Rupert Murdoch and his oldest kids are battling over who controls his media empire when the 93-year-old media titan dies. The Atlantic staff writer McKay Coppins explains what's at stake, how it could change Fox News — and what the siblings think about the HBO show Succession.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies. If you enjoyed the HBO series Succession about the children of an aging media mogul competing to inherit his business empire, you'll want to read the new article in The Atlantic by my guest, McKay Coppins.
It's about the real-life drama involving the children of 93-year-old Rupert Murdoch and their battle over who will someday lead his business properties, most prominently Fox News. And even if you didn't see Succession, the story is still fascinating, both because of the intense family dynamics and the stakes in this conflict.
The outcome could mean big changes for Fox News, which Coppins describes as the most powerful conservative media force in the world. Late last year, the parties in this family dispute squared off in an epic court battle over the succession plan for the Murdoch empire.
Rupert Murdoch wanted to amend the family trust to ensure his eldest son Lachlan would take the helm, shutting out his younger son James, who was troubled by Fox News' hard right bent.
Coppins writes that the trial testimony and depositions and discovery in the case were often intensely personal, bringing up years of painful secrets, scheming and manipulation, lies, media leaks, and devious betrayals. For his story, Coppins had extensive interviews with James Murdoch and his wife Catherine. Their side prevailed in the trial verdict, which is under appeal.
McKay Coppins is a staff writer for The Atlantic and the author of two books, The Wilderness, about the battle over the future of the Republican Party, and Romney, A Reckoning, a biography of Mitt Romney. The online version of his new article is Growing Up Murdoch, James Murdoch on mind games, sibling rivalry, and the war for the family media empire.
It's on The Atlantic's website, and it's also the magazine's April issue cover story. Well, McKay Coppins, welcome back to Fresh Air. Thanks for having me. Early in the piece, you describe a day in the case when James Murdoch is being deposed. He's in a Manhattan law office under oath, and one of his dad's lawyers is asking questions. Do you want to just set the scene? Tell us what happened.
Yeah. So this was last year James showed up for a deposition. The lawyer sitting across from him was this kind of well-known lawyer in the estate legal world and was kind of firing, you know, pretty aggressive and withering questions at him. What was remarkable about the moment, because that's not totally unusual in a deposition. Sometimes these depositions can be hostile.
What was remarkable is that Rupert was sitting next to the lawyer throughout the entire deposition. He was actually staring kind of inscrutably at his youngest son while the lawyer asked him questions like, have you ever done anything successful on your own? Does it strike you that everything that goes wrong is always somebody else's fault in your account?
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