Rupert Murdoch was just 21 years old in 1952 when he inherited his first newspaper. The News, an afternoon tabloid published in South Australia, had a modest circulation, but Murdoch, who turns 95 in March, used it as a springboard to create a vast conservative media empire that includes Fox News, the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal.
Murdoch has long seen his holdings as a family business, which he hoped to leave behind to his children. In recent years, however, a political rift within the family has pitted Murdoch's four eldest children — Lachlan, James, Elisabeth and Prudence — against each other, and inspired the HBO drama series Succession.
"Rupert Murdoch said that his dream was to build a family business. And what he built was a business that destroyed his family," journalist Gabriel Sherman says.
Sherman has covered the Murdoch family for nearly two decades. In his new book, Bonfire of the Murdochs: How the Epic Fight to Control the Last Great Media Dynasty Broke a Family — and the World, he chronicles the protracted public battle for control the family business and how their news organizations have changed politics.
In the book, Sherman details how Murdoch's son James in particular has become increasingly critical of company's conservative bent. But in September, after years of legal wrangling, James, Elisabeth and Prudence each reportedly agreed to accept $1.1 billion to relinquish their stake in the company — leaving Lachlan as heir to their father's throne.
"I think [Rupert Murdoch] sees handing the empire to Lachlan as a triumph," Sherman says. "He has actually done what he set out to do was to pass the company to one of his children — at the cost of destroying the nuclear family in which they all grew up."
Interview highlights
On the Murdoch children being taught about business at a young age
Going back to the beginning, he expected and wanted his children to be apprenticed in the business from the time that they were essentially old enough to read. There's an amazing anecdote in the books about how Rupert Murdoch, who traveled the globe buying media companies, expanding his empire, when he did come through New York, where he was raising his children, his second wife, Anna, would wake the children up at dawn, make them put on a blazer and a tie, and come to the breakfast table, where they would get a precious few moments with Rupert and discuss the news of the day or the latest deal machinations that he was doing. It was basically a finishing school in the art of building a media business — and these were children 8, 9, 10, 12 years old, and Rupert never felt closer to his children than when he was discussing the business.
On Rupert Murdoch's father's philosophy (Sir Keith Murdoch was a newspaper man)
The philosophy was that a newspaper is to be "made to pay." Sensationalism, news and scoops and gossip — all of it was a seductive package that Sir Keith expected and wanted Rupert to learn. And Rupert's media properties from the London Sun, to the New York Post, to even Fox News today, they all evince that same DNA of news as entertainment, news as profit. And that was the philosophy that Sir Keith had.
On Rupert Murdoch testing his publishing philosophy in America in the '70s
One of his first major acquisitions in the United States was in San Antonio, Texas, of all places. There were two struggling newspapers in San Antonio that were put up for sale and Rupert thought that this could be kind of a laboratory for him to try out his sensationalist form of British tabloid journalism in America — and that's what he did. ... He used San Antonio as a way to show that he could increase his readership. He boosted the circulation of these papers through just sensational and outrageous stories that had headlines like, "headless corpse found in gutter." The only news value was to shock the readership, and if you look at Fox News and things he's done [subsequently], it's a through line that has gone throughout his entire career.
On Murdoch's reaction to the press coverage of the Watergate scandal
He saw Watergate as evidence of what an out of control "liberal press" could do to a society. He told people that Watergate was kind of a run-of-the-mill political dirty trick. It was clumsy. Yes, it was unseemly, but it was in no way something that Nixon should have been forced out of office for. … Rupert has a philosophy that basically everyone's corrupt, everyone does it. So the fact that Nixon got caught doing it is bad but the Democrats were no better. ... I think Rupert saw himself as a corrective and as a way to give conservatives a voice.
On the MAGA influence on the Fox media empire
I think Rupert is sort of now a captive of a prison that he built. He's not in control of the MAGA movement. I think the best example of that is the Dominion lawsuit, the exodus of viewers after the 2020 election when Fox News tried to report the truth that Biden won. And very quickly, Fox News had to buy into the Trump stolen election conspiracy, or else their business would collapse. I think one of the tragedies is that Rupert's desire for ratings and profits have unleashed the populism that now [is] far bigger than Fox News or any of his media properties. … My sort of mental image of Murdoch is he's now surfing, he's surfing a wave that he set in motion, but he can't stop the wave, and all he can do now is try to ride it.
On how Murdoch will be remembered
Without question, he's one of the most consequential people of the 20th and early 21st century. There's few people that have had more effect on global politics than he has. I happen to think he's been an incredibly destructive force on global politics. But there's no doubt, regardless of whatever you think of, if you're left, right, center, he did change the world. I think unfortunately now we're all going to be living with the consequences.
Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez Wisler produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Meghan Sullivan adapted it for the web.
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