A Family Tragedy in Several Acts

With Lawyers for Scenery

The grand and ongoing spectacle of the Murdoch empire’s implosion reached its theatrical climax in a Nevada courtroom, where the fate of Fox News, that mighty purveyor of conservative hand-wringing and lucrative advertising, hung in the balance.

Any illusions of a peaceful family accord crumbled under the weight of decades of betrayal, ambition, and good old-fashioned spite. There sat Rupert Murdoch, a venerable 92, hunched in a Manhattan boardroom in March 2024, staring across at his son James, the family’s prodigal disappointment.

The occasion? A deposition, though the true drama unfolded not in the lawyer’s questioning but in the not-so-subtle missives Rupert himself was texting to his counsel.

“Have you ever done anything successful on your own?” one such inquiry read. Another: “Does it strike you that everything that goes wrong is always somebody else’s fault?”

James, one assumes, had to marvel at the audacity of a man who had spent a lifetime spinning entire news cycles out of inconvenient scapegoats. Rupert, ever the strategist, suspected James was conspiring with his sisters to wrest control of the Murdoch empire upon his death and turn Fox News into something dangerously close to USAID-funded journalism.

He had long pitted his other son, Lachlan, against James, ensuring that his chosen heir would uphold the grand tradition of profit-first, integrity-later reporting. A deep dive into this family psychodrama traces James’ long, tragic struggle to win his father’s favor, from his early days of being mocked at Sky Broadcasting to his efforts in making Star TV profitable.

Every triumph by James came with a fresh betrayal as Rupert dangled the crown only to snatch it away at the last moment. The company, Rupert had decided, was best run by men in the mold of Roger Ailes—self-styled pirates with a fondness for truth and full-throated outrage.

The saga features all the hallmarks of a proper dynastic unraveling: a second wife accused without evidence of being a Chinese spy, a family “constitution” abandoned faster than a Murdoch-backed political endorsement, and Zoom calls where legal teams outnumbered relatives. The December meeting to discuss the trust saw Rupert stiffly reading from a script, while the Reno courthouse showdown required carefully orchestrated arrivals to prevent any accidental fraternizing.

The fatal blunder? Rupert structured the family trust to give each child equal voting power. A decision he likely rued as Nevada Probate Commissioner Edmund Gorman ruled in favor of James and his sisters, leaving Rupert and Lachlan’s grand scheme in tatters.

James was in tears on the stand while recounting one last betrayal over a Disney deal. Ever consistent, Rupert responded to an invitation for a holiday reunion with a referral to his lawyers. And so, the Murdoch fortune enters a holding pattern, awaiting its inevitable fate—divided evenly among four heirs who have spent a lifetime at war.