The 91-year-old is weathering a litany of business problems, as speculation mounts that the majority of his children may move against his right-wing chosen successor, Lachlan, by exercising their voting rights in the business and family trust.
According to Nine Newspapers, News Corp is on the verge of substantially increasing the cover price of its major metropolitan tabloids as a result of falling circulation, the rising cost of paper, and a weaker advertising market.
They also say News Corp publications are about to be redesigned in an attempt to regain readers.
Read a report in the Sydney Morning Herald
Murdoch is expected to be questioned under oath soon in a defamation lawsuit relating to Fox News’ coverage of wrong vote-rigging allegations in the 2020 US presidential election.
The voting machine company that is suing Fox News is said to have a solid case.
Read a New Daily report about the Dominion defamation trial
At the Robodebt Royal Commission this week, former minister Alan Tudge’s then media adviser Rachelle Miller said she placed stories with “friendly”, “right-wing” media outlets to counter critical media coverage of the scheme.
Miller wrote in a statement:
The media strategy we developed was to run a counter-narrative in the more friendly media such as The Australian and the tabloids, which we knew were interested in running stories about welfare system integrity and the supposed “dole-bludgers”.
Read a Crikey report about the leaks to News Corp
As Rupert's tenure at the helm approaches its inevitable end, trouble appears to be brewing between his eldest son Lachlan and the three other children from Rupert’s first two marriages.
According to a recent article in Britain’s Financial Times, brother James’ associates are hopeful that he will be able to gain the support of his sisters, isolating Lachlan and outvoting him on the priorities for the family’s companies and other assets.
Read the Financial Times article
Meanwhile the defamation action Lachlan Murdoch has taken out against Australian online news site Crikey has been delayed until October so that Murdoch’s legal team can broaden his claim.
The court recently heard that Crikey had a 25% jump in subscribers after running a series of articles that linked the Murdochs to the January 6 insurrection in the US capital, leaving the online publication with a $500,000 windfall.
Read a Financial Review report about the case
It is well known that Rupert’s father Keith publicly lobbied against the establishment of the ABC.
But what is less known is that NewsCorp was founded so as to provide propaganda to help crush mining unions, a description of which was published in 2019 on the InDaily website
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