Speaker 1: Hi, This is part two of our interview with the
Speaker 1: journalist McKay coppins. If you haven't yet, start by listening
Speaker 1: to part one Inside James and Rupert Murdock's Meltdown. One
Speaker 1: of the cardinal Murdoch family rules is that you must
Speaker 1: never speak about the family outside the family. So when
Speaker 1: journalist McKay coppins got in touch with James Murdoch back
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four, he really wasn't expecting a reply.
Speaker 1: But McKay was curious about what would happen to the
Speaker 1: Murdoch empire when Rupert died, and what it would mean
Speaker 1: for his youngest son, James, who seemed outcast from the family.
Speaker 1: What he didn't yet know was that there was already
Speaker 1: a secret High SAKEX legal battle going on, and James
Speaker 1: was ready to talk about it. Here's part two of
Speaker 1: my interview with McKay coppins. So, McKay, during the time
Speaker 1: that you were speaking with James, it emerged that his father,
Speaker 1: Rupert Murdock, had mounted this legal challenge that, had it
Speaker 1: been successful, would have essentially evicted James and his two
Speaker 1: sisters from a company in Lachlan's favor. What did James
Speaker 1: say to you about the moment that he found out
Speaker 1: about that plan.
Speaker 2: Well, it was a pretty dramatic moment, but kind of
Speaker 2: belied by how it was actually delivered, which was on
Speaker 2: a zoom call with Rupert and a number of lawyers
Speaker 2: and then his various children, and Rupert kind of read
Speaker 2: robotically from a script that had been prepared for him.
Speaker 2: Lochlin busied himself at an offscreen laptop, But what was
Speaker 2: happening was Rupert was essentially telling his kids, I'm going
Speaker 2: to disenfranchise all of you except for Lochlan and give
Speaker 2: him complete control of the empire. It felt like a
Speaker 2: betrayal to James. His own mother had actually been the
Speaker 2: one who'd insisted on rewriting the family trust back in
Speaker 2: the nineties to ensure that all four of the oldest
Speaker 2: children would have an equal say in the companies. The
Speaker 2: idea was that it would incentivize them to work together.
Speaker 2: She had seen how Rupert kind of played his kids
Speaker 2: off each other, how he pitted them against each other.
Speaker 2: She worried that they would be kind of consumed with
Speaker 2: a quest for the crown, and she wanted them to
Speaker 2: find a way to work together and Rupert's decision, in
Speaker 2: these kind of the twilight of his life to say, actually,
Speaker 2: forget all that, I'm just going to give this all
Speaker 2: to my favorite and oldest son really felt like not
Speaker 2: just a betrayal of him, but also of their mother's wishes.
Speaker 1: And of course James and his sisters they contested Rupert's
Speaker 1: attempts to change the trust, and the case made it
Speaker 1: to court. Can you tell me a bit about the
Speaker 1: day that it started in Nevada.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So on that day, James and his wife Catherine,
Speaker 2: and his sisters all pulled up at the courthouse in Reno, Nevada.
Speaker 2: They walked up. About thirty minutes later, Rupert and Lachlan
Speaker 2: and their team pulled up.
Speaker 3: Makes a note of the compident of victory Eddie Koma.
Speaker 2: They had actually coordinated with each other to ensure that
Speaker 2: they didn't arrive at the same time, because they didn't
Speaker 2: want the cameras there to capture the hostility that now
Speaker 2: defined their family. But the thing that James remembers most
Speaker 2: from that first day in the courthouse was he got
Speaker 2: to the courtroom and he told me that he had
Speaker 2: planned to kind of approach the proceedings in the spirit
Speaker 2: of kind of corporate combat, right, he said, I'm good
Speaker 2: at that. I know how to act in those settings.
Speaker 2: But he got into the courtroom and he found that
Speaker 2: he was surprised by how emotional he was. He said, he,
Speaker 2: you know, just looked across the courtroom at his father
Speaker 2: and his brother, and these are men that he had known,
Speaker 2: you know, his whole life, whom he had loved, he'd
Speaker 2: shared all these memories with, and they were now completely
Speaker 2: estranged from one another, involved in this bitter legal battle.
Speaker 2: And he said, the question he just kept asking himself
Speaker 2: and has continued to ask himself since, is how did
Speaker 2: we let it come to this? And I think that
Speaker 2: that's still a question he hasn't been able to answer.
Speaker 1: And at the time this was all happening behind closed doors,
Speaker 1: it was secret. But the bulk of the trial record
Speaker 1: has been leagud. And obviously you've spoken to James at
Speaker 1: length about what happened in court. What did he say
Speaker 1: about what it was like to give evidence?
Speaker 2: Well, actually, even before the day in the court he
Speaker 2: was deposed, and he said that he sat down across
Speaker 2: from his father and his father's lawyer, and by this
Speaker 2: point he hadn't seen his he hadn't talked to his
Speaker 2: father in years. They were fully estranged at this point,
Speaker 2: but they sat down for the deposition, and the lawyer
Speaker 2: kind of spent multiple hours just firing these questions at
Speaker 2: James that were really kind of disdainful and withering. They
Speaker 2: were questions like, have you ever done anything successful on
Speaker 2: your own? And why don't you take responsibility for your actions?
Speaker 2: And why didn't you call your father on his ninetieth
Speaker 2: birthday and things like that, and James said he did
Speaker 2: his best to focus on the lawyer's questions, but he
Speaker 2: kept looking over at his dad, who just was staring
Speaker 2: at him kind of inscrutably, and every once in a
Speaker 2: while would pick up his phone and text questions to
Speaker 2: the lawyer to ask him. And, as you can imagine,
Speaker 2: just an incredibly bizarre and in his words, twisted experience
Speaker 2: that he hasn't really been able to forget.
Speaker 1: After the break James's vision for the future of Fox News,
Speaker 1: So McKay, it does ultimately seem like Rupert believes that
Speaker 1: the only person who will preserve his empire the way
Speaker 1: that he imagines it is Lachlan. What did James say
Speaker 1: about what he thinks should be done to address Fox
Speaker 1: News's output. Specifically, what sense do you have of how
Speaker 1: he might actually like to change things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's clear that James does not think Fox
Speaker 2: News is being operated correctly. You know, he sees it
Speaker 2: as kind of a blight on his family name, a
Speaker 2: menace to American democracy. Certainly. He described the Fox News
Speaker 2: formula as lying to your audience to juice ratings. What
Speaker 2: would happen to Fox News if James had his way?
Speaker 2: As an interesting question. He was pretty cautious with me
Speaker 2: whenever I would ask that question. But one thing he
Speaker 2: said to me repeatedly was that it's not that Fox
Speaker 2: News needs to become a liberal network. It's obviously conservative
Speaker 2: and it would probably stay that way. But what he
Speaker 2: sees is a network that's desperately in need of stronger
Speaker 2: journalistic guardrails. He wants the management there to insist on
Speaker 2: real editorial standards that would define any other news organization.
Speaker 2: He wants a cleaner, healthier internal culture. He wants a
Speaker 2: company where the talent, the hosts aren't just kind of
Speaker 2: allowed to say whatever they want on the air, but rather,
Speaker 2: you know, are trying to be responsible stewards of information
Speaker 2: and reporting. He believes that you could still have a
Speaker 2: center right news network, but one that's just responsible and
Speaker 2: and right now, that is not what Fox News is.
Speaker 2: I will I should add though, that I asked this
Speaker 2: question to Catherine, James's wife, and they're very close. They
Speaker 2: discuss all these things. She actually said to me at
Speaker 2: one point that she's not sure Fox News can be reformed.
Speaker 2: At this point, she said, there's a there's it just
Speaker 2: doesn't have an obvious place in the ecosystem anymore. And
Speaker 2: that's obviously raised a lot of eyebrows since her quote
Speaker 2: was published, because I think there's there's a lot of
Speaker 2: questions about what what would happen to this very powerful
Speaker 2: cable news channel when Rupert dies if James has his way.
Speaker 1: And ultimately Rupert and Lachlan they lost the case. James
Speaker 1: and his sisters won.
Speaker 4: The Nevada court denying the billionaire's bit to change a
Speaker 4: family trust and give control to his eldest son. The
Speaker 4: leaked court ruling stated that his attempt to change it
Speaker 4: was in bad faith.
Speaker 1: So where does that leave the future of the Murdoch
Speaker 1: media empire right now hanging in the balance?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's kind of in a holding pattern. Right,
Speaker 2: Rupert is still alive, he has control of these companies.
Speaker 2: When he dies, barring a successful appeal, control will be
Speaker 2: split four ways among James, Lachlan, Elizabeth and Prudence Murdoch.
Speaker 2: And you know, you can read Tea leaves. It certainly
Speaker 2: seems that James and his two oldest sisters have a
Speaker 2: very different vision for these companies than Rupert and Lachlan do.
Speaker 2: But we just don't know what will happen until Rupert
Speaker 2: is gone.
Speaker 1: And what about how this case has left the family
Speaker 1: and the relationships between the siblings and their father.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean to me, that's kind of what makes
Speaker 2: this a sad story. Obviously, this is a story with
Speaker 2: global stakes and consequences. These companies News Corp And Fox
Speaker 2: are incredibly politically influential in Australia, in the UK and America.
Speaker 2: But it's also just, at some basic level, a very
Speaker 2: human story about a family unraveling. And James has spent
Speaker 2: a lot of his time his life, frankly, studying dynastic dysfunction.
Speaker 2: He's read King Lear, he can quote it from memory.
Speaker 2: He's you know, studied the classics. He weaves esoteric facts
Speaker 2: about fratricidal Roman emperors into casual, gone conversation, and what
Speaker 2: he told me is that, you know, when you look
Speaker 2: at all these families throughout history, it's kind of the
Speaker 2: same patterns repeating over and over again. And what he
Speaker 2: told me is the real tragedy is that no one
Speaker 2: in my family seems to have taken those lessons. And
Speaker 2: I don't know if there's any coming back from this,
Speaker 2: At least from James's point of view. He feels like
Speaker 2: this final betrayal from his father seems to be a
Speaker 2: bridge too far, so I would be surprised if he
Speaker 2: and his father are able to mend their relationship.
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you so much for your time. It's been fascinating.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow, we're looking at the rise of a Chinese maybe
Speaker 1: that has quickly become one of the most popular vehicles
Speaker 1: on Australian roads. It's cheap, fast and packed with tech,
Speaker 1: but behind its popularity are questions security agencies are struggling
Speaker 1: to grapple with. Because the cars we drive today are
Speaker 1: no longer just cars. There are also data collection tools,
Speaker 1: and in a tense geopolitical climate, the lines between convenience
Speaker 1: and surveillance are blurring.
Speaker 3: I'm Ruby Jones.
Speaker 1: This is seven am.
Speaker 3: See you tomorrow.