Rupert Murdoch

Keith Rupert Murdoch was born on 11 March 1931 in Melbourne, the second of four children of Sir Keith Murdoch (1885–1952) and Dame Elisabeth (née Greene; 1909–2012).^{[20][21]: 9} He is of English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. His parents were also born in Melbourne. His father was a war correspondent and later a regional newspaper magnate owning two newspapers in Adelaide and a radio station in a faraway mining town, and chairman of the Herald and Weekly Times publishing company.^{[6][22]: 16 [23]} Murdoch had three sisters: Helen (1929–2004), Anne (born 1935) and Janet (born 1939).^[24]: 47 His Scottish-born paternal grandfather, Patrick John Murdoch, was a Presbyterian minister.^[25] Later in life, Murdoch chose to go by his second name, the first name of his maternal grandfather.

He attended Geelong Grammar School,^[26] where he was co-editor of the school's official journal The Corian and editor of the student journal If Revived.^[27][28] He took his school's cricket team to the National Junior Finals. He worked part-time at the Melbourne Herald and was groomed by his father to take over the family business.^[6][29] Murdoch studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Worcester College, Oxford, in England, where he kept a bust of Lenin in his rooms and came to be known as "Red Rupert". He was a member of the Oxford University Labour Party,^{[22]: 34 [29]} stood for Secretary of the Labour Club^[30] and managed Oxford Student Publications Limited, the publishing house of Cherwell.^[31]

After his father's death from cancer in 1952, his mother did charity work as life governor of the Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne and established the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute; at the age of 102 (in 2011), she had 74 descendants.^[32] Murdoch completed an MA before working as a sub-editor with the Daily Express for two years.^[6]

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Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a 9,993 km2 (3,858 sq mi) metropolitan area known as Greater Melbourne, comprising an urban agglomeration of 31 local municipalities, although the name is also used specifically for the local municipality of City of Melbourne based around its central business area. The metropolis occupies much of the northern and eastern coastlines of Port Phillip Bay and spreads into the Mornington Peninsula, part of West Gippsland, as well as the hinterlands towards the Yarra Valley, the Dandenong and Macedon Ranges. It has a population over 5 million, mostly residing to the east side of the city centre, and its inhabitants are commonly referred to as "Melburnians".

Keith Murdoch

Keith Murdoch

Sir Keith Arthur Murdoch was an Australian journalist and newspaper proprietor who was the founder of the Murdoch media empire. He amassed significant media holdings in Australia which after his death were expanded globally by his son Rupert.

Elisabeth Murdoch (philanthropist)

Elisabeth Murdoch (philanthropist)

Dame Elisabeth Joy Murdoch, Lady Murdoch, also known as Elisabeth, Lady Murdoch, was an Australian philanthropist and matriarch of the Murdoch family. She was the widow of Australian newspaper publisher Sir Keith Murdoch and the mother of international media proprietor Rupert Murdoch. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1963 for her charity work in Australia and overseas.

Adelaide

Adelaide

Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide or the Adelaide city centre. The demonym Adelaidean is used to denote the city and the residents of Adelaide. The Traditional Owners of the Adelaide region are the Kaurna people. The area of the city centre and surrounding parklands is called Tarndanya in the Kaurna language.

Patrick John Murdoch

Patrick John Murdoch

Patrick John Murdoch was a Scottish-Australian Presbyterian minister, known for being the father of Keith Murdoch and the grandfather of Rupert Murdoch.

Geelong Grammar School

Geelong Grammar School

Geelong Grammar School is an independent Anglican co-educational boarding and day school. The school's main campus is located in Corio on the northern outskirts of Geelong, Victoria, Australia, overlooking Corio Bay and Limeburners Bay.

Labour Party (UK)

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a political party in the United Kingdom that has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists and trade unionists. The Labour Party sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum. In all general elections since 1922, Labour has been either the governing party or the Official Opposition. There have been six Labour prime ministers and thirteen Labour ministries. Since the 2010 general election, it has been the second-largest UK political party by the number of votes cast, behind the Conservative Party and ahead of the Liberal Democrats. The party holds the annual Labour Party Conference, at which party policy is formulated.

Oxford Student Publications Limited

Oxford Student Publications Limited

Oxford Student Publications Ltd (OSPL) is an independent student publishing house in Oxford that publishes the Cherwell student newspaper, The Isis student magazine, The Oxford Scientist, formerly Bang Science Magazine, PHASER, Keep Off the Grass freshers' magazine and Industry fashion magazine.

Cherwell (newspaper)

Cherwell (newspaper)

Cherwell is a weekly student newspaper published entirely by students of Oxford University. Founded in 1920 and named after a local river, Cherwell is a subsidiary of independent student publishing house Oxford Student Publications Ltd. Receiving no university funding, the newspaper is one of the oldest student publications in the UK.

Royal Women's Hospital

Royal Women's Hospital

The Royal Women's Hospital, located in the Melbourne suburb of Parkville, is Australia's oldest specialist women's hospital. It offers a full range of services in maternity, gynaecology, neonatal care, women's cancers and women's health. It also offers complementary services such as social work, physiotherapy, dietetics and pastoral care. Specialist clinics in endometriosis, chronic pelvic pain, menopause symptoms after cancer, infertility are also available. It is a major teaching hospital of over 200 beds with links to the University of Melbourne and La Trobe University. Co-located in the same building is the Frances Perry Private Hospital, a 69-bed private hospital for women.

Master of Arts

Master of Arts

A Master of Arts is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have typically studied subjects within the scope of the humanities and social sciences, such as history, literature, languages, linguistics, public administration, political science, communication studies, law or diplomacy; however, different universities have different conventions and may also offer the degree for fields typically considered within the natural sciences and mathematics. The degree can be conferred in respect of completing courses and passing examinations, research, or a combination of the two.

Daily Express

Daily Express

The Daily Express is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet in 1900 by Sir Arthur Pearson. Its sister paper, the Sunday Express, was launched in 1918. In June 2022, it had an average daily circulation of 201,608.

Journalist Sir Keith Murdoch (1885–1952), Rupert Murdoch's father

Following his father's death, when he was 21, Murdoch returned from Oxford to take charge of what was left of the family business. After liquidation of his father's Herald stake to pay taxes, what was left was News Limited, which had been established in 1923.^[22]: 16 Rupert Murdoch turned its Adelaide newspaper, The News, its main asset, into a major success.^[29] He began to direct his attention to acquisition and expansion, buying the troubled Sunday Times in Perth, Western Australia (1956) and over the next few years acquiring suburban and provincial newspapers in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory, including the Sydney afternoon tabloid The Daily Mirror (1960). The Economist describes Murdoch as "inventing the modern tabloid",^[33] as he developed a pattern for his newspapers, increasing sports and scandal coverage and adopting eye-catching headlines.^[6]

Murdoch's first foray outside Australia involved the purchase of a controlling interest in the New Zealand daily The Dominion. In January 1964, while touring New Zealand with friends in a rented Morris Minor after sailing across the Tasman, Murdoch read of a takeover bid for the Wellington paper by the British-based Canadian newspaper magnate Lord Thomson of Fleet. On the spur of the moment, he launched a counter-bid. A four-way battle for control ensued in which the 32-year-old Murdoch was ultimately successful.^[34] Later in 1964, Murdoch launched The Australian, Australia's first national daily newspaper, which was based first in Canberra and later in Sydney.^[35] In 1972, Murdoch acquired the Sydney morning tabloid The Daily Telegraph from Australian media mogul Sir Frank Packer, who later regretted selling it to him.^[36] In 1984, Murdoch was appointed Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) for services to publishing.^[37]

After the Keating government relaxed media ownership laws, in 1986 Murdoch launched a takeover bid for The Herald and Weekly Times, which was the largest newspaper publisher in Australia.^[38] There was a three-way takeover battle between Murdoch, Fairfax and Robert Holmes à Court, with Murdoch succeeding after agreeing to some divestments.

In 1999, Murdoch significantly expanded his music holdings in Australia by acquiring the controlling share in a leading Australian independent label, Michael Gudinski's Mushroom Records; he merged that with Festival Records, and the result was Festival Mushroom Records (FMR). Both Festival and FMR were managed by Murdoch's son James Murdoch for several years.^[39]

Political activities in Australia

Murdoch found a political ally in Sir John McEwen, leader of the Australian Country Party (now known as the National Party of Australia), who was governing in coalition with the larger Menzies-Holt-Gorton Liberal Party. From the first issue of The Australian, Murdoch began taking McEwen's side in every issue that divided the long-serving coalition partners. (The Australian, 15 July 1964, first edition, front page: "Strain in Cabinet, Liberal-CP row flares.") It was an issue that threatened to split the coalition government and open the way for the stronger Australian Labor Party to dominate Australian politics. It was the beginning of a long campaign that served McEwen well.^[40]

After McEwen and Menzies retired, Murdoch threw his growing power behind the Australian Labor Party under the leadership of Gough Whitlam and duly saw it elected^[41] on a social platform that included universal free health care, free education for all Australians to tertiary level, recognition of the People's Republic of China, and public ownership of Australia's oil, gas and mineral resources. Rupert Murdoch's backing of Whitlam turned out to be brief. Murdoch had already started his short-lived National Star^[40] newspaper in America, and was seeking to strengthen his political contacts there.^[42]

Asked about the 2007 Australian federal election at News Corporation's annual general meeting in New York on 19 October 2007, its chairman Rupert Murdoch said: "I am not commenting on anything to do with Australian politics. I'm sorry. I always get into trouble when I do that." Pressed as to whether he believed Prime Minister John Howard should continue as prime minister, he said: "I have nothing further to say. I'm sorry. Read our editorials in the papers. It'll be the journalists who decide that – the editors."^[43] In 2009, in response to accusations by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that News Limited was running vendettas against him and his government, Murdoch opined that Rudd was "oversensitive".^[44] Murdoch described Howard's successor, Labor Party Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, as "more ambitious to lead the world [in tackling climate change] than to lead Australia" and criticised Rudd's expansionary fiscal policies in the wake of the financial crisis of 2007–2008 as unnecessary.^[45] Although News Limited's interests are extensive, also including the Daily Telegraph, the Courier-Mail and the Adelaide Advertiser, it was suggested by the commentator Mungo MacCallum in The Monthly that "the anti-Rudd push, if coordinated at all, was almost certainly locally driven" as opposed to being directed by Murdoch, who also took a different position from local editors on such matters as climate change and stimulus packages to combat the financial crisis.^[46]

Murdoch is a supporter of an Australian republic, having campaigned for such a change during the 1999 referendum.^[47]

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Keith Murdoch

Keith Murdoch

Sir Keith Arthur Murdoch was an Australian journalist and newspaper proprietor who was the founder of the Murdoch media empire. He amassed significant media holdings in Australia which after his death were expanded globally by his son Rupert.

Adelaide

Adelaide

Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide or the Adelaide city centre. The demonym Adelaidean is used to denote the city and the residents of Adelaide. The Traditional Owners of the Adelaide region are the Kaurna people. The area of the city centre and surrounding parklands is called Tarndanya in the Kaurna language.

Perth

Perth

Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is part of the South West Land Division of Western Australia, with most of the metropolitan area on the Swan Coastal Plain between the Indian Ocean and the Darling Scarp. The city has expanded outward from the original British settlements on the Swan River, upon which the city's central business district and port of Fremantle are situated. Perth is located on the traditional lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people, where Aboriginal Australians have lived for at least 45,000 years.

Northern Territory

Northern Territory

The Northern Territory is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Australia to the west, South Australia to the south, and Queensland to the east. To the north, the territory looks out to the Timor Sea, the Arafura Sea and the Gulf of Carpentaria, including Western New Guinea and other islands of the Indonesian archipelago.

The Economist

The Economist

The Economist is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by the Economist Group, with its core editorial offices in the United States, as well as across major cities in continental Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. In 2019, its average global print circulation was over 909,476; this, combined with its digital presence, runs to over 1.6 million. Across its social media platforms, it reaches an audience of 35 million, as of 2016. The newspaper has a prominent focus on data journalism and interpretive analysis over original reporting, to both criticism and acclaim.

The Dominion (Wellington)

The Dominion (Wellington)

The Dominion was a broadsheet metropolitan morning daily newspaper published in Wellington, New Zealand, from 1907 to 2002. It was first published on 26 September 1907, the day New Zealand achieved Dominion status. It merged with The Evening Post, Wellington's afternoon daily newspaper, to form The Dominion Post in 2002.

The Australian

The Australian

The Australian, with its Saturday edition The Weekend Australian, is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964. As the only Australian daily newspaper distributed nationally, its readership as of September 2019 of both print and online editions was 2,394,000. Its editorial line has been self-described over time as centre-right.

Canberra

Canberra

Canberra is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest Australian city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory at the northern tip of the Australian Alps, the country's highest mountain range. As of June 2021, Canberra's estimated population was 453,558.

The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)

The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)

The Daily Telegraph, also nicknamed The Tele, is an Australian tabloid newspaper published by Nationwide News Pty Limited, a subsidiary of News Corp Australia, itself a subsidiary of News Corp. It is published Monday through Saturday and is available throughout Sydney, across most of regional and remote New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and South East Queensland.

Frank Packer

Frank Packer

Sir Douglas Frank Hewson Packer, was an Australian media proprietor who controlled Australian Consolidated Press and the Nine Network. He was a patriarch of the Packer family.

Keating government

Keating government

The Keating government was the federal executive government of Australia led by Prime Minister Paul Keating of the Australian Labor Party from 1991 to 1996. The government followed on from the Hawke government after Paul Keating replaced Bob Hawke as Labor leader in an internal party leadership challenge in 1991. Together, these two governments are often collectively described as the Hawke-Keating government. The Keating government was defeated in the 1996 federal election and was succeeded by the John Howard's Coalition government.

Robert Holmes à Court

Robert Holmes à Court

Michael Robert Hamilton Holmes à Court was a South African-born Australian businessman who became Australia's first billionaire, before dying suddenly of a heart attack in 1990 at the age of 53.

Business activities in the United Kingdom

Rupert Murdoch – World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, in 2007

In 1968, Murdoch entered the British newspaper market with his acquisition of the populist News of the World, followed in 1969 with the purchase of the struggling daily The Sun from IPC.^[48] Murdoch turned The Sun into a tabloid format and reduced costs by using the same printing press for both newspapers. On acquiring it, he appointed Albert 'Larry' Lamb as editor and – Lamb recalled later – told him: "I want a tearaway paper with lots of tits in it". In 1997 The Sun attracted 10 million daily readers.^[6] In 1981, Murdoch acquired the struggling Times and Sunday Times from Canadian newspaper publisher Lord Thomson of Fleet.^[48] Ownership of The Times came to him through his relationship with Lord Thomson, who had grown tired of losing money on it as a result of an extended period of industrial action that stopped publication.^[49] In the light of success and expansion at The Sun the owners believed that Murdoch could turn the papers around. Harold Evans, editor of the Sunday Times from 1967, was switched to the daily Times, though he stayed only a year amid editorial conflict with Murdoch.^[50][51]

During the 1980s and early 1990s, Murdoch's publications were generally supportive of Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.^[52] At the end of the Thatcher/Major era, Murdoch switched his support to the Labour Party and its leader, Tony Blair. The closeness of his relationship with Blair and their secret meetings to discuss national policies was to become a political issue in Britain.^[53] This later changed, with The Sun, in its English editions, publicly renouncing the ruling Labour government and lending its support to David Cameron's Conservative Party, which soon afterwards formed a coalition government. In Scotland, where the Conservatives had suffered a complete annihilation in 1997, the paper began to endorse the Scottish National Party (though not yet its flagship policy of independence), which soon after came to form the first-ever outright majority in the proportionally elected Scottish Parliament. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown's official spokesman said in November 2009 that Brown and Murdoch "were in regular communication" and that "there is nothing unusual in the prime minister talking to Rupert Murdoch".^[54]

In 1986, Murdoch introduced electronic production processes to his newspapers in Australia, Britain and the United States. The greater degree of automation led to significant reductions in the number of employees involved in the printing process. In England, the move roused the anger of the print unions, resulting in a long and often violent dispute that played out in Wapping, one of London's docklands areas, where Murdoch had installed the very latest electronic newspaper purpose-built publishing facility in an old warehouse.^[55] The bitter Wapping dispute started with the dismissal of 6,000 employees who had gone on strike and resulted in street battles and demonstrations. Many on the political left in Britain alleged the collusion of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government with Murdoch in the Wapping affair, as a way of damaging the British trade union movement.^[56][57][58] In 1987, the dismissed workers accepted a settlement of £60 million.^[6]

In 1998, Murdoch made an attempt to buy the football club Manchester United F.C.,^[59] with an offer of £625 million, but this failed. It was the largest amount ever offered for a sports club. It was blocked by the United Kingdom's Competition Commission, which stated that the acquisition would have "hurt competition in the broadcast industry and the quality of British football".

Murdoch's British-based satellite network, Sky Television, incurred massive losses in its early years of operation. As with many of his other business interests, Sky was heavily subsidised by the profits generated by his other holdings, but convinced rival satellite operator British Satellite Broadcasting to accept a merger on his terms in 1990.^[6] The merged company, BSkyB, has dominated the British pay-TV market ever since, pursuing direct to home (DTH) satellite broadcasting.^[60] By 1996, BSkyB had more than 3.6 million subscribers, triple the number of cable customers in the UK.^[6]

Murdoch has a seat on the Strategic Advisory Board of Genie Oil and Gas, having jointly invested with Lord Rothschild in a 5.5% stake in the company which conducted shale gas and oil exploration in Colorado, Mongolia, Israel and, controversially, the occupied Golan Heights.^[61]

In response to print media's decline and the increasing influence of online journalism during the 2000s, Murdoch proclaimed his support of the micropayments model for obtaining revenue from on-line news,^[62] although this has been criticised by some.^[63]

In January 2018, the CMA blocked Murdoch from taking over the remaining 61% of BSkyB he did not already own, over fear of market dominance that could potentialise censorship of the media. His bid for BSkyB was later approved by the CMA as long as he sold Sky News to The Walt Disney Company, which was already set to acquire 21st Century Fox. However, it was Comcast who won control of BSkyB in a blind auction ordered by the CMA. Murdoch ultimately sold his 39% of BSkyB to Comcast.^[64]

News Corporation has subsidiaries in the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, the Channel Islands and the Virgin Islands. From 1986, News Corporation's annual tax bill averaged around seven percent of its profits.^[65]

Political activities in United Kingdom

In Britain, in the 1980s, Murdoch formed a close alliance with Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher.^[66] In February 1981, when Murdoch, already owner of The Sun and The News of the World, sought to buy The Times and The Sunday Times, Thatcher's government let his bid pass without referring it to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, which was usual practice at the time.^[67][68][69] Although contact between the two before this point had been explicitly denied in an official history of The Times, documents found in Thatcher's archives in 2012 revealed a secret meeting had taken place a month before in which Murdoch briefed Thatcher on his plans for the paper, such as taking on trade unions.^[67][68][70]

The Sun credited itself with helping her successor John Major to win an unexpected election victory in the 1992 general election, which had been expected to end in a hung parliament or a narrow win for Labour, then led by Neil Kinnock.^[66] In the general elections of 1997, 2001 and 2005, Murdoch's papers were either neutral or supported Labour under Tony Blair.

The Labour Party, from when Blair became leader in 1994, had moved from the centre-left to a more centrist position on many economic issues before 1997. Murdoch identifies himself as a libertarian, saying "What does libertarian mean? As much individual responsibility as possible, as little government as possible, as few rules as possible. But I'm not saying it should be taken to the absolute limit."^[71]

In a speech he delivered in New York in 2005, Murdoch claimed that Blair described the BBC coverage of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, which was critical of the Bush administration's response, as full of hatred of America.^[72]

On 28 June 2006, the BBC reported that Murdoch and News Corporation were considering backing new Conservative leader David Cameron at the next General Election – still up to four years away.^[73] In a later interview in July 2006, when he was asked what he thought of the Conservative leader, Murdoch replied "Not much".^[74] In a 2009 blog, it was suggested that in the aftermath of the News of the World phone hacking scandal which might yet have Transatlantic implications^[75] Murdoch and News Corporation might have decided to back Cameron.^[76] Despite this, there had already been a convergence of interests between the two men over the muting of Britain's communications regulator Ofcom.^[77]

In August 2008, Cameron accepted free flights to hold private talks and attend private parties with Murdoch on his yacht, the Rosehearty.^[78] Cameron declared in the Commons register of interests he accepted a private plane provided by Murdoch's son-in-law, public relations guru Matthew Freud; Cameron did not reveal his talks with Murdoch. The gift of travel in Freud's Gulfstream IV private jet was valued at around £30,000. Other guests attending the "social events" included the then EU trade commissioner Lord Mandelson, the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and co-chairman of NBC Universal Ben Silverman. The Conservatives did not disclose what was discussed.^[79]

In July 2011, it emerged that Cameron had met key executives of Murdoch's News Corporation a total of 26 times during the 14 months that Cameron had served as Prime Minister up to that point.^[80] It was also reported that Murdoch had given Cameron a personal guarantee that there would be no risk attached to hiring Andy Coulson, the former editor of News of the World, as the Conservative Party's communication director in 2007.^[81] This was in spite of Coulson having resigned as editor over phone hacking by a reporter. Cameron chose to take Murdoch's advice, despite warnings from Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, Lord Ashdown and The Guardian.^[82] Coulson resigned his post in 2011 and was later arrested and questioned on allegations of further criminal activity at the News of the World, specifically the phone hacking scandal. As a result of the subsequent trial, Coulson was sentenced to 18 months in jail.^[83]

In June 2016, The Sun supported Vote Leave in the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum. Murdoch called the Brexit result "wonderful", comparing the decision to withdraw from the EU to "a prison break….we're out".^[84] Anthony Hilton, economics editor for the Evening Standard but describing a period when he interviewed Murdoch for The Guardian, quoted Murdoch as justifying his Euroscepticism with the words "When I go into Downing Street, they do what I say; when I go to Brussels, they take no notice".^[85] Murdoch denied saying this later in a letter to the Guardian.^[86][87]

With some exceptions, The Sun has generally been supportive of the government of Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Murdoch and his employees were the media representatives ministers from the Cabinet and Treasury most frequently held meetings during the first two years of Johnson's Government. However, newspaper circulation in general including among subsidiaries of News International fell sharply in the United Kingdom during the early 21st century, leading some commentators to suggest that Rupert Murdoch was not as influential in British political debate by the early 2020s as he had once been.^[88][89][90]

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Davos

Davos

Davos is an Alpine resort town and a municipality in the Prättigau/Davos Region in the canton of Graubünden, Switzerland. It has a permanent population of 10,832 (2020). Davos is located on the river Landwasser, in the Rhaetian Alps, between the Plessur and Albula Ranges.

News of the World

News of the World

The News of the World was a weekly national red top tabloid newspaper published every Sunday in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the world's highest-selling English-language newspaper, and at closure still had one of the highest English-language circulations. It was originally established as a broadsheet by John Browne Bell, who identified crime, sensation and vice as the themes that would sell most copies. The Bells sold to Henry Lascelles Carr in 1891; in 1969, it was bought from the Carrs by Rupert Murdoch's media firm News Limited. Reorganised into News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation, the newspaper was transformed into a tabloid in 1984 and became the Sunday sister paper of The Sun.

Larry Lamb (newspaper editor)

Larry Lamb (newspaper editor)

Sir Albert Lamb, commonly known as Larry Lamb, was a British newspaper editor. He introduced the Page 3 feature to The Sun, which saw a dramatic increase in sale in the 1970s. He also applied the term 'Winter of Discontent' to the series of strikes over the winter of 1978–79. He was Deputy Chairman of News Group from 1979 but was transferred to the Western Mail in Australia in 1981, and edited The Australian in 1982.

Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet

Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet

Kenneth Roy Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet, known in Canada as Ken Thomson, was a Canadian/British businessman and art collector. At the time of his death, he was listed by Forbes as the richest person in Canada and the ninth richest person in the world, with a net worth of approximately US $19.6 billion.

Harold Evans

Harold Evans

Sir Harold Matthew Evans was a British-American journalist and writer. In his career in his native Britain, he was editor of The Sunday Times from 1967 to 1981, and its sister title The Times for a year from 1981, before being forced out of the latter post by Rupert Murdoch. While at The Sunday Times, he led the newspaper's campaign to seek compensation for mothers who had taken the morning sickness drug thalidomide, which led to their children having severely deformed limbs.

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher , was a British politician and stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime minister and the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century. As prime minister, she implemented economic policies that became known as Thatcherism. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style.

Premiership of Margaret Thatcher

Premiership of Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher's term as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom began on 4 May 1979 when she accepted an invitation of Queen Elizabeth II to form a government, and ended on 28 November 1990 upon her resignation. She was elected to the position in 1979, having led the Conservative Party since 1975, and won landslide re-elections in 1983 and 1987. She gained intense media attention as Britain's first female prime minister, and was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century. Her premiership ended when she withdrew from the 1990 Conservative leadership election. While serving as prime minister, Thatcher also served as the First Lord of the Treasury, the Minister for the Civil Service and the Leader of the Conservative Party.

Premiership of John Major

Premiership of John Major

John Major's term as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom began on 28 November 1990 when he accepted an invitation of Queen Elizabeth II to form a government, succeeding Margaret Thatcher, and ended on 2 May 1997 following the Conservative Party's defeat in the 1997 general election by the Labour Party, led by Tony Blair. While serving as prime minister, Major also served as the First Lord of the Treasury, the Minister for the Civil Service and the Leader of the Conservative Party.

Labour Party (UK)

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a political party in the United Kingdom that has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists and trade unionists. The Labour Party sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum. In all general elections since 1922, Labour has been either the governing party or the Official Opposition. There have been six Labour prime ministers and thirteen Labour ministries. Since the 2010 general election, it has been the second-largest UK political party by the number of votes cast, behind the Conservative Party and ahead of the Liberal Democrats. The party holds the annual Labour Party Conference, at which party policy is formulated.

David Cameron

David Cameron

David William Donald Cameron is a former British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader of the Opposition from 2005 to 2010, and was Member of Parliament (MP) for Witney from 2001 to 2016. He identifies as a one-nation conservative, and has been associated with both economically liberal and socially liberal policies.

Conservative Party (UK)

Conservative Party (UK)

The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party and also known colloquially as the Tories, is one of the two main political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Labour Party. It is the current governing party, having won the 2019 general election. It has been the primary governing party in the United Kingdom since 2010. The party is on the centre-right of the political spectrum, and encompasses various ideological factions including one-nation conservatives, Thatcherites, and traditionalist conservatives. The party currently has 355 Members of Parliament, 260 members of the House of Lords, 9 members of the London Assembly, 31 members of the Scottish Parliament, 16 members of the Welsh Parliament, 4 directly elected mayors, 30 police and crime commissioners, and around 6,619 local councillors. It holds the annual Conservative Party Conference.

Scottish National Party

Scottish National Party

The Scottish National Party is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party in Scotland. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence or secession from the United Kingdom and for Scotland's membership of the European Union, with a platform based on civic nationalism. The SNP is the largest political party in Scotland, where it has the most seats in the Scottish Parliament and 45 out of the 59 Scottish seats in the House of Commons at Westminster, and it is the third-largest political party by membership in the United Kingdom, behind the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. The current Scottish National Party leader, Nicola Sturgeon, has served as First Minister of Scotland since 20 November 2014, though she announced her forthcoming resignation from these roles in a press conference on 15 February 2023.

In July 2011, Murdoch, along with his youngest son James, provided testimony before a British parliamentary committee regarding phone hacking. In the UK, his media empire came under fire, as investigators probed reports of 2011 phone hacking.^[91]

On 14 July 2011 the Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the House of Commons served a summons on Murdoch, his son James, and his former CEO Rebekah Brooks to testify before a committee five days later.^[92] After an initial refusal, the Murdochs confirmed they would attend, after the committee issued them a summons to Parliament.^[93] The day before the committee, the website of the News Corporation publication The Sun was hacked, and a false story was posted on the front page claiming that Murdoch had died.^[94] Murdoch described the day of the committee "the most humble day of my life". He argued that since he ran a global business of 53,000 employees and that News of the World was "just 1%" of this, he was not ultimately responsible for what went on at the tabloid. He added that he had not considered resigning,^[95] and that he and the other top executives had been completely unaware of the hacking.^[96][97]

On 15 July, Murdoch attended a private meeting in London with the family of Milly Dowler, where he personally apologized for the hacking of their murdered daughter's voicemail by a company he owns.^[98][99] On 16 and 17 July, News International published two full-page apologies in many of Britain's national newspapers. The first apology took the form of a letter, signed by Murdoch, in which he said sorry for the "serious wrongdoing" that occurred. The second was titled "Putting right what's gone wrong", and gave more detail about the steps News International was taking to address the public's concerns.^[99] In the wake of the allegations, Murdoch accepted the resignations of Brooks and Les Hinton, head of Dow Jones who was chairman of Murdoch's British newspaper division when some of the abuses happened. They both deny any knowledge of any wrongdoing under their command.^[100]

On 27 February 2012, the day after the first issue of The Sun on Sunday was published, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers informed the Leveson Inquiry that police are investigating a "network of corrupt officials" as part of their inquiries into phone hacking and police corruption. She said that evidence suggested a "culture of illegal payments" at The Sun and that these payments allegedly made by The Sun were authorised at a senior level.^[101]

In testimony on 25 April, Murdoch did not deny the quote attributed to him by his former editor of The Sunday Times, Harold Evans: "I give instructions to my editors all round the world, why shouldn't I in London?"^[102][103] On 1 May 2012, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee issued a report stating that Murdoch was "not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company".^[104][105]

On 3 July 2013, the Exaro website and Channel 4 News broke the story of a secret recording. This was recorded by The Sun journalists, and in it Murdoch can be heard telling them that the whole investigation was one big fuss over nothing, and that he, or his successors, would take care of any journalists who went to prison.^[106] He said: "Why are the police behaving in this way? It's the biggest inquiry ever, over next to nothing."^[107]

Discover more about News International phone hacking scandal related topics

News International phone hacking scandal

News International phone hacking scandal

The News International phone hacking scandal was a controversy involving the now-defunct News of the World and other British newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch. Employees of the newspaper were accused of engaging in phone hacking, police bribery, and exercising improper influence in the pursuit of stories. Whilst investigations conducted from 2005 to 2007 appeared to show that the paper's phone hacking activities were limited to celebrities, politicians, and members of the British royal family, in July 2011 it was revealed that the phones of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, relatives of deceased British soldiers, and victims of the 7 July 2005 London bombings had also been hacked. The resulting public outcry against News Corporation and its owner Rupert Murdoch led to several high-profile resignations, including that of Murdoch as News Corporation director, Murdoch's son James as executive chairman, Dow Jones chief executive Les Hinton, News International legal manager Tom Crone, and chief executive Rebekah Brooks. The commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), Sir Paul Stephenson, also resigned. Advertiser boycotts led to the closure of the News of the World on 10 July 2011, after 168 years of publication. Public pressure forced News Corporation to cancel its proposed takeover of the British satellite broadcaster BSkyB.

Parliament of the United Kingdom

Parliament of the United Kingdom

The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all other political bodies in the UK and the overseas territories. Parliament is bicameral but has three parts, consisting of the sovereign (King-in-Parliament), the House of Lords, and the House of Commons. In theory, power is officially vested in the King-in-Parliament. However, the Crown normally acts on the advice of the prime minister, and the powers of the House of Lords are limited to only delaying legislation; thus power is de facto vested in the House of Commons.

House of Commons of the United Kingdom

House of Commons of the United Kingdom

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 members known as members of Parliament (MPs). MPs are elected to represent constituencies by the first-past-the-post system and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved.

Summons

Summons

A summons is a legal document issued by a court or by an administrative agency of government for various purposes.

Rebekah Brooks

Rebekah Brooks

Rebekah Mary Brooks is a British media executive and former journalist and newspaper editor. She has been chief executive officer of News UK since 2015. She was previously CEO of News International from 2009 to 2011 and was the youngest editor of a British national newspaper at News of the World, from 2000 to 2003, and the first female editor of The Sun, from 2003 to 2009. Brooks married actor Ross Kemp in 2002. They divorced in 2009 and she married former racehorse trainer and author Charlie Brooks.

The Sun (United Kingdom)

The Sun (United Kingdom)

The Sun is a British tabloid newspaper, published by the News Group Newspapers division of News UK, itself a wholly owned subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. It was founded as a broadsheet in 1964 as a successor to the Daily Herald, and became a tabloid in 1969 after it was purchased by its current owner. The Sun had the largest daily newspaper circulation in the United Kingdom, but was overtaken by freesheet rival Metro in March 2018.

Murder of Milly Dowler

Murder of Milly Dowler

On 21 March 2002, Amanda Jane "Milly" Dowler, a 13-year-old English schoolgirl, was reported missing by her parents after failing to return home from school and not being seen since walking along Station Avenue in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, that afternoon. Following an extensive search, Dowler's remains were discovered in Yateley Heath Woods in Yateley, Hampshire, on 18 September.

Les Hinton

Les Hinton

Leslie Frank Hinton is a British-American journalist, writer and business executive whose career with Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation spanned more than fifty years. Hinton worked in newspapers, magazines and television as a reporter, editor and executive in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States and became an American citizen in 1986. He was appointed CEO of Dow Jones & Company in December 2007, after its acquisition by News Corp. Hinton has variously been described as Murdoch's "hitman"; one of his "most trusted lieutenants"; and an "astute political operator". He left the company in 2011. His memoir, The Bootle Boy, was published in the UK in May 2018, and in the US under the title An Untidy Life in October of the same year.

Leveson Inquiry

Leveson Inquiry

The Leveson Inquiry was a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, who was appointed in July 2011. A series of public hearings were held throughout 2011 and 2012. The Inquiry published the Leveson Report in November 2012, which reviewed the general culture and ethics of the British media, and made recommendations for a new, independent, body to replace the existing Press Complaints Commission, which would have to be recognised by the state through new laws. Prime Minister David Cameron, under whose direction the inquiry had been established, said that he welcomed many of the findings, but declined to enact the requisite legislation. Part 2 of the inquiry was to be delayed until after criminal prosecutions regarding events at the News of the World, but the Conservative Party's 2017 manifesto stated that the second part of the inquiry would be dropped entirely, and this was confirmed by Culture Secretary Matt Hancock in a statement to the House of Commons on 1 March 2018.

Harold Evans

Harold Evans

Sir Harold Matthew Evans was a British-American journalist and writer. In his career in his native Britain, he was editor of The Sunday Times from 1967 to 1981, and its sister title The Times for a year from 1981, before being forced out of the latter post by Rupert Murdoch. While at The Sunday Times, he led the newspaper's campaign to seek compensation for mothers who had taken the morning sickness drug thalidomide, which led to their children having severely deformed limbs.

Exaro

Exaro

Exaro or Exaro News was a British website based in London between 2011 and 2016. It purportedly undertook political investigative journalism, but is now primarily known for its direct involvement in the false allegations of sexual abuse put forward by "Nick" in Operation Midland.

Channel 4 News

Channel 4 News

Channel 4 News is the main news programme on British television broadcaster Channel 4. It is produced by ITN, and has been in operation since Channel 4's launch in November 1982.

Murdoch (seated center), Roy Cohn, Reagan, Oval Office, 1983

Murdoch made his first acquisition in the United States in 1973, when he purchased the San Antonio Express-News. In 1974, Murdoch moved to New York City, to expand into the US market; however, he retained interests in Australia and Britain. Soon afterwards, he founded Star, a supermarket tabloid, and in 1976, he purchased the New York Post.^[6] On 4 September 1985, Murdoch became a naturalized citizen to satisfy the legal requirement that only US citizens were permitted to own US television stations.

In March 1984, Marvin Davis sold Marc Rich's interest in 20th Century Fox to Murdoch for $250 million due to Rich's trade deals with Iran, which were sanctioned by the US at the time. Davis later backed out of a deal with Murdoch to purchase John Kluge's Metromedia television stations.^[108] Rupert Murdoch bought the stations by himself, without Marvin Davis, and later bought out Davis's remaining stake in Fox for $325 million.^[108] The six television stations owned by Metromedia formed the nucleus of the Fox Broadcasting Company, founded on 9 October 1986, which later had great success with programs including The Simpsons and The X-Files.^[6]

In 1986 Murdoch bought Misty Mountain, a Wallace Neff designed house on Angelo Drive in Beverly Hills. The house was the former residence of Jules C. Stein. Murdoch sold the house to his son James in 2018.^[109]

In 1987, Murdoch created his global television special, the World Music Video Awards, a special music ceremony award where winners were chosen by viewers in eight countries.^[110] In Australia, during 1987, he bought The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd., the company that his father had once managed. Rupert Murdoch's 20th Century Fox bought out the remaining assets of Four Star Television from Ronald Perelman's Compact Video in 1996.^[111] Most of Four Star Television's library of programs are controlled by 20th Century Fox Television today.^{[112][113][114]} After Murdoch's numerous buyouts during the buyout era of the eighties, News Corporation had built up financial debts of $7 billion (much from Sky TV in the UK), despite the many assets that were held by NewsCorp.^[6] The high levels of debt caused Murdoch to sell many of the American magazine interests he had acquired in the mid-1980s.

In 1993, Murdoch's Fox Network took exclusive coverage of the National Football Conference (NFC) of the National Football League (NFL) from CBS and increased programming to seven days a week.^[115] In 1995, Fox became the object of scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), when it was alleged that News Ltd.'s Australian base made Murdoch's ownership of Fox illegal. However, the FCC ruled in Murdoch's favour, stating that his ownership of Fox was in the best interests of the public. That same year, Murdoch announced a deal with MCI Communications to develop a major news website and magazine, The Weekly Standard. Also that year, News Corporation launched the Foxtel pay television network in Australia in partnership with Telstra. In 1996, Murdoch decided to enter the cable news market with the Fox News Channel, a 24-hour cable news station. Ratings studies released in 2009 showed that the network was responsible for nine of the top ten programs in the "Cable News" category at that time.^[116] Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner (founder and former owner of CNN) are long-standing rivals.^[117] In late 2003, Murdoch acquired a 34% stake in Hughes Electronics, the operator of the largest American satellite TV system, DirecTV, from General Motors for $6 billion (USD).^[37] His Fox movie studio had global hits with Titanic and Avatar.^[118]

In 2004, Murdoch announced that he was moving News Corporation headquarters from Adelaide, Australia to the United States. Choosing a US domicile was designed to ensure that American fund managers could purchase shares in the company, since many were deciding not to buy shares in non-US companies.^[119]

News Corporation logo

On 20 July 2005, News Corporation bought Intermix Media Inc., which held Myspace, Imagine Games Network and other social networking-themed websites, for US$580 million, making Murdoch a major player in online media concerns.^[120] In June 2011, it sold off Myspace for US$35 million.^[121] On 11 September 2005, News Corporation announced that it would buy IGN Entertainment for $650 million (USD).^[122]

In May 2007, Murdoch made a $5 billion offer to purchase Dow Jones & Company. At the time, the Bancroft family, who had owned Dow Jones & Company for 105 years and controlled 64% of the shares at the time, declined the offer. Later, the Bancroft family confirmed a willingness to consider a sale. Besides Murdoch, the Associated Press reported that supermarket magnate Ron Burkle and Internet entrepreneur Brad Greenspan were among the other interested parties.^[123] In 2007, Murdoch acquired Dow Jones & Company,^[124][125] which gave him such publications as The Wall Street Journal, Barron's Magazine, the Far Eastern Economic Review (based in Hong Kong) and SmartMoney.^[126]

In June 2014, Murdoch's 21st Century Fox made a bid for Time Warner at $85 per share in stock and cash ($80 billion total) which Time Warner's board of directors turned down in July. Warner's CNN unit would have been sold to ease antitrust issues of the purchase.^[127] On 5 August 2014 the company announced it had withdrawn its offer for Time Warner, and said it would spend $6 billion buying back its own shares over the following 12 months.^[128]

Murdoch left his post as CEO of 21st Century Fox in 2015 but continued to own the company until it was purchased by Disney in 2019.^{[129][130][131]} A number of television broadcasting assets were spun off into the Fox Corporation before the acquisition and are still owned by Murdoch. This includes Fox News, of which Murdoch was acting CEO from 2016 until 2019, following the resignation of Roger Ailes due to accusations of sexual harassment.^[132][133]

Political activities in the United States

Murdoch (right) with President John F. Kennedy and Zell Rabin in the Oval Office in 1961

President Ronald Reagan during a meeting with Murdoch in the Oval Office in 1983

McKnight (2010) identifies four characteristics of his media operations: free market ideology; unified positions on matters of public policy; global editorial meetings; and opposition to liberal bias in other public media.^[134]

In The New Yorker, Ken Auletta writes that Murdoch's support for Edward I. Koch while he was running for mayor of New York "spilled over onto the news pages of the Post, with the paper regularly publishing glowing stories about Koch and sometimes savage accounts of his four primary opponents."^[135]

According to The New York Times, Ronald Reagan's campaign team credited Murdoch and the Post for his victory in New York in the 1980 United States presidential election.^[19] Reagan later "waived a prohibition against owning a television station and a newspaper in the same market," allowing Murdoch to continue to control The New York Post and The Boston Herald while expanding into television.

On 8 May 2006, the Financial Times reported that Murdoch would be hosting a fund-raiser for Senator Hillary Clinton's (D-New York) Senate re-election campaign.^[136] In a 2008 interview with Walt Mossberg, Murdoch was asked whether he had "anything to do with the New York Post's endorsement of Barack Obama in the democratic primaries". Without hesitating, Murdoch replied, "Yeah. He is a rock star. It's fantastic. I love what he is saying about education. I don't think he will win Florida [...] but he will win in Ohio and the election. I am anxious to meet him. I want to see if he will walk the walk."^[137][138]

In 2010, News Corporation gave US$1 million to the Republican Governors Association and $1 million to the US Chamber of Commerce.^{[139][140][141]} Murdoch also served on the board of directors of the libertarian Cato Institute.^[142] Murdoch is also a supporter of the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect Intellectual Property Act.^[143]

Murdoch was reported in 2011 as advocating more open immigration policies in western nations generally.^[144] In the United States, Murdoch and chief executives from several major corporations, including Hewlett-Packard, Boeing and Disney joined New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to form the Partnership for a New American Economy to advocate "for immigration reform – including a path to legal status for all illegal aliens now in the United States".^[145] The coalition, reflecting Murdoch and Bloomberg's own views, also advocates significant increases in legal immigration to the United States as a means of boosting America's sluggish economy and lowering unemployment. The Partnership's immigration policy prescriptions are notably similar to those of the Cato Institute and the US Chamber of Commerce — both of which Murdoch has supported in the past.^[146]

The Wall Street Journal editorial page has similarly advocated for increased legal immigration, in contrast to the staunch anti-immigration stance of Murdoch's British newspaper, The Sun.^[147] On 5 September 2010, Murdoch testified before the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law Membership on the "Role of Immigration in Strengthening America's Economy". In his testimony, Murdoch called for ending mass deportations and endorsed a "comprehensive immigration reform" plan that would include a pathway to citizenship for all illegal immigrants.^[145]

In the 2012 US presidential election, Murdoch was critical of the competence of Mitt Romney's team but was nonetheless strongly supportive of a Republican victory, tweeting: "Of course I want him [Romney] to win, save us from socialism, etc."^[148]

In October 2015, Murdoch stirred controversy when he praised Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson and referenced President Barack Obama, tweeting, "Ben and Candy Carson terrific. What about a real black President who can properly address the racial divide? And much else."^[149] After which he apologized, tweeting, "Apologies! No offence meant. Personally find both men charming."^[150]

During Donald Trump's term as US President Murdoch showed support for him through the news stories broadcast in his media empire, including on Fox News.^[151] In early 2018, Mohammad bin Salman, the crown prince and de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, had an intimate dinner at Murdoch's Bel Air estate in Los Angeles.^[152]

Murdoch is a strong supporter of Israel and its domestic policies.^[153] In October 2010, the Anti-Defamation League in New York City presented Murdoch with its International Leadership Award "for his stalwart support of Israel and his commitment to promoting respect and speaking out against anti-Semitism."^[154][155] However, in April 2021, in a letter to Lachlan Murdoch, its director Jonathan Greenblatt wrote that the ADL would no longer make such an award to his father. This was in the immediate context of accusations made by the ADL against Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson and his apparent espousal of the White replacement theory.^[156]

In 2023, during a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News, Murdoch acknowledged that some Fox News commentators were endorsing election fraud claims they knew were false.^[157][158]

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Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He previously served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 to 1975 and as president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1947 to 1952 and from 1959 until 1960.

Oval Office

Oval Office

The Oval Office is the formal working space of the President of the United States. Part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, it is located in the West Wing of the White House, in Washington, D.C.

New York Post

New York Post

The New York Post is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The Post also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com.

Marvin Davis

Marvin Davis

Marvin H. Davis was an American industrialist. He made his fortunes as the chair of Davis Petroleum and at one time owned 20th Century Fox, the Pebble Beach Corporation, the Beverly Hills Hotel, and the Aspen Skiing Company.

Marc Rich

Marc Rich

Marc Rich was an international commodities trader, financier, and businessman. He founded the commodities company Glencore, and was later indicted in the United States on federal charges of tax evasion, wire fraud, racketeering, and making oil deals with Iran during the Iran hostage crisis. He fled to Switzerland at the time of the indictment and never returned to the United States. He received a widely criticized presidential pardon from President Bill Clinton, on his last day in office; Rich's ex-wife Denise had made large donations to the Democratic Party.

Iran

Iran

Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmenistan to the north, by Afghanistan and Pakistan to the east, and by the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf to the south. It covers an area of 1.64 million square kilometres, making it the 17th-largest country. Iran has an estimated population of 86.8 million, making it the 17th-most populous country in the world, and the second-largest in the Middle East. Its largest cities, in descending order, are the capital Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Karaj, Shiraz, and Tabriz.

John Kluge

John Kluge

John Werner Kluge was a German-American entrepreneur who became a television industry mogul in the United States. At one time he was the richest person in the U.S.

Metromedia

Metromedia

Metromedia was an American media company that owned radio and television stations in the United States from 1956 to 1986 and controlled Orion Pictures from 1988 to 1997. Metromedia was established in 1956 after the DuMont Television Network ceased operations and its owned-and-operated stations were spun off into a separate company. Metromedia sold its television stations to News Corporation in 1985, and spun off its radio stations into a separate company in 1986. Metromedia then acquired ownership stakes in various film studios, including controlling ownership in Orion. In 1997, Metromedia closed down and sold its media assets to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Fox Broadcasting Company

Fox Broadcasting Company

The Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly known simply as Fox and stylized in all caps as FOX, is an American commercial broadcast television network owned by Fox Corporation and headquartered in New York City, with master control operations and additional offices at the Fox Network Center in Los Angeles and the Fox Media Center in Tempe. Launched as a competitor to the Big Three television networks on October 9, 1986, Fox went on to become the most successful attempt at a fourth television network. It was the highest-rated free-to-air network in the 18–49 demographic from 2004 to 2012 and again in 2020, and was the most-watched American television network in total viewership during the 2007–08 season.

Misty Mountain

Misty Mountain

Misty Mountain at 1330 Angelo Drive is a large detached house in Beverly Glen, Los Angeles standing in 6.5 acres of grounds with landscaped gardens and a swimming pool and tennis court. It was designed by Wallace Neff and built in 1926 for the film director Fred Niblo and his wife, the actress Enid Bennett. The house has been assessed for taxation purposes at 8,651 square feet with 11 bedrooms and nine bathrooms. It has been described as "crab shaped", with the design of the house curling around a motor court at its center.

Beverly Hills, California

Beverly Hills, California

Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. A notable and historic suburb of Greater Los Angeles, it is located immediately southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately 12.2 miles (19.6 km) northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Beverly Hills' land area totals to 5.71 square miles (14.8 km2), and along with the smaller city of West Hollywood in the east, is almost entirely surrounded by the city of Los Angeles. According to the 2020 census, the city has a population of 32,701; marking a decrease of 1,408 from the 2010 census count of 34,109.

Jules C. Stein

Jules C. Stein

Jules C. Stein was an American physician and businessman who co-founded Music Corporation of America (MCA).

Murdoch owns a controlling interest in Sky Italia, a satellite television provider in Italy.^[159] Murdoch's business interests in Italy have been a source of contention since they began.^[159] In 2010 Murdoch won a media dispute with then Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. A judge ruled the then Prime Minister's media arm Mediaset prevented News Corporation's Italian unit, Sky Italia, from buying advertisements on its television networks.^[160]

In November 1986, News Corporation purchased a 35% stake in the South China Morning Post group for about US$105 million. At that time, SCMP group was a stock-listed company, and was owned by HSBC, Hutchison Whampoa and Dow Jones & Company.^[161] In December 1986, Dow Jones & Company offered News Corporation to sell about 19% of share it owned of SCMP for US$57.2 million,^[162] and, by 1987, News Corporation completed the full takeover.^[163] In September 1993, News Corporation have agreed to sell a 34.9% share in SCMP to Robert Kuok's Kerry Media for US$349 million.^[164] In 1994, News Corporation sold the remaining 15.1% share in SCMP to MUI Group, disposing the Hong Kong newspaper.^[165]

In June 1993, News Corporation attempted to acquire a 22% share in TVB, a terrestrial television broadcaster in Hong Kong, for about $237 million,^[166] but Murdoch's company gave up, as the Hong Kong government would not relax the regulation regarding foreign ownership of broadcasting companies.^[167]

In 1993, News Corporation acquired Star TV (renamed as Star in 2001), a Hong Kong company headed by Richard Li,^[167] from Hutchison Whampoa for $1 billion (Souchou, 2000:28), and subsequently set up offices for it throughout Asia. The deal enabled News International to broadcast from Hong Kong to India, China, Japan, and over thirty other countries in Asia, becoming one of the biggest satellite television networks in the east;^[6] however, the deal did not work out as Murdoch had planned because the Chinese government placed restrictions on it that prevented it from reaching most of China.

In 2009, News Corporation reorganised Star; a few of these arrangements were that the original company's operations in East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East were integrated into Fox International Channels, and Star India was spun-off (but still within News Corporation).^{[168][169][170]}

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News Corporation

News Corporation

News Corporation, also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New York City. Prior to its split in 2013, it was the world's largest media company in terms of total assets and the world's fourth largest media group in terms of revenue, and News Corporation had become a media powerhouse since its inception, dominating the news, television, film, and print industries.

South China Morning Post

South China Morning Post

The South China Morning Post (SCMP), with its Sunday edition, the Sunday Morning Post, is a Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper owned by Alibaba Group. Founded in 1903 by Tse Tsan-tai and Alfred Cunningham, it has remained Hong Kong's newspaper of record since British colonial rule. Editor-in-chief Tammy Tam succeeded Wang Xiangwei in 2016. The SCMP prints paper editions in Hong Kong and operates an online news website that is blocked in mainland China.

HSBC

HSBC

HSBC Holdings plc is a British multinational universal bank and financial services holding company. It is the largest bank in Europe by total assets ahead of BNP Paribas, with US$2.953 trillion as of December 2021. In 2021, HSBC had $10.8 trillion in assets under custody (AUC) and $4.9 trillion in assets under administration (AUA), respectively. HSBC traces its origin to a hong in British Hong Kong, and its present form was established in London by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation to act as a new group holding company in 1991; its name derives from that company's initials. The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation opened branches in Shanghai in 1865 and was first formally incorporated in 1866.

Hutchison Whampoa

Hutchison Whampoa

Hutchison Whampoa Limited (HWL) was an investment holding company based in Hong Kong. It was a Fortune Global 500 company and one of the largest companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. HWL was an international corporation with a diverse array of holdings which included the world's biggest port, and telecommunication operations in 14 countries that were run under the 3 brand. Its businesses also included retail, property development and infrastructure.

Dow Jones & Company

Dow Jones & Company

Dow Jones & Company, Inc. is an American publishing firm owned by News Corp and led by CEO Almar Latour.

Robert Kuok

Robert Kuok

Robert Kuok Hock Nien, is a Malaysian business magnate and investor. Since 1973, Kuok has lived in Hong Kong. According to Forbes, his net worth is estimated at $12.6 billion as of April 2021, making him the wealthiest Malaysian and 104th wealthiest person in the world. As of April 2019, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Kuok has an estimated net worth of $18.4 billion, making him the 53rd richest person in the world.

MUI Group

MUI Group

Malayan United Industries Berhad was founded in 1960, and owned by Khoo Kay Peng. The main businesses of the group includes retailing, hotels, food and confectionery, financial services, property, travel and tourism. The group has business presence in the UK, Continental Europe, the US, Canada, the UAE, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, Hong Kong, China, Japan and Singapore.

TVB

TVB

Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) is a television broadcasting company based in Hong Kong SAR. The Company operates five free-to-air terrestrial television channels in Hong Kong, with TVB Jade as its main Cantonese language service, and TVB Pearl as its main English service. TVB is headquartered at TVB City at the Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate.

Richard Li

Richard Li

Richard Li Tzar-kai is a Hong Kong businessman and philanthropist. The founder and chairman of the private investment group Pacific Century Group (PCG), Li started his career in the 1990s with the founding of STAR TV, a pan-Asian television network. After founding PCG in 1993, he went on to establish PCCW and HKT Trust.

Residence

In 2003, Murdoch bought "Rosehearty", an 11 bedroom home on a 5-acre waterfront estate in Centre Island, New York.^[171] In May 2013, he purchased the Moraga Estate, an estate, vineyard and winery in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California.^{[172][173][174]} In 2019, Murdoch and his new wife Jerry Hall purchased Holmwood, an 18th-century house and estate in the English village of Binfield Heath, some 4 miles (6.4 km) north-east of Reading.^[175]

In late 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, it was reported that Murdoch and Hall had been isolating in their Binfield Heath home for much of the year. He received his first COVID-19 vaccine in nearby Henley-on-Thames on 16 December.^[176]

Marriages

Murdoch with his third wife, Wendi, in 2011

In 1956, Murdoch married Patricia Booker, a former shop assistant and flight attendant from Melbourne; the couple had their only child, Prudence, in 1958.^[177][178] They divorced in 1967.^[179]

In 1967, Murdoch married Anna Torv,^[177] a Scottish-born cadet journalist working for his Sydney newspaper The Daily Mirror.^[179] In January 1998, three months before the announcement of his separation from Anna, a Roman Catholic, Murdoch was made a Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great (KSG), a papal honour awarded by Pope John Paul II.^[180] While Murdoch would often attend Mass with Torv, he never converted to Catholicism.^[181][182] Torv and Murdoch had three children: Elisabeth Murdoch (born in Sydney, Australia on 22 August 1968), Lachlan Murdoch (born in London, UK on 8 September 1971), and James Murdoch, (born in London on 13 December 1972).^[177][178] Murdoch's companies published two novels by his wife: Family Business (1988) and Coming to Terms (1991). They divorced in June 1999. Anna Murdoch received a settlement of US$1.2 billion in assets.^[183]

On 25 June 1999, 17 days after divorcing his second wife, Murdoch, then aged 68, married Chinese-born Wendi Deng.^[184] She was 30, a recent Yale School of Management graduate, and a newly appointed vice-president of his STAR TV. Murdoch had two daughters with her: Grace (born 2001) and Chloe (born 2003). Murdoch has six children in all, and is grandfather to thirteen grandchildren.^[185] Near the end of his marriage to Wendi, hearsay concerning a link with Chinese intelligence (which was later proven to be unfounded) became problematic to their relationship.^[186][187] On 13 June 2013, a News Corporation spokesperson confirmed that Murdoch filed for divorce from Deng in New York City, US.^[188][189] According to the spokesman, the marriage had been irretrievably broken for more than six months.^[190] Murdoch also ended his long-standing friendship with Tony Blair after suspecting him of having an affair with Deng while they were still married.^[191]

Jerry Hall, Murdoch's fourth wife, whom he married in March 2016, photographed in 2009

On 11 January 2016, Murdoch announced his engagement to former model Jerry Hall in a notice in The Times newspaper.^[192] On 4 March 2016, Murdoch, a week short of his 85th birthday, and 59-year-old Hall were married in London, at St Bride's, Fleet Street with a reception at Spencer House; this was Murdoch's fourth marriage.^[193] In June 2022, The New York Times reported that Murdoch and Hall were set to divorce, citing two anonymous sources.^[194][195] Hall filed for divorce on 1 July 2022 citing irreconcilable differences;^[196] the divorce was finalised in August 2022.^[197]

During Saint Patrick's Day celebrations in 2023,^{[198][199][200]} Murdoch, who is quarter Irish, proposed to his partner, Ann Lesley Smith. The engaged couple first met at an event that they both attended in September 2022.^[201]

Children

Murdoch has six children.^[202] His eldest child, Prudence MacLeod, was appointed on 28 January 2011 to the board of Times Newspapers Ltd, part of News International, which publishes The Times and The Sunday Times.^[203] Murdoch's elder son Lachlan, formerly the Deputy Chief Operating Officer at the News Corporation and publisher of the New York Post, was Murdoch's heir apparent before resigning from his executive posts at the global media company at the end of July 2005.^[202] Lachlan's departure left James Murdoch, Chief Executive of the satellite television service British Sky Broadcasting since November 2003 as the only Murdoch son still directly involved with the company's operations, though Lachlan has agreed to remain on the News Corporation's board.^[204]

After graduating from Vassar College^[205] and marrying classmate Elkin Kwesi Pianim (the son of Ghanaian financial and political mogul Kwame Pianim) in 1993,^[205] Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth and her husband purchased a pair of NBC-affiliate television stations in California, KSBW and KSBY, with a $35 million loan provided by her father. By quickly re-organising and re-selling them at a $12 million profit in 1995, Elisabeth emerged as an unexpected rival to her brothers for the eventual leadership of the publishing dynasty. But, after divorcing Pianim in 1998 and quarrelling publicly with her assigned mentor Sam Chisholm at BSkyB, she struck out on her own as a television and film producer in London. She has since enjoyed independent success, in conjunction with her second husband, Matthew Freud, the great-grandson of Sigmund Freud, whom she met in 1997 and married in 2001.^[205]

It is not known how long Murdoch will remain as News Corporation's CEO. For a while the American cable television entrepreneur John Malone was the second-largest voting shareholder in News Corporation after Murdoch himself, potentially undermining the family's control. In 2007, the company announced that it would sell certain assets and give cash to Malone's company in exchange for its stock. In 2007, the company issued Murdoch's older children voting stock.^[206]

Murdoch has two children with Wendi Deng: Grace (b. New York, November 2001)^[29] and Chloe (b. New York, July 2003).^[178][179] It was revealed in September 2011 that Tony Blair is Grace's godfather.^[207] There is reported to be tension between Murdoch and his oldest children over the terms of a trust holding the family's 28.5% stake in News Corporation, estimated in 2005 to be worth about $6.1 billion. Under the trust, his children by Wendi Deng share in the proceeds of the stock but have no voting privileges or control of the stock. Voting rights in the stock are divided 50/50 between Murdoch on the one side and his children of his first two marriages. Murdoch's voting privileges are not transferable but will expire upon his death and the stock will then be controlled solely by his children from the prior marriages, although their half-siblings will continue to derive their share of income from it. It is Murdoch's stated desire to have his children by Deng given a measure of control over the stock proportional to their financial interest in it (which would mean, if Murdoch dies while at least one of the children is a minor, that Deng would exercise that control). It does not appear that he has any strong legal grounds to contest the present arrangement, and both ex-wife Anna and their three children are said to be strongly resistant to any such change.^[208]

Discover more about Personal life related topics

Centre Island, New York

Centre Island, New York

Centre Island is a village located within the Town of Oyster Bay in Nassau County, on Long Island, in New York, United States. Its population was 410 as of the 2010 census.

Moraga Estate

Moraga Estate

Moraga Estate is an American estate, vineyard and winery in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California. As of 2013, it was owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Bel Air, Los Angeles

Bel Air, Los Angeles

Bel Air is a residential neighborhood on the Westside of Los Angeles, California, in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains. Founded in 1923, it is the home of the Hannah Carter Japanese Garden and the American Jewish University.

Binfield Heath

Binfield Heath

Binfield Heath is a village and civil parish in South Oxfordshire, England, 2+1⁄2 miles (4 km) south-southwest of Henley-on-Thames and 3+1⁄2 miles (6 km) northeast of Reading on a southern knoll of the Chiltern Hills. The 2011 Census recorded the parish population as 709. The village has a Congregational Church, ground for polo, Michelin star chef-run restaurant, and public house. 12 of its 294 homes are listed buildings.

COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified in an outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019. Attempts to contain it there failed, allowing the virus to spread to other areas of Asia and later worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on 30 January 2020, and a pandemic on 11 March 2020. As of 10 March 2023, the pandemic had caused more than 676 million cases and 6.88 million confirmed deaths, making it one of the deadliest in history.

COVID-19 vaccine

COVID-19 vaccine

A COVID‑19 vaccine is a vaccine intended to provide acquired immunity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‑19).

Henley-on-Thames

Henley-on-Thames

Henley-on-Thames is a town and civil parish on the River Thames in Oxfordshire, England, 9 miles (14 km) northeast of Reading, 7 miles (11 km) west of Maidenhead, 23 miles (37 km) southeast of Oxford and 37 miles (60 km) west of London, near the tripoint of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. The population at the 2011 Census was 12,186.

Anna Murdoch Mann

Anna Murdoch Mann

Anna Maria dePeyster is a Scottish and Australian journalist and novelist.

Order of St. Gregory the Great

Order of St. Gregory the Great

The Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great was established on 1 September 1831, by Pope Gregory XVI, seven months after his election as Pope.

Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his death in 2005. He was later canonised as Pope Saint John Paul II.

Elisabeth Murdoch (businesswoman)

Elisabeth Murdoch (businesswoman)

Elisabeth Murdoch is an Australian-born British and American media executive based in the United Kingdom. She was a non-executive chairperson of Shine Group, the UK-based TV programme production company she founded in 2001, until the company's parent 21st Century Fox merged its Shine division with ApolloGlobal Management's Endemol and Core Media production houses, specializing in reality TV, in 2015.

Lachlan Murdoch

Lachlan Murdoch

Lachlan Keith Murdoch is a British-Australian businessman and mass media heir. He is the executive chairman of Nova Entertainment, co-chairman of News Corp, executive chairman and CEO of Fox Corporation, and the founder of Australian investment company Illyria Pty Ltd.

Murdoch has been portrayed by:

• Barry Humphries in the 1991 mini-series Selling Hitler
• Hugh Laurie in a parody of It's a Wonderful Life in the television show A Bit of Fry & Laurie
• Ben Mendelsohn in the film Black and White
• Paul Elder in The Late Shift
• Himself on The Simpsons, first in "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday" and later in "Judge Me Tender"^[209]
• Patrick Brammall in the 2-part mini-series Power Games
• Simon McBurney in the 2019 mini-series The Loudest Voice
• Malcolm McDowell in Bombshell
• Ben Miller in two UK comedy TV series: Tracey Ullman's Show and Tracey Breaks the News.

Murdoch and rival newspaper and publishing magnate Robert Maxwell are thinly fictionalised as "Keith Townsend" and "Richard Armstrong" in The Fourth Estate by British novelist and former MP Jeffrey Archer.^[210]

Towards the end of his touring career, Eagles drummer and lead singer Don Henley would often dedicate his 1982 hit "Dirty Laundry" to Rupert Murdoch and Bill O’Reilly.^[211][212]

In 1999, the Ted Turner-owned TBS channel aired an original sitcom, The Chimp Channel. This featured an all-simian cast and the role of an Australian TV veteran named Harry Waller. The character is described as "a self-made gazillionaire with business interests in all sorts of fields. He owns newspapers, hotel chains, sports franchises and genetic technologies, as well as everyone's favourite cable TV channel, The Chimp Channel". Waller is thought to be a parody of Murdoch, a long-time rival of Turner.^[213]

In 2004, the movie Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism included many interviews accusing Fox News of pressuring reporters to report only one side of news stories, in order to influence viewers' political opinions.^[214]

In 2012, the satirical show Hacks, broadcast on the UK's Channel 4, made obvious comparisons with Murdoch using the fictional character "Stanhope Feast", portrayed by Michael Kitchen, as well as other central figures in the phone hacking scandal.^[215]

The 2013 film Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues features an Australian character inspired by Rupert Murdoch who owns a cable news television channel.^[216][217]

In the novel Dunbar by Edward St Aubyn the eponymous lead character is at least partly inspired by Murdoch.^[218]

Murdoch was part of the inspiration for Logan Roy, the protagonist of TV show Succession, who is portrayed by Brian Cox.^[219]

Australian psychedelic rock band King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard wrote the track "Evilest Man" about Murdoch, for their 2022 album Omnium Gatherum^[220]

Discover more about Portrayal on television, in film, books, and music related topics

Barry Humphries

Barry Humphries

John Barry Humphries is an Australian comedian, actor, author and satirist. He is best known for writing and playing his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson. He is also a film producer and script writer, a star of London's West End musical theatre, a writer, and a landscape painter. For his delivery of dadaist and absurdist humour to millions, biographer Anne Pender described Humphries in 2010 as not only "the most significant theatrical figure of our time … [but] the most significant comedian to emerge since Charlie Chaplin".

Hugh Laurie

Hugh Laurie

James Hugh Calum Laurie is an English actor, comedian, writer, and musician. He first gained recognition for his work as one half of the comedy double act Fry and Laurie with Stephen Fry. The two men acted together in a number of projects during the 1980s and 1990s, including the BBC sketch comedy series A Bit of Fry & Laurie and the P. G. Wodehouse adaptation Jeeves and Wooster. He appeared in two series of the period comedy Blackadder (1987–1989) alongside Rowan Atkinson.

It's a Wonderful Life

It's a Wonderful Life

It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas fantasy drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra. It is based on the short story and booklet The Greatest Gift self-published by Philip Van Doren Stern in 1943, which itself is loosely based on the 1843 Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol. The film stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man who has given up his personal dreams in order to help others in his community and whose thoughts of suicide on Christmas Eve bring about the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody. Clarence shows George all the lives he touched and what the world would be like if he did not exist.

A Bit of Fry & Laurie

A Bit of Fry & Laurie

A Bit of Fry & Laurie is a British sketch comedy television series written by and starring former Cambridge Footlights members Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, broadcast on both BBC1 and BBC2 between 1989 and 1995. It ran for four series and totalled 26 episodes, including a 36-minute pilot episode in 1987.

Ben Mendelsohn

Ben Mendelsohn

Paul Benjamin Mendelsohn is an Australian actor. He first rose to prominence in Australia for his breakout role in The Year My Voice Broke (1987) and since then he has had roles in films such as Animal Kingdom (2010), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Starred Up (2013), Mississippi Grind (2015), Rogue One (2016), Darkest Hour (2017) and Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One (2018). Mendelsohn starred in the Netflix original series Bloodline (2015–2017), for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2016.

Black and White (2002 film)

Black and White (2002 film)

Black and White is a 2002 Australian film directed by Craig Lahiff and starring Robert Carlyle, Charles Dance, Kerry Fox, David Ngoombujarra, and Colin Friels. Louis Nowra wrote the screenplay, and Helen Leake and Nik Powell produced the film. For his performance in the film, Ngoombujarra won an Australian Film Institute award in 2003 as Best Actor in a Supporting Role.

Judge Me Tender

Judge Me Tender

"Judge Me Tender" is the twenty-third and final episode of the twenty-first season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. The 464th episode of the series overall, it originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 23, 2010. In the episode, Moe discovers his talent for judging in competitions and is invited to appear on the show American Idol. Meanwhile, Homer drives Marge crazy when he starts spending too much time at home, and Lisa tries to comfort Santa's Little Helper.

Patrick Brammall

Patrick Brammall

Patrick Brammall is an Australian actor and writer. He is best known for his roles as Sean Moody in the ABC comedy A Moody Christmas; as Leo Taylor in Series 5 of Channel Ten's Offspring; and as Sergeant James Hayes in the ABC series Glitch.

Malcolm McDowell

Malcolm McDowell

Malcolm McDowell is a British actor, producer, and television presenter. He is best known for portraying Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange. He was born in the Horsforth suburb of Leeds and raised in Liverpool. He later trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before embarking on an acting career that has spanned over 50 years.

Bombshell (2019 film)

Bombshell (2019 film)

Bombshell is a 2019 drama film directed by Jay Roach and written by Charles Randolph. The film stars Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, and Margot Robbie, and is based upon the accounts of the women at Fox News who set out to expose CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment. John Lithgow, Kate McKinnon, Connie Britton, Malcolm McDowell, and Allison Janney appear in supporting roles.

Ben Miller

Ben Miller

Bennet Evan Miller is an English actor, comedian, and author. He rose to fame as one half of the comedy duo Armstrong and Miller. Miller is also known for playing the lead role of DI Richard Poole in the first two series of the BBC crime drama Death in Paradise, and for portraying James Lester in the ITV science-fiction series Primeval.

Robert Maxwell

Robert Maxwell

Ian Robert Maxwell was a Czechoslovak-born British media proprietor, member of parliament (MP), suspected spy, and fraudster.

This section may lend undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, or controversies. Please help improve it by rewriting it in a balanced fashion that contextualizes different points of view. (May 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Murdoch accepting the Hudson Institute's 2015 Global Leadership Award in November

According to Forbes' real time list of world's billionaires, Murdoch is the 34th richest person in the US and the 96th richest person in the world, with a net worth of US$13.1 billion as of February 2017.^[221] In 2016, Forbes ranked "Rupert Murdoch & Family" as the 35th most powerful person in the world.^[222] Later, in 2019, Rupert Murdoch & family were ranked 52nd in the Forbes' annual list of the world's billionaires.^[223]

In August 2013, Terry Flew, Professor of Media and Communications at Queensland University of Technology, wrote an article for the Conversation publication in which he investigated a claim by former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd that Murdoch owned 70% of Australian newspapers in 2011. Flew's article showed that News Corp Australia owned 23% of the nation's newspapers in 2011, according to the Finkelstein Review of Media and Media Regulation, but, at the time of the article, the corporation's titles accounted for 59% of the sales of all daily newspapers, with weekly sales of 17.3 million copies.^[224]

In connection with Murdoch's testimony to the Leveson Inquiry "into the ethics of the British press", editor of Newsweek International, Tunku Varadarajan, referred to him as "the man whose name is synonymous with unethical newspapers".^[225]

News Corp papers were accused of supporting the campaign of the Australian Liberal government and influencing public opinion during the 2013 federal election. Following the announcement of the Liberal Party victory at the polls, Murdoch tweeted "Aust. election public sick of public sector workers and phony welfare scroungers sucking life out of economy. Other nations to follow in time."^[226]

In November 2015, former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott said that Murdoch "arguably has had more impact on the wider world than any other living Australian".^[227]

In late 2015, The Wall Street Journal journalist John Carreyrou began a series of investigative articles on Theranos, the blood-testing start-up founded by Elizabeth Holmes, that questioned its claim to be able to run a wide range of lab tests from a tiny sample of blood from a finger prick.^{[228][229][230]} Holmes had turned to Murdoch, whose media empire includes Carreyrou's employer, The Wall Street Journal, to kill the story. Murdoch, who became the biggest investor in Theranos in 2015 as a result of his $125 million injection, refused the request from Holmes saying that "he trusted the paper’s editors to handle the matter fairly."^[231][232]

In November 2021, Murdoch accused Google and Facebook of stifling conservative viewpoints on its platforms, and called for "substantial reform" and openness in the digital ad supply chain.^[233]

Discover more about Influence, wealth, and reputation related topics

Hudson Institute

Hudson Institute

The Hudson Institute is a conservative American research institute based in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1961 in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, by futurist, military strategist, and systems theorist Herman Kahn and his colleagues at the RAND Corporation.

Forbes

Forbes

Forbes is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. Forbes also reports on related subjects such as technology, communications, science, politics, and law. It is based in Jersey City, New Jersey. Competitors in the national business magazine category include Fortune and Bloomberg Businessweek. Forbes has an international edition in Asia as well as editions produced under license in 27 countries and regions worldwide.

Queensland University of Technology

Queensland University of Technology

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is a public research university located in the urban coastal city of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. QUT is located on two campuses in the Brisbane area viz. Gardens Point and Kelvin Grove. The university in its current form was founded in 1989, when the Queensland Institute of Technology (QIT) was made a university through the Queensland University of Technology Act 1988, with the resulting Queensland University of Technology beginning its operations from January 1989. In 1990, the Brisbane College of Advanced Education merged with QUT.

Kevin Rudd

Kevin Rudd

Kevin Michael Rudd is an Australian diplomat and former politician who was the 26th prime minister of Australia, from 2007 to 2010 and again from June 2013 to September 2013, holding office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). He is currently the 23rd Ambassador of Australia to the United States, since 20 March 2023.

Leveson Inquiry

Leveson Inquiry

The Leveson Inquiry was a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, who was appointed in July 2011. A series of public hearings were held throughout 2011 and 2012. The Inquiry published the Leveson Report in November 2012, which reviewed the general culture and ethics of the British media, and made recommendations for a new, independent, body to replace the existing Press Complaints Commission, which would have to be recognised by the state through new laws. Prime Minister David Cameron, under whose direction the inquiry had been established, said that he welcomed many of the findings, but declined to enact the requisite legislation. Part 2 of the inquiry was to be delayed until after criminal prosecutions regarding events at the News of the World, but the Conservative Party's 2017 manifesto stated that the second part of the inquiry would be dropped entirely, and this was confirmed by Culture Secretary Matt Hancock in a statement to the House of Commons on 1 March 2018.

Tunku Varadarajan

Tunku Varadarajan

Tunku Varadarajan is a India-born naturalised British writer and journalist, formerly editor of Newsweek Global and Newsweek International. He is currently the Virginia Hobbs Carpenter Research Fellow in Journalism at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and a contributing editor at Politico Europe.

Tony Abbott

Tony Abbott

Anthony John Abbott is a former Australian politician who was the 28th prime minister of Australia, from 2013 to 2015. He held office as the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia.

The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal is an American business-focused international daily newspaper based in New York City with international editions published in Chinese and Japanese. The Journal and its Asian editions are published six days a week by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corp. The newspaper is published in broadsheet format and online. The Journal has been printed continuously since its inception on July 8, 1889. The Journal is regarded as a newspaper of record, particularly in terms of business and financial news. The newspaper has won 38 Pulitzer Prizes, the most recent in 2019.

John Carreyrou

John Carreyrou

John Carreyrou is a French-American investigative reporter at The New York Times. Carreyrou worked for The Wall Street Journal for 20 years between 1999 and 2019 and has been based in Brussels, Paris, and New York City. He won the Pulitzer Prize twice and is well known for having exposed the fraudulent practices of the multibillion-dollar blood-testing company Theranos in a series of articles published in The Wall Street Journal.

Theranos

Theranos

Theranos Inc. was an American privately held corporation that was touted as a breakthrough health technology company. Founded in 2003 by then 19-year-old Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos raised more than US$700 million from venture capitalists and private investors, resulting in a $10 billion valuation at its peak in 2013 and 2014. The company claimed that it had devised blood tests that required very small amounts of blood and that could be performed rapidly and accurately, all using compact automated devices which the company had developed. These claims were later proven to be false.

Elizabeth Holmes

Elizabeth Holmes

Elizabeth Anne Holmes is a convicted American fraudster and former biotechnology entrepreneur. In 2003, Holmes founded and was the chief executive officer (CEO) of Theranos, a now-defunct health technology company. It soared in valuation after the company claimed to have revolutionized blood testing by developing methods that could use surprisingly small volumes of blood, such as from a fingerprick. By 2015, Forbes had named Holmes the youngest and wealthiest self-made female billionaire in the United States on the basis of a $9-billion valuation of her company. In the following year, as revelations of potential fraud about Theranos's claims began to surface, Forbes revised its estimate of Holmes's net worth to zero, and Fortune named her in its feature article on "The World's 19 Most Disappointing Leaders".

Fingerstick

Fingerstick

In medicine, some blood tests are conducted on capillary blood obtained by fingerstick. The site, free of surface arterial flow, where the blood is to be collected is sterilized with a topical germicide, and the skin pierced with a sterile lancet. After a droplet has formed, capillary blood is captured in a capillary tube. Blood cells drawn from fingersticks have a tendency to undergo hemolysis, especially if the finger is "milked" to obtain more blood.