Category Archives: Rupert Murdoch

Roger Ailes’s widow says Murdochs have ‘wreaked havoc’ on Fox News

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Wife of former CEO forced out over sexual harassment allegations says Rupert Murdoch lacks her husband’s ‘genius’

Rupert Murdoch’s family has “wreaked havoc” on Fox News, said the widow of Roger Ailes, the network’s former chief executive, adding that the 92-year-old media baron would “never come close” to her late husband’s “genius”.

Ailes died on 18 May 2017 at the age of 77. The former Republican operative built Fox News into a rightwing media giant but died less than a year after he was forced out over allegations of extensive sexual harassment.

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Carlson fired on Murdoch’s orders, report says – as it happened

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As one of the top proponents of Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen, Tucker Carlson loomed large over Dominion’s lawsuit against Fox. But messages released before the case’s settlement show Carlson apparently did not think much of Trump, or necessarily believe some of the claims he was putting on air. Here’s the Guardian’s Edward Helmore with a look back at what the Dominion case revealed about Carlson:

Tucker Carlson was once seen as untouchable. Now the most popular TV host on American cable news is at the center of a firestorm threatening to engulf Fox News and also anger Donald Trump, whose conspiracy theory-laden political cause he has long championed and who his audience loves.

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Dominion had planned to make Rupert Murdoch its second witness

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Lawyers were going to call media mogul this week, forcing him to appear in person for cross-examination

Lawyers for Dominion Voting Systems had planned to put media mogul Rupert Murdoch on the stand to testify this week before it reached a $787.5m settlement with Fox for its broadcasting of false claims about the company’s voting equipment after the 2020 election, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Dominion was going to call the 92-year-old Murdoch as its second witness, forcing him to appear in person for cross-examination before the end of the week. He would have followed Tony Fratto, a crisis communications consultant who represented Dominion after the 2020 election and contacted Fox many times to inform them they were making false claims.

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Judge willing to force Rupert Murdoch to testify in $1.6bn Fox News case

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US judge says he ‘would not quash’ subpoena from Dominion Voting Systems requesting testimony from mogul and son Lachlan

A judge in Delaware on Wednesday said Dominion Voting Systems can compel Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch to testify in the election machines company’s $1.6bn defamation suit against Fox News.

If Dominion files the appropriate subpoena, Judge Eric M Davis said, “I would not quash it and I would compel them to come.”

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Rupert Murdoch has fuelled polarisation of society, Barack Obama says

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Former US president tells Sydney audience that media coverage has helped exacerbate divisions and that we no longer have a ‘shared story’

The former US president Barack Obama has suggested that Rupert Murdoch’s media empire has led to greater polarisation in western societies through news coverage designed to “make people angry and resentful”.

Speaking to a capacity crowd of about 9,000 people at Sydney’s Aware Super Theatre on Tuesday night, Obama mixed childhood memories of transiting through Australia as a child with pointed observations about the current political discourse and the rise of China.

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Fox News and Dominion face off in $1.6bn defamation fight in court

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The voting machine company is suing the news channel over its disingenuous coverage of various outlandish election claims

Lawyers for Fox News and the voting equipment company Dominion faced off in a Delaware courtroom on Tuesday in the latest phase of Dominion’s closely watched $1.6bn defamation suit against the media company for spreading election lies.

Both sides offered dueling narratives of Fox’s liability for spreading false information. The network presented outlandish claims about Dominion while knowing it was false, lawyers for Dominion said. Fox’s lawyers, by contrast, said that the network was merely airing newsworthy claims by the former president that any reasonable viewer would have understood to be allegations. The judge overseeing the case unexpectedly extended the hearing to Wednesday to give both sides more time to make their case.

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Rupert Murdoch to marry for fifth time at 92: ‘I knew this would be my last’

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Billionaire mogul will marry Ann Lesley Smith, 66, whom he met in September of 2022. ‘We share the same beliefs,’ Smith says

The billionaire mogul Rupert Murdoch, whose conservative media empire spans the globe, is engaged to marry for the fifth time at the age of 92 years old, he told an interviewer in his own tabloid newspaper, the New York Post.

“I was very nervous. I dreaded falling in love – but I knew this would be my last. It better be. I’m happy,” Murdoch said of his new fiancee, Ann Lesley Smith, 66, whose late husband was Chester Smith, a country singer as well as radio and TV executive.

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Rupert Murdoch testified that Fox News hosts ‘endorsed’ stolen election narrative

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Network owner also admitted in $1.6bn defamation lawsuit deposition that Trump’s claims were ‘damaging to everybody’

Newly released court documents reveal that Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire owner of Fox News, acknowledged under oath that several Fox News hosts endorsed Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

The mogul made the admission during a deposition in the $1.6bn defamation lawsuit brought against the network by the voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems, which has accused Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corporation, of maligning its reputation. In his deposition, Murdoch said that the hosts Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro “endorsed” the false narrative promoted by Trump.

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Rightwing media’s coverage of Trump’s presidential bid shows it just can’t turn away

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The evening was full of contradictory messages supporting and slighting the former president

All the signs in the past week have been that the Rupert Murdoch-owned US media was ready to ditch Donald Trump en masse. The New York Post mocked Trump as Humpty Dumpty, the Wall Street Journal declared him to be “the Republican party’s biggest loser” and even Fox News offered scant defense of Trump’s miserable midterm elections.

Watching Fox News on Tuesday night, however, as Trump announced he was running for president yet again in 2024, it seemed that not everyone was ready to let Trump go.

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Murdoch press turns on Donald Trump in favour of ‘DeFuture’ Ron DeSantis

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Rightwing media empire looks for new Republican protege after poor showing in midterm elections

Rupert Murdoch has reportedly warned Donald Trump his media empire will not back any attempt to return to the White House, as former supporters turn to the youthful Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

After the Republican party’s disappointing performance in the US midterm elections, in particular the poor showing by candidates backed by Trump, Murdoch’s rightwing media empire appears to be seeking a clean break from the former president’s damaged reputation and perceived waning political power.

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The Sun always backs the winner: can the Murdoch papers warm to Keir Starmer?

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Former DPP Starmer tried to send head of News UK Rebekah Brooks to prison for phone hacking 10 years ago

Ten years ago Keir Starmer attempted to send Rebekah Brooks to prison for phone hacking.

Now Starmer could cause another headache for the boss of Rupert Murdoch’s British media empire. She has to work out how her Tory-backing newspapers – which include the Sun and the Times – handle the growing popularity of the man who is favourite to become the next prime minister.

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Jerry Hall asks judges to cancel divorce petition against Rupert Murdoch – reports

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Document filed by ex-model’s lawyer states divorce should be dismissed without prejudice according to Daily Mail

Jerry Hall has reportedly asked judges to cancel the divorce petition she filed five weeks ago against Rupert Murdoch.

The notice was filed at the Los Angeles superior court by the former model’s California lawyer, Ronald Brot.

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Jared Kushner: I stopped Trump attacking Murdoch in 2015

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In forthcoming memoir, obtained by the Guardian, former adviser claims to have made hugely consequential intervention

In a forthcoming memoir, Jared Kushner says he personally intervened to stop Donald Trump attacking Rupert Murdoch in response to the media mogul’s criticism, at the outset of Trump’s move into politics in 2015.

In the book, Breaking History, Kushner writes: “Trump called me. He’d clearly had enough. ‘This guy’s no good. And I’m going to tweet it.’

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Carrie Johnson and the curious case of the vanishing Times story

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Report had claimed Boris Johnson tried to hire his now wife as chief of staff when foreign secretary, but then it was deleted

At first glance, the story appeared to be the political scoop of the weekend.

On Saturday, the Times reported claims that Boris Johnson had tried to hire his now wife as his chief of staff when he was foreign secretary.

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Mark McGowan accuses travelling press pack of ‘bullying’ Anthony Albanese and reporting ‘lies’

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In a blistering attack in Perth, the Western Australia premier also took aim at Peter Dutton, labelling him a conservative ‘extremist’

Western Australian premier Mark McGowan has launched a blistering attack on members of the federal press gallery who followed Anthony Albanese’s election campaign, accusing them of reporting “lies” as well as “bullying” the new prime minister at press conferences.

McGowan, who joined Albanese for several media events in Perth during the six-week campaign, said he was “shocked and appalled” by some in the Canberra-based media pack, who attracted ongoing criticism from Labor supporters and veteran journalists for interjections and combative questioning.

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There is ‘no one News Corp view’ on election, head of company’s Australian arm tells staff

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News Corp Australasia executive chairman issues all-staff memo, with scrutiny on election coverage likely to increase

Rupert Murdoch’s Australian lieutenant has told News Corp journalists there is “no one News Corp view” about the election and that individual editors are free to decide which party to endorse.

Executive chairman of News Corp Australasia, Michael Miller, said it was important to remember that “electorate issues in Surry Hills differ greatly to those in Broken Hill” and that audiences “expect us to interrogate all parties and all sides”.

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Malcolm Turnbull on Murdoch, lies and the climate crisis: ‘The same forces that enabled Trump are at work in Australia’

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Systematic partisan lying and misinformation from the media, both mainstream and social, has done enormous damage to liberal democracies, the former PM writes

The United States has suffered the largest number of Covid-19 deaths: about 600,000 at the time of writing. The same political and media players who deny the reality of global warming also denied and politicised the Covid-19 virus.

To his credit, Donald Trump poured billions into Operation Warp Speed, which assisted the development of vaccines in a timeframe that matched the program’s ambitious title. But he also downplayed the gravity of Covid-19, then peddled quack therapies and mocked cities that mandated social distancing and mask wearing.

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Spice Girl among stars to begin phone-hacking claims against Murdoch empire

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Melanie Chisholm, Boyzone’s Shane Lynch and S Club 7’s Hannah Spearritt latest to allege voicemail interception

A group of 1990s pop stars are among the latest individuals to launch phone-hacking cases against Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, as the scandal that has dogged the company for more than 15 years continues to rumble on at the high court.

Melanie Chisholm from the Spice Girls, Shane Lynch from Boyzone, Hannah Spearritt from S Club 7, and Steps’s Ian Watkins and Lee Latchford-Evans have recently filed claims against the company.

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News Corp Australia won’t muzzle commentators as it ramps up climate coverage

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Newspapers to cover ‘all views’ and ‘not just the popular ones’, indicating the Murdoch empire may continue its pattern of climate science denial

News Corp Australia has confirmed it will ramp up its company-wide coverage of climate change next month but says its stable of commentators won’t be “muzzled”.

The executive chairman of News Corp Australasia, Michael Miller, says the mastheads will cover “all views” and “not just the popular ones”, indicating the Murdoch empire may continue its pattern of climate science denial and ridicule towards climate action.

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BBC inquiry dismisses Rupert Murdoch complaints about documentary series

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Complaints unit backs makers of Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty, except over section on Tory ‘sleaze’ stories

Rupert Murdoch has largely lost a year-long dispute with the BBC after he objected to a documentary series that “implied he posed a threat to liberal democracy”.

Murdoch’s News UK business complained that a BBC Two documentary unfairly suggested the Australian-born media mogul “exercised malign political influence” through his ownership of news outlets. It said the BBC programme was biased and failed to give enough weight to more positive appraisals of Murdoch’s career.

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