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, James and Rupert Murdoch's Bitter 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 last year,
Speaker 1: he really wasn't expecting a reply. But McKay was curious
Speaker 1: about what would happen to the Murdoch empire when Rupert died,
Speaker 1: and what it would mean for his youngest son, James,
Speaker 1: who seemed outcast from the family. What he didn't yet
Speaker 1: know was that there was already a secret, high stakes
Speaker 1: legal battle going on, and James was ready to talk
Speaker 1: about it. Here's part two of my interview with McKay coppins. So, McKay,
Speaker 1: during the time that you were speaking with James, it
Speaker 1: emerged that his father, Rupert Murdock, had mounted this legal
Speaker 1: challenge that, had it been successful, would have essentially evicted
Speaker 1: James and his two sisters from a company in Lachlan's favor.
Speaker 1: What did James say to you about the moment that
Speaker 1: he found out about that plan, well.
Speaker 2: It was a pretty dramatic moment, but kind of belied
Speaker 2: by how it was actually delivered, which was on a
Speaker 2: zoom call with Rupert and a number of lawyers and
Speaker 2: then his various children, and Rupert kind of read robotically
Speaker 2: from a script that had been prepared for him. Lochlin
Speaker 2: busied himself at an offscreen laptop, but what was happening
Speaker 2: was Rupert was essentially telling his kids, I'm going to
Speaker 2: disenfranchise all of you except for Lachlan and give him
Speaker 2: complete control of the empire. It felt like a betrayal
Speaker 2: to James. His own mother had actually been the one
Speaker 2: who'd insisted on rewriting the family trust back in the
Speaker 2: nineties to ensure that all four of the oldest children
Speaker 2: would have an equal say in the companies. The idea
Speaker 2: was that it would incentivize them to work together. She
Speaker 2: had seen how Rupert kind of played his kids off
Speaker 2: each other, how he pitted them against each other. She
Speaker 2: worried that they would be kind of consumed with a
Speaker 2: quest for the crown, and she wanted them to find
Speaker 2: a way to work together. And Rupert's decision in these
Speaker 2: 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 and
Speaker 2: 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. Makes a note of the
Speaker 2: confident of victory Adi Koma. They had actually coordinated with
Speaker 2: each other to ensure that they didn't arrive at the
Speaker 2: same time, because they didn't want the cameras there to
Speaker 2: capture the hostility that now defind their family. But the
Speaker 2: thing that James remembers most from that first day in
Speaker 2: the courthouse was he got to the courtroom and he
Speaker 2: told me that he had planned to kind of approach
Speaker 2: the proceedings in the spirit of kind of corporate combat, right,
Speaker 2: He said, I'm good at that. I know how to
Speaker 2: act in those settings. But he got into the courtroom
Speaker 2: and he found that he was surprised by how emotional
Speaker 2: he was. He said, he, you know, just looked across
Speaker 2: the courtroom at his father and his brother, and these
Speaker 2: are men that he had known, you know, his whole life,
Speaker 2: whom he had loved, he'd shared all these memories with,
Speaker 2: and they were now completely estranged from one another, involved
Speaker 2: in this bitter legal battle. And he said, the question
Speaker 2: he just kept asking himself and has continued to ask
Speaker 2: himself since, is how did we let it come to this?
Speaker 2: And I think that that's still a question he hasn't
Speaker 2: 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 it does ultimately seem like Rupert believes that the
Speaker 1: only person who will preserve his empire the way that
Speaker 1: he imagines it is Lachlan. What did James say about
Speaker 1: what he thinks should be done to address Fox News's output, specifically,
Speaker 1: what sense do you have of how he might actually
Speaker 1: like to change things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's clear that James does not think Fox
Speaker 2: News is being operated correctly.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: He sees it as kind of a blight on his
Speaker 2: family name, a menace to American democracy. Certainly. He described
Speaker 2: the Fox News formula as lying to your audience to
Speaker 2: juice ratings. What would happen to Fox News if James
Speaker 2: had his way? As an interesting question. He was pretty
Speaker 2: cautious with me whenever I would ask that question. But
Speaker 2: one thing he said to me repeatedly was that it's
Speaker 2: not that Fox News needs to become a liberal network.
Speaker 2: It's obviously conservative and it would probably stay that way.
Speaker 2: But what he sees is a network that's desperately in
Speaker 2: need of stronger journalistic guardrails. He wants the management there
Speaker 2: to insist on real editorial standards that would define any
Speaker 2: other news organization. He wants a cleaner, healthier internal culture.
Speaker 2: He wants a company where the talent, the hosts aren't
Speaker 2: just kind of allowed to say whatever they want on
Speaker 2: the air, but rather, you know, are trying to be
Speaker 2: responsible stewards of information and reporting. He believes that you
Speaker 2: could still have a center right news network but one
Speaker 2: that's just responsible and right now, that is not what
Speaker 2: Fox News is. I will I should add though, that
Speaker 2: I asked this question to Catherine, James's wife, and they're
Speaker 2: very close. They discuss all these things. She actually said
Speaker 2: to me at one point that she's not sure Fox
Speaker 2: News can be reformed at this point. She said it
Speaker 2: just doesn't have an obvious place in the ecosystem anymore.
Speaker 2: And that's obviously raised a lot of eyebrows since her
Speaker 2: quote was published, because I think there's a lot of
Speaker 2: questions about what would happen to this very powerful cable
Speaker 2: 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 3: The Nevada court, denying the billionaires bit to change a
Speaker 3: family trust and give control to his eldest son. The
Speaker 3: leaked court ruling stated that his attempt to change it
Speaker 3: 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 would 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 olderts have a very
Speaker 2: different vision for these companies than Rupert and Laughlin 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 you know, Australia, in the UK,
Speaker 2: in America. But it's also just, at some basic level,
Speaker 2: a very human story about a family unraveling. And James
Speaker 2: has spent a lot of his time his life, frankly,
Speaker 2: studying dynastic dysfunction. He's read King Lear, he can quote
Speaker 2: it from memory. He's you know, studied the classics. We
Speaker 2: these esoteric facts about fratricidal Roman emperors into casual conversation,
Speaker 2: and what he told me is that, you know, when
Speaker 2: you look at all these families throughout history. It's kind
Speaker 2: of the same patterns repeating over and over again. And
Speaker 2: what he told me is the real tragedy is that
Speaker 2: no one in my family seems to have taken those lessons.
Speaker 2: And 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. But
Speaker 2: you know, at least for now, there's still an active litigation.
Speaker 2: Rupert and Lachlan are appealing the decision that could go
Speaker 2: on for quite a long time.
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you so much for your time. It's been fascinating.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this episode, you can check out Rupert
Speaker 1: the Last Mogul, a podcast series from Schwartz Media where
Speaker 1: investigative journalist Patty Manning examines what drove the media's most
Speaker 1: dangerous man. Play with Rupert too. You're going to get
Speaker 1: shopped anyway. Everybody gets chopped.
Speaker 2: That was Rupert.
Speaker 1: He had to win.
Speaker 2: It showed how ruthless Rupert was.
Speaker 1: Rupert Murdhark is totally responsible for Fox News and how
Speaker 1: it's damaged the United States. You can find Rupert the
Speaker 1: Last Mogul wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can
Speaker 1: read McKay coppin's excellent reporting at the Atlantic dot Com.
Speaker 1: His article is called Growing Up Murdoch. I'm Ruby Jones.
Speaker 1: Is he tomorrow?