business for our cities.”
Individual agencies could devise their own policies, the order added, but should ensure employees “spread attendance across all days of the working week.” Requests to work from home on some occasions should be formally approved for a limited period only and reasons for the request should be supplied, the directive said.
Minns said workplace culture and opportunities for mentorship would improve, in remarks echoing other business leaders worldwide who have questioned the productivity of remote workers. Most public workers, such as teachers and nurses, could not work from home anyway, he added.
The order set New South Wales apart from other Australian states, one of which sought to capitalize on the move Tuesday. A spokesperson for Jacinta Allan, the premier of neighboring Victoria, told reporters the state’s remote work allowances would remain undisturbed and disgruntled NSW public servants should consider moving there.
Wright said the change not only overturned increased flexibility during the pandemic but also erased a decade of moves by Australia’s federal government encouraging remote working to reduce barriers to workforce participation, lower carbon emissions and reduce traffic jams.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been broadly supportive of remote working. His government will enact a “right to disconnect” law later this month that will allow employees to refuse work communications outside their agreed hours.
It is summer wedding season – complete with stress, family and things which just go wrong….wedding couples should know about this key aphrodisiac
Weddings come in all shapes and sizes. Couples are diverse – young, old, same sex, different sex, Star Trek fans and more. Even Rupert Murdoch has gotten remarried for the 5th time. Science, Hallmark Rom-Coms and Bridezilla shows highlight the good, the perfect and sometimes the mess, but the strain of it all can cause problems. Wedding couples should about know about this aphrodisiac to make the wedding time extra special.
Marijuana has been an intimacy go-to for thousands of years. It pops up in the Karma Sutra and is used extensively in sensual tantric rituals, yoga, and more. It has been established across the world couples can enjoy both sex and cannabis. If can be helpful in many ways, including leading up to the magic moment.
The bible of women getting married, Brides Magazine, reported, intimacy is improved with cannabis is imbibed. And cannabis can lead to better sex. It has definitely gone mainstream and is acceptable. The other main resource is The Knot, which also gently suggests ways ot make the wedding and honeymoon better.
With bridezillas being on the rise, one way cannabis or cbd can make is difference is reducing the anxiety. THC appears to decrease anxiety at lower doses while CBD at all dose. It can also help with sleep leading up to the big day. Healthier and less fattening than alcohol, it helps set a positive stage for nuptials and nighttime.
When it comes to the honeymoon, women have cannabinoid receptors in their reproductive system. Cannabis helps relax female muscles, increase lubrication and even intensify and draw out orgasms. CBD, which comes from the cannabis plant. can be just as effective in the bedroom, reducing any pain and calming your headspace. But the right THC strain can have you in another world with your partner and you don’t have get give a high, simply in the mood.
And with over 50% of the country having legal weed, smoking it isn’t the only option. Gummies and vapes are more discreet with way less smell. With gummies, you can microdose to take the edge off the planning and event. It might be something worth considering.
Rupert Murdoch, 93, has married for the fifth time, his corporation, News Corp, confirmed Sunday.
Murdoch, the media mogul who recently stepped down as chairman of Fox News and News Corp, married Elena Zhukova, a 67-year-old Russian-born retired molecular biologist, on Saturday in a ceremony at his vineyard estate in Bel Air, California. Photographs of the newly married couple were released by News Corp. The couple announced their engagement in March.
Rupert Murdoch and Elena Zhukova pose for a photo, on Saturday, June 1, 2024 during their wedding ceremony at his vineyard estate in Bel Air, Calif.
News Corp. via AP
Zhukova studied at the University of California, Los Angeles, according to a New York Times report in March. In her career as a molecular biologist, she focused on diabetes. Zhukova is also the ex-wife of Alexander Zhukov, a billionaire energy investor and Russian politician.Their daughter, Dasha, was previously married to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, who used to own the Premier League soccer club Chelsea. Abramovich was an early target of Western sanctions after the Kremlin first invaded Ukraine in 2022.
After Murdoch stepped down as leader of both Fox News’ parent company and his News Corp media holdings, his son, Lachlan, took his place in a media empire that spans continents and helped to shape modern American politics.
Murdoch, whose net worth is pegged at $9.77 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has been married four times before. Most recently, he was engaged to retired dental hygienist Ann Lesley Smith, whom he never married. He was previously married to model Jerry Hall, whom he divorced in the summer of 2022.
His first three wives include Patricia Booker, Anna Murdoch Mann, and Wendi Murdoch.
In 1952, Murdoch inherited a newspaper in his native Australia from his father. Over decades, he built a news and entertainment enterprise that became prominent in the United States and Britain, including ownership of such notable newspapers as The Times of London and The Wall Street Journal.
Fox News Channel, the 24-hour network founded in 1996, has profoundly influenced television, becoming a popular news source among many conservative U.S. audiences and politicians.
Murdoch, 93, stood down in November after 70 years leading his company, which owns The Sun and Times newspapers in the UK, as well as Fox News and The Wall Street Journal in the US. He is now chairman emeritus of News Corporation, with his son Lachlan taking over managerial responsibilities.
Zhokova, 63, is a retired molecular biologist. The pair got together last year, following Murdoch’s divorce from his fourth wife, Jerry Hall, and cancelled engagement to former police chaplain and vineyard owner Ann Lesley Smith.
The 2024 presidential contest is well underway, but teams of lawyers are still poring over the 2020 election, and for a very good reason: They are trying to hold Donald Trump’s allies accountable for the damage done by their election lies. Civil lawsuits by companies like Dominion Voting Systems are progressing at the same time that Trump is facing criminal trials in multiple jurisdictions. “We have so much work ahead of us,” Stephen Shackelford says on this week’s episode of Inside the Hive.
Shackelford was one of the lead attorneys in Dominion’s lawsuit against Fox News, which resulted in the media giant paying $787.5 million in April to settle that case. According to Davida Brook, another one of the lead attorneys, Dominion has “lawsuits pending against Newsmax, One America News, Mike Lindell and MyPillow, Sidney Powell and her law firm, Rudy Giuliani, and Patrick Byrne.” Those cases, she says, are “all proceeding towards trial.”
Host Brian Stelter interviewed Shackelford and Brook multiple times for his new book, Network of Lies, which hits shelves November 14. (Vanity Fair recently published an excerpt from the book about Tucker Carlson’s abrupt exit.) On Inside the Hive, Stelter shares some of his reporting from the book and asks the attorneys about the pending cases. Shackelford says Dominion was “put through hell” by Trump’s election lies in 2020—“hell that continues to this day.”
Brook says the ongoing litigation is about “setting the record straight”—which is what Dominion’s PR representatives called their fact-checking emails that Fox received in November 2020. “The truth was in Fox’s inbox,” Shackelford says. And yet Fox stars like Maria Bartiromo and Lou Dobbs hyped conspiracy theories about Dominion instead.
The lawyers are now preparing for depositions. The suits are moving more slowly than the Fox case “because most of them are in DC, and the DC courts are very busy, still to this day, with a lot of the January 6 cases,” Shackelford says. The courts in Delaware, where Dominion sued Fox, “have traditionally moved at a quicker pace.” Dominion’s case against Newsmax is poised for a September 2024 trial in Delaware—if there is no settlement first. “We’ve got a long road ahead to finish up this work for Dominion,” Shackelford says.
Another election technology company, Smartmatic, is also suing Fox, Newsmax, and other defendants. “Smartmatic is a global company that was injured on a global scale,” attorney J.Erik Connolly told Stelter for the book. “The damages are much bigger.” Fox, which denies any wrongdoing, has dismissed Smartmatic’s damages claims as “implausible, disconnected from reality, and on its face intended to chill First Amendment freedoms.”
In August 1939, a young woman named Clare Hollingworth got her first journalism assignment. “You must go to Warsaw tonight,” her editor said. Days later, after Hollingworth spotted “hundreds of tanks, armored cars and field guns” near the Polish border with Czechoslovakia, the 27-year-old cub reporter kicked off her career with a once-in-a-lifetime dispatch heralding the outbreak of World War II: “1,000 TANKS MASSED ON POLISH FRONTIER. TEN DIVISIONS REPORTED READY FOR SWIFT STROKE.”
The news organization behind this historic scoop wasn’t one of the newswires, or The New York Times, or the BBC. Rather, the glory belongs to TheDaily Telegraph, a conservative London broadsheet that recently went on the block for the first time in nearly two decades. It’s a paper with an illustrious past, whose owners have ranged from Conrad Black and Sir Edward Levy-Lawson to the Berry and Barclay families. And though it doesn’t have the same global cachet as other enduring publications with roots in the 19th century, it is, as the BBC once described it, “an ornament to Britain and one of the world’s great titles…. At its best, the daily and Sunday papers channel the kind of sceptical conservatism that speaks to and for a patriotic and provincial England.”
The Telegraph’s story begins in 1855 when it rolled off the presses and boldly declared itself “the largest, best, and cheapest newspaper in the world.” One hundred sixty-eight years later, TheTelegraph holds none of those distinctions. But it might as well, judging by the murderers’ row of media barons that have been identified as prospective suitors. There’s Rupert Murdoch, perhaps keen on one last conquest, whose interest has been reported as if he isn’t imminently stepping down as the executive chairman of News Corp. There’s Lord Rothermere, scion of the legendary Harmsworth dynasty, who has been consolidating influence since taking Daily Mail and General Trust private two years ago. There’s Mathias Döpfner, the charismatic Axel Springer boss, who now has a second chance at acquiring a landmark English-language newspaper after losing out on The Financial Times in 2015.
Others include a group led by GB News co-owner Sir Paul Marshall, who is teaming up with Republican megadonor and fellow hedge-funder Ken Griffin; a group led by the recently knighted former Telegraph editor in chief and erstwhile Dow Jones CEO Will Lewis, who is also reportedly one of two final candidates that Jeff Bezos is considering to run TheWashington Post; and a group led by the Northern Irish media proprietor and British tabloid veteran David Montgomery, who now serves as executive chairman of the UK media company National World. The Barclay family, meanwhile, is fighting to wrest their beloved Telegraph Media Group back from Lloyds Bank, which took control of the entity in June after talks over unpaid debt broke down, thus setting the present auction in motion.
That’s a lot of rich and powerful men salivating over a newspaper that’s not exactly massive, unlike, say, The Guardian or the Daily Mail, both of which have exported their brands throughout the English-speaking world.
Why all the fuss?
“Upscale heritage brands have been successful around the world, and they’re the only ones who’ve really made the transition to digital, while many of the startups have turned out to be commercial disasters,” says Kelvin MacKenzie, the former longtime Murdoch lieutenant best known for his ferocious editorship of The Sun. “If you look around, The Financial Times,The New York Times,The Washington Post,The Times [of London], they’ve all been successful. So TheTelegraph is viewed as an opportunity to be in the digital age with a heritage brand that has unfilled potential. The bet is that they can turn this into a successful subscription-based product. And also, these big heritage brands give you a calling card at the top table, certainly in the UK.”
One of the pleasures of watching the final season of HBO’s media dynasty drama Succession was knowing that the Murdochs were obsessed with the show even as they professed not to watch it. In my May Vanity Fair cover story about the Murdochs—the inspiration for the fictional Roy clan—I reported that Rupert Murdoch’s divorce settlement with his fourth wife Jerry Hall mandated that Hall couldn’t give story ideas to the Succession writers. “Rupert and Lachlan hated the show,” a person close to the family told me.
Which is why it’s deliciously ironic that Rupert’s decision to retire last month and elevate his eldest son Lachlan to the throne was made to avoid the chaos that played out on Succession’s final season. Spoiler alert: In the acclaimed third episode, patriarch Logan Roy dies suddenly on his private jet without having named a successor. In a document found in Logan’s safe about who should take over, his second eldest son Kendall’s name is either underlined or crossed out, depending on how you interpreted the handwriting. The ambiguity creates a power vacuum that paralyzes the family and the company.
According to three sources close to the Murdochs, Rupert and Lachlan agreed Rupert should retire while he was alive to avoid a messy transfer of power as befell the Roys. “Lachlan’s message to Rupert was: You could drop dead on the job! There has to be a plan in place now,” said one of the sources briefed on the conversations. “Lachlan didn’t want his father to go, but it was more like, How long are we going to pretend you’re immortal?” As I’ve previously reported, Rupert’s health was buffeted by crises. In recent years, he was secretly hospitalized for a broken back, seizures, two bouts of pneumonia, atrial fibrillation, a torn Achilles tendon, and COVID-19.
According to the second source close to the family, Rupert first broached the idea of retirement to Lachlan two years ago. Since then, the two have had long conversations about the timing of the decision. The source added that Lachlan did not pressure Rupert to go. Rupert told Lachlan he wanted to step down before this year’s annual shareholder meeting. None of my sources said the decision was made because Lachlan and Rupert were reacting to the Succession plotline. “It’s more of a case where truth is stranger than fiction,” the first source said.
By retiring while still alive, Rupert has solidified his chosen heir’s place on the throne—for now. It’s harder to remove Lachlan when he’s been officially anointed by Rupert. But the ultimate future of the media empire will be decided by Rupert’s four adult children from his first and second marriages. As I’ve previously reported, Lachlan’s younger brother James wants Fox News to become a centrist and fact-based news network after Rupert’s death. But to topple Lachlan, James will need his older sisters Elisabeth and Prudence to support him. It’s too early to tell which way their votes would go. For now, at least, Lachlan is in charge.
MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan slammed the “very real wake of destruction” that Rupert Murdoch is leaving behind as the billionaire media baron prepares to step down as Fox Corp. and News Corp. chair.
“It’s difficult to sum up Murdoch’s unremittingly toxic and pernicious record, to encapsulate the sheer power of Murdoch to do damage to our politics, our media, our world,” Hasan wrote in an essay published on the MSNBC website on Sunday, an adapted version of a monologue he gave on his show in April
“Three of the most destructive events of my lifetime — the Iraq War, the Brexit vote and the rise of Trump and his big lie — simply could not have happened without Rupert Murdoch,” he added.
On Trump, Hasan explained how Fox “laid the groundwork” for his 2016 victory and then “essentially became his propaganda arm” once he was in the White House.
After Trump’s 2020 loss, Hasan noted how Fox and Murdoch “had a moment of opportunity to break with Trump” but lamentably didn’t.
Billionaire media baron Rupert Murdoch angered critics with one particular part of his announcement that he was stepping down as Fox Corp and News Corp chair.
In a memo to colleagues on Thursday, Murdoch railed against so-called “elites” who he claimed “have open contempt for those who are not members of their rarefied class.”
“Most of the media is in cahoots with those elites, peddling political narratives rather than pursuing the truth,” he added.
Critics on X, formerly Twitter, accused Murdoch of gaslighting, self-delusion, dishonesty and obliviousness ― given his vast wealth and decades-long influence over global politics via his media empire that counts America’s top-rated cable news channel, Fox News.
Rupert Murdoch, the longtime head of News Corp. and Fox, will step down as chairman and take on the role of chairman emeritus, capping a seven-decade career that built a media dynasty ranging from cable television to tabloid newspapers and turned him into one of the world’s most influential media executives.
Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s eldest son, will become the sole chair of News Corp. and continue as executive and CEO of Fox Corp, Fox announced Thursday. Rupert Murdoch will take on his new role at the companies’ next shareholder meetings, which are scheduled for mid-November.
Rupert Murdoch, 92, exits News Corp. and Fox at a time the media businesses are facing a number of challenges, including the fallout from a bruising trial, and nearly $800 million settlement, over a defamation lawsuit after Fox News aired unfounded claims that Dominion Voting Systems equipment was used to rig the 2020 presidential election.
Murdoch became one of the foremost media executives of the last half century by building an extensive network of tabloids, cable and broadcast TV, and entertainment assets, many known for espousing conservative ideas. He’s also one of the world’s wealthiest media executives, with a net worth of $8.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Conservative power broker
Murdoch’s perch as head of Fox and News Corp. gave him enormous sway in anglophone conservative circles, with outlets such as Fox News credited with boosting the careers and policies of numerous right-leaning politicians.
“He used the outlets in the U.K., Australia and the U.S. to achieve certain types of policy outcomes and particularly certain types of political results, earning favors from politicians whose able trade in for political advantage,” David Folkenflik, author of “Murdoch’s World: The Last of the Old Media Empires” and NPR’s media correspondent, told CBS News.
He added, “Think of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which he promoted through Fox News, through the New York Post and the Weekly Standard, which gave ballast to [then-President] George Bush.”
But Murdoch’s support of conservative viewpoints also fed into political outcomes now viewed as “disastrous,” such as Brexit in the U.K., Folkenflik added. And in the U.S., Murdoch privately disparaged former President Donald Trump even as some Fox News hosts were promoting his falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election, with the latter leading to Fox News’ massive settlement with Dominion.
Murdoch allowed Fox News hosts to promote election conspiracies “in order to try to hold on to Trump’s core voters who were many of Fox News’ core viewers,” Folkenflik said.
“Time is right”
In the statement, Lachlan Murdoch said his father would “continue to provide valued counsel to both companies.”
“We thank him for his vision, his pioneering spirit, his steadfast determination, and the enduring legacy he leaves to the companies he founded and countless people he has impacted,” he said.
With Rupert Murdoch stepping back from a leadership role, Lachlan Murdoch’s role is solidified as his father’s successor, and he will oversee tabloids including the New York Post as well as Fox News and Fox Entertainment.
In a memo shared with CBS News, Murdoch underscored that he is stepping back while he’s in good health, but added that the “time is right for me to take on different roles.”
“Our companies are in robust health, as am I,” he said in the memo.
The media mogul added that Lachlan Murdoch is “absolutely committed to the cause of freedom,” while also aiming a potshot at “elites” who have “open contempt for those who are not members of their rarefied class.”
Start in newspapers
Murdoch, a native Australian who later became a U.S. citizen, was born into the media business, as his father owned several Australian newspapers.
When Murdoch was studying at Oxford University, his father died, putting his 21-year-old son in charge of The News and The Sunday Times. Murdoch soon boosted the papers’ circulation by reorienting their coverage to focus on scandal, sex and crime — a formula he would hone over his decades-long career.
In the 1960s, Murdoch began acquiring other Australian newspapers, eventually controlling two-thirds of that country’s newspaper circulation. In the 1970s, he expanded outside the country, taking over the News of the World and The Sun in the U.K. and The San Antonio Express-News, New York Post and Village Voice in the U.S.
In 1985, Murdoch united several TV stations under the umbrella of Fox Corp. and then Fox News, which soon overtook ABC, CBS and NBC in viewership.
Murdoch’s personal life was nearly as colorful as the stories in the tabloids he owned, with the family’s internal power struggles said to have inspired the hit HBO series “Succession.”
Who is Lachlan Murdoch?
The issue of succession at News Corp. and Fox has been a matter of speculation, given that three of Rupert Murdoch’s grown children have been involved in the media industry and the family businesses to various extents.
Lachlan Murdoch, 52, currently serves as the executive chair and CEO of Fox Corp., and in previous years served as the publisher of the New York Post and oversaw book publisher HarperCollins. In 2015, Lachlan and his brother James, 50, were appointed to leadership positions within the family’s media business, prompting speculation that the pair were competing to succeed their father.
Lachlan Murdoch arrives during the Allen & Co. Media and Technology Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, on July 11, 2019.
Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images
James Murdoch had served as CEO of 21st Century Fox until its sale in 2019 to Disney. In 2020, James Murdoch resigned from the board of of News Corp, citing disagreements over the company’s editorial decisions. He and his wife had publicly rebuked News Corp.’s coverage of Australia’s wildfires, which downplayed the role of human-driven climate change.
Meanwhile, their sister Elisabeth Murdoch, 55, struck out on her own to create a production company, Shine, in 2001, which she later sold to News Corp.
Lachlan is “a genial figure but much less ambitious than his father,” Folkenflik said. “It’s hard to see how the empire can survive in quite the same way.”
Billionaire Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as chairman of his media empire. The 92-year-old mogul will hand over the reins of both Fox and News Corp. to his son, Lachlan Murdoch. Jo Ling Kent has more.
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From the beginning, Rupert Murdoch ran his media empire like a king who planned to die on the throne. Even death itself seemed up for debate; “I’m now convinced of my own immortality,” Murdoch famously declared in 1999 after beating prostate cancer at the age of 69. Which is why it was shocking Thursday morning that Murdoch announced he would be stepping down as chairman of Fox Corporation and News Corp, the global media conglomerates he built out of a small Australian newspaper company he inherited from his father in 1952. In November, Murdoch will take the title of chairman emeritus and hand the reins to his oldest son, Lachlan, the current CEO of Fox Corp. I was leaving a coffee shop in Lower Manhattan when my cell phone lit up with calls and texts from current and former Fox staffers searching for an explanation. “I never thought he’d do it,” a former executive said.
Murdoch’s memo to employees sent contradictory signals about the 92-year-old mogul’s decision to retire. On the one hand, Murdoch wrote that “the time is right for me to take on different roles, knowing that we have truly talented teams.” But he also indicated he wasn’t really going away: “I will be watching our broadcasts with a critical eye, reading our newspapers and websites and books with much interest, and reaching out to you with thoughts, ideas, and advice. When I visit your countries and companies, you can expect to see me in the office late on a Friday afternoon.”
The announcement’s ambiguity, along with its unexpected timing, raises significant questions, chief among them: What really made Murdoch decide to retire now after having resisted succession for decades?
Current and former Fox executives are debating different theories today. One is that Murdoch, who turns 93 in March, had an unreported health crisis, which could be considered a material event for a publicly traded company. Murdoch’s memo shot down this line of speculation. “Our companies are in robust health, as am I,” he wrote. But my May Vanity Faircover story reported that Murdoch had been secretly hospitalized in recent years for a broken back, seizures, two bouts of pneumonia, atrial fibrillation, a torn Achilles tendon, and COVID-19. Murdoch wanted these incidents out of the press. According to a source close to Murdoch, he used the pseudonym “Mr. Black” when being admitted to a hospital in order to avoid the media. So, given this history of hiding health scares, it’s entirely possible that illness forced Murdoch into retirement.
The second theory is that Murdoch’s retirement is related to Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News. Smartmatic is suing Fox over the network’s false claims that its voting machines were used to steal the 2020 election from Donald Trump. Sources speculated that Murdoch is retiring to avoid having to testify in the Smartmatic proceedings. “This takes him out of the line of fire,” a prominent media executive said.
In April, I reported that Fox settled with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million on the eve of the trial at least in part because Fox lawyers didn’t want Murdoch to testify in open court. “They were hoping and praying to settle for months, but they didn’t want to pay up,” a source told me. The source said the lawyers told Fox execs that once the trial began, Murdoch would be “disgraced on the stand, run out of the boardroom, and his testimony [would] expose him as a lunatic sliding into senility.” (A person close to Murdoch disputed this: “Rupert was very well prepared to testify.”)
On Wednesday, Fox lawyers made it clear they don’t want Murdoch to testify in the Smartmatic case, asking a New York State judge to dismiss Fox Corp. from the suit because Murdoch wasn’t involved in day-to-day editorial decisions.” In response, a Smartmatic lawyer, Erik Connolly, compared Murdoch to “a Mafia boss ordering one of his lieutenants, ‘Take out Johnny Two Bones.’” “Unquestionably, we would all say the Mafia boss participated in the hit when the hit happened,” Connolly said. “The exact same thing happened here. Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch ordered a hit.”
Another theory is that the company is facing some unknown scandal. “They are trying to get ahead of something,” a person close to the Murdochs told me.
One thing is certain: Murdoch’s formal retirement will deepen Fox’s leadership void. The company will be solely run by Lachlan, who lives in Sydney, and is seen by many to be less engaged than his father. “Lachlan goes to the rock climbing gym every day. I think he has kind of lost interest since James left, but he is still trying to impress his dad,” a person close to Lachlan told me for my May cover story. Lachlan has largely relied on Viet Dinh, Fox’s chief legal officer, to run the company day-to-day from Los Angeles. But it was announced in August that Dinh will be stepping down at the end of the year, seemingly in part over his handling of Fox’s Dominion defense strategy. How Lachlan handles the pressures of being the new king will determine the future of a media empire that shapes conservative politics on three continents.
On a special episode of Inside the Hive, host Brian Stelter talks to Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman about Rupert Murdochstepping down Thursday as chairman of News Corp. and Fox, the 92-year-old media mogul’s legacy, and the future of his sprawling empire. Theories are flying as to why Murdoch officially passed the reins now to his oldest son, Lachlan, including that it might help the family patriarch avoid testifying in another 2020-election case.
