Saturday, September 23, 2023

The Guardian View on the Murdoch Handover: Lachlan Inherits a Dark Legacy

THE GUARDIAN – EDITORIAL: Through his businesses, Rupert Murdoch pushed a world view with the pursuit of money at its heart

Rupert Murdoch ‘had his most malign effects in the US’. Photograph: Mary Altaffer/AP

There are not many chairmanships of companies that would so fascinate writers, and television producers, that they would make four series about them. Rupert Murdoch’s long tenure at Fox and News Corp was one. For viewers of Succession, this week’s announcement that Mr Murdoch is handing control to his eldest son, Lachlan, is a real-life coda to a dynastic struggle in which they are already immersed – in fictionalised form. Lachlan’s reputation, as the most rightwing of the three siblings seen as plausible successors, is deeply dismaying, given the power he will now wield and the context in which he will wield it – above all in the United States, where Donald Trump aims to run for president next year. » | Editorial | Friday, September 22, 2023