brother and in fact speak only rarely to his father. by making his family the business and the business his family, rupert left his family just as broken up as his company was when he sold to disney. it was ripped apart by this decades-long battle for succession, which at the same time was a zero-sum-seeming battle for their father s love. and we begin tonight with breaking news. james murdoch, resigning from news corp s board of directors. and then james really severs his last official tie to his father s empire. he sends a letter to the board. he resigns from news corp and he says, rather tersely and tartly, he has philosophical differences with the direction shown by the company. disagreements over certain
endless rivalry with his brother. but also, politically, it would land him at a company that has no discernible politics at all, and in fact, a company that is almost self-consciously apolitical. we feel very strongly about where we re positioned to grow the company as a standalone company. lachlan, on the other hand, was furious initially about the deal. people in lachlan s world describe this as james rushing to basically gut the company. lachlan wanted the best price for these assets. some people have said that this was, in his view, a loss of his birthright. lachlan loved the glamour of the movie business. to him, the film legacy was a big part of the family legacy, and he did not want to give that up. his father wooed him back from australia to take over the business. here he is. he s moved his family back to los angeles. and then, suddenly, he s getting the rug pulled out from under him. his father s going to sell the biggest chunk of the company,
james path is done. he s out of the company. he tells people now that he sees the empire as a shriveled-up version of itself. in fact, dismissively, he would call it a political project. i think james realized to some degree, if you re going to shoot the king, you have to kill the king. and i think that this was a realization that james was not going to be able to persuade his father to his side, and that he was not going to be able to overthrow his father either. do you think there s ever a future in which you would go back to fox? i don t think so. i think they re off doing their own thing there. james and his wife, catherine, set up their own nonprofit focused on climate change, voter suppression, misinformation on a variety of different fronts. it seems almost like james is setting up the sort of antidote to his father s empire. i think i want to be as
but also, politically, it would land him at a company that has no discernible politics at all, and in fact, a company that is almost self-consciously apolitical. we feel very strongly about where we re positioned to grow the company as a standalone company. lachlan, on the other hand, was furious initially about the deal. people in lachlan s world describe this as james rushing to basically gut the company. lachlan wanted the best price for these assets. some people have said that this was, in his view, a loss of his birthright. lachlan loved the glamour of the movie business. to him, the film legacy was a big part of the family legacy, and he did not want to give that up. his father wooed him back from australia to take over the business. here he is. he s moved his family back to los angeles. and then, suddenly, he s getting the rug pulled out from under him. his father s going to sell the biggest chunk of the company, certainly the most glamorous
and were worried about this trend, et cetera, so i just felt it was important to reach out to people and encourage them to do the same. it was more solicitation and trying to lead by example. there were no other statements following from lachlan, nor from rupert. the fact that they don t have anything to say really says everything. i remember thinking that email means nothing. if you looked at what was going on our airwaves, on our network every single day, it was clear that james murdoch had no input whatsoever on what was being said on fox. cold and flu brand. specially designed for people with high blood pressure. be there for life s best moments. trust coricidin. [laughter] hey, i was thinking about going back to school to get my master s. i just saw something that said you could do it in a year for like $11k.