Rupert Murdoch 89 Helms The Murdoch Family Empire
Murdoch’s name is synonymous with media and influence. He has built an empire that comprises Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, The Times of London, and other networks and newspapers all across the world.
As he entered his late 80s, his succession plan emerged as a question.
Over the span of his five-decade career, he has been married four times and fathered six children, many of whom are involved in the family business.
Murdoch sold 21st Century Fox to Disney for $71.3 billion in 2019, netting $12 billion that he then distributed equally between his six children.
His two sons, James and Lachlan, have long been considered the most likely to step into Rupert’s shoes, but James just took himself out of the running by leaving the board of News Corp. citing “disagreements over certain editorial content.” Beforehand, James had lost out to Lachlan in the race to take over at the famously conservative Fox News.
Here’s a breakdown of who’s who in the Murdoch family:
The Family Shipping Company Is Centered On China
Foremost Group, the New York-based shipping company founded by Mr. Chao in 1964, landed its first big contract with the United States government, shipping rice to Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.
Now, it builds most of its ships in state-owned shipyards in China, with some financed by Chinese government loans. In at least two instances, those Chinese-backed, Chinese-built ships entered long-term contracts to deliver iron ore for a state-owned steel maker.
More than 70 percent of Foremosts freight goes to China, and most of that is iron ore, according to recent shipping data. The cargo helps feed Chinas industrial machine, which manufactures steel products that are a point of dispute in the deepening trade war between China and the United States. The company describes itself as a small international business and says it does not have a particular focus on China, beyond what most dry bulk carriers have in a world dominated by Chinese manufacturing.
Who Owns The Fox News Network
Fox News is owned by the Fox Corporation, which is owned in part by the Murdoch Family . Its also important to point out that the same person with Fox News ownership, Rupert Murdoch, owns News Corp with the same 39% share, and News Corp owns the New York Post, HarperCollins, and the Wall Street Journal.
Recommended Reading: Price To Register A Car In Ny
Adolph Ochs Arrives At The Turn Of The Century
Ochss first two years with the Times were a continual struggle to carry on operations and improve the paper with inadequate capital. The expenses of covering the Spanish-American War in 1898 came close to ruining the paper, which sold then for 30 a copy. Some Times executives advised raising the price, but Ochs made the brilliant and daring decision to reduce the price to 10. Within a year paid circulation trebled from 26,000 to 76,000. Advertising linage increased by nearly 40 percent, and the paper was profitable. Despite subsequent price increases, this was the beginning of a long upward trend in circulation and profitability. On August 14, 1900, Ochs received the NYTC stock certificates that established his control over the paper and the company, a controlling interest that was still held by his descendants in 1991.
Under Ochs, the NYTC followed a general policy of avoiding diversification, although Ochs himself continued as the personal owner and publisher of the Chattanooga Times and had a private investment in a Philadelphia paper between 1901 and 1913. In 1926, however, the NYTC did take part ownership, along with Kimberly & Clark Company, in a Canadian paper mill, the Spruce Falls Power and Paper Company, to assure its supplies of newsprint.
Wendi Deng Was Rupert Murdoch’s Third Wife
Deng, now 51, is 37 years Rupert Murdoch’s junior. They met while she was working as an executive at a Murdoch-owned network in Hong Kong. She was also an advisor for China’s Myspace outfit and a film producer.
The pair married in 1999, aboard Murdoch’s yacht, just weeks after his divorce from Anna Murdoch Mann was finalized.
Don’t Miss: Where Is The Wax Museum In New York
These 15 Billionaires Own America’s News Media Companies
Washington Post executive editor Martin Baron and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington… Post, on stage at the Post’s “Transformers” conference in May 2016.
News that billionaire Peter Thiel is funding Hulk Hogan’s trial against news website Gawker set the media and technology worlds on fire last week, sparking a conversation about the ultra-wealthy’s role in controlling the news. While a billionaire secretly funding a lawsuit to take down a news outlet may be a new way of using money to influence the media business, billionaires have long exerted influence on the news simply by owning U.S. media outlets.
Some billionaires, like Rupert Murdoch and Michael Bloomberg are longtime media moguls who made their fortunes in the news business. Others, like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, bought publications as a side investment after building a substantial fortune in another industry. Billionaires own part or all of several of America’s influential national newspapers, including The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and the , in addition to magazines, local papers and online publications.
Several other billionaires, including Chairman John Malone, own or control cable TV networks that are powerful but not primarily news focused.
Here’s a look at some of the billionaires who own news media in the United States:
Michael Bloomberg – Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Media
Rupert Murdoch –
Jeff Bezos – The Washington Post
John Henry – The Boston Globe
Accusations Of Liberal Bias
In mid-2004, the newspaper’s then-public editor Daniel Okrent, wrote an opinion piece in which he said that The New York Times did have a liberal bias in news coverage of certain social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. He stated that this bias reflected the paper’s cosmopolitanism, which arose naturally from its roots as a hometown paper of New York City, writing that the coverage of the Times‘s Arts & Leisure Culture and the Sunday Times Magazine trend to the left.
If you’re examining the paper’s coverage of these subjects from a perspective that is neither urban nor Northeastern nor culturally seen-it-all if you are among the groups The Times treats as strange objects to be examined on a laboratory slide if your value system wouldn’t wear well on a composite New York Times journalist, then a walk through this paper can make you feel you’re traveling in a strange and forbidding world.
Times public editor Arthur Brisbane wrote in 2012:
When The Times covers a national presidential campaign, I have found that the lead editors and reporters are disciplined about enforcing fairness and balance, and usually succeed in doing so. Across the paper’s many departments, though, so many share a kind of political and cultural progressivism for lack of a better term that this worldview virtually bleeds through the fabric of The Times.
Read Also: How To Apply For New York State Disability
New York Times V Sullivan
The paper’s involvement in a 1964 libel case helped bring one of the key United States Supreme Court decisions supporting freedom of the press, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. In it, the United States Supreme Court established the “actual malice” standard for press reports about public officials or public figures to be considered defamatory or libelous. The malice standard requires the plaintiff in a defamation or libel case to prove the publisher of the statement knew the statement was false or acted in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity. Because of the high burden of proof on the plaintiff, and difficulty proving malicious intent, such cases by public figures rarely succeed.
Carlos Slim Loan And Investment
On January 20, 2009, The New York Times reported that its parent company, The New York Times Company, had reached an agreement to borrow $250 million from Carlos Slim, a Mexican billionaire “to help the newspaper company finance its businesses”. The New York Times Company later repaid that loan ahead of schedule. Since then, Slim has bought large quantities of the company’s Class A shares, which are available for purchase by the public and offer less control over the company than Class B shares, which are privately held. Slim’s investments in the company included large purchases of Class A shares in 2011, when he increased his stake in the company to 8.1% of Class A shares, and again in 2015, when he exercised stock optionsacquired as part of a repayment plan on the 2009 loanto purchase 15.9 million Class A shares, making him the largest shareholder. As of March 7, 2016, Slim owned 17.4% of the company’s Class A shares, according to annual filings submitted by the company. While Slim is the largest shareholder in the company, his investment only allows him to vote for Class A directors, a third of the company’s board. Slim continues to influence the paper’s direction.
Read Also: Paying Traffic Ticket Online Ny
Arthur Sulzberger Jr To Retire As New York Times Company Chairman
A changing of the guard is complete as he steps back from the board of the news organization he led to 61 Pulitzer Prizes.
-
Send any friend a story
As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.
Give this article
- Read in app
The New York Times Company announced on Wednesday that Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. will retire as the chairman and as an active member of its board of directors on Dec. 31, completing a generational shift at a newspaper that has been in the same family for more than 120 years. He will be succeeded as the boards chairman by his son, A. G. Sulzberger, the publisher.
Mr. Sulzberger, 69, served as publisher of The Times from 1992 to 2017. He made sweeping changes during his tenure, taking the print newspaper from black and white to color starting in 1993 a move viewed with suspicion by some traditionalists and later transforming it into a digital publication. He became chairman in 1997 and will assume the title of chairman emeritus.
His retirement concludes a changing of the guard, coming nearly three years after his son became the publisher and weeks after Meredith Kopit Levien, previously the chief operating officer, replaced Mark Thompson as the chief executive and president. Mr. Thompson, who held the chief executive job for eight years, was appointed to that role by the elder Mr. Sulzberger.
Mr. McAndrews, Ms. Kopit Levien and A. G. Sulzberger all sit on the Times Company board.
As Budget Cuts Have Targeted Americas Shipping Sector The Trump Administrations Commitment Under Ms Chao Has Been Questioned
The Trump administration has left little doubt that the federal government is willing to use its clout to boost certain American industrial sectors, including coal and steel. Those efforts have not extended to the maritime industry under Ms. Chaos leadership.
The Transportation Department budget during her tenure has repeatedly called for cuts for programs intended to support the depressed system of American-flagged ships. The agency budget has also called for scaling back plans to replace up to five academy ships to train a new generation of American mariners.
Agency officials noted that many of the cuts were forced on the department by the White House, and that some of the same programs had been previously targeted, only to see the money restored by Congress, as happened again with the Trump cuts.
With the action by Congress, the plans to build the new training ships are now back on track, and overall maritime spending is up. But the proposed cuts have led to bipartisan questions about the Trump administrations commitment to shipping.
Transportation Department officials say that Ms. Chao has been a champion for the United States maritime system, and that her actions as the head of the agency have nothing to do with her familys business in China. In China, the Chao family has for decades offered scholarships to students training to join the fast-growing shipping industry there.
Also Check: How Much Is The Wax Museum In New York
Bari Weiss Exposes How The Times Has Gone Astray: Goodwin
This narrative is deeply misguided, according to a long list of top historians. Yet the paper is not deterred, and has ramped up its demonization of any who disagree with that or its reckless support for the Marxist-inspired Black Lives Matter agenda.
Handcuff the cops, tear down the statues, rewrite the textbooks, make America the worlds bad guy thats what todays Times is selling.
Anyone with such an activist agenda had better be purer than Caesars wife. The Times clearly fails that test and owes its staff, stockholders and readers a full account of the slave holders and Confederates in its past.
My hope is that after taking a dose of their own medicine, the owner and editors will focus their efforts where they belong: on making the New York Times a great newspaper again.
Walter Duranty’s Holodomor Coverage And Pulitzer
Walter Duranty, who served as its Moscow bureau chief from 1922 through 1936, has been criticized for a series of stories in 1931 on the Soviet Union and won a Pulitzer Prize for his work at that time however, he has been criticized for his denial of widespread famine, most particularly Holodomor, a famine in Soviet Ukraine in the 1930s in which he summarized Russian propaganda, and the Times published, as fact: “Conditions are bad, but there is no famine”.
In 2003, after the Pulitzer Board began a renewed inquiry, the Times hired , professor of Russian history at Columbia University, to review Duranty’s work. Von Hagen found Duranty’s reports to be unbalanced and uncritical, and that they far too often gave voice to Stalinistpropaganda. In comments to the press he stated, “For the sake of The New York Times’ honor, they should take the prize away.”The Ukrainian Weekly covered the efforts to rescind Duranty’s prize. The Times has since made a public statement and the Pulitzer committee has declined to rescind the award twice stating, “…Mr. Duranty’s 1931 work, measured by today’s standards for foreign reporting, falls seriously short. In that regard, the Board’s view is similar to that of The New York Times itself…”.
Read Also: Wax Musem In New York
The New York Times Company
229 West 43rd Street
Incorporated: 1851 as Raymond, Jones & CompanyEmployees: 10,400Stock Exchange: American
The New York Times Company is a large diversified media and communications business engaged in newspaper and magazine publishing, broadcasting and information services, and, to a lesser extent, forest products. Its principal property is one of the worlds great newspapers, The New York Times, founded in 1851. During its history of nearly 140 years, the company has grown to include along with The New York Times, 32 regional newspapers and 17 magazines, including such popular journals as Family Circle, McCalls, Golf Digest, and Tennis. The company also operates five television stations, two radio stations, a news service, and a features syndicate, and licenses databases and copyrights. In addition it has equity interests in three Canadian newsprint mills and a partnership interest in a Maine paper mill.
Raymond was active in Republican politics throughout the war. He was present at the creation of the party in Pittsburgh in 1856 and wrote its first statement of principles. He wrote most of the party platform in 1864. Between political activity and journalism, Raymond was chronically overworked for years, and his health suffered. On June 19, 1869, at the age of 49, he died. George Jones assumed the editorial leadership of the Times.
Family That Owns The New York Times Reportedly Had Slaves Supported The Confederacy
Members of the Ochs-Sulzberger family which owns The New York Times Company were slaveowners and held sympathetic views towards the Confederacy in the 19th century, an opinion column in the New York Post concluded.
The Ochs-Sulzberger familys reported connection to slavery and the Confederacy is linked to Adolph Ochs and his mother Bertha Levy Ochs, according to the New York Post. Ochs initiated the familys ownership of the Times after he bought the paper in 1893. The maternal side of his family reportedly owned slaves and participated in the Civil War.
A re-enactment of the Battle of Gettysburg
Bertha Levy Ochs, a Jewish immigrant from Germany, lived with her paternal uncle John Mayer in Natchez, Mississippi for several years prior to the Civil War. A family tree compiled around 70 years ago revealed that Mayer had changed his surname from Levy, the New York Post reported.
Mayer also reportedly owned five slaves, according to a slave schedule from the 1860 Census on Ancestry.com. The names of the slaves are not included, but the census reported three women and two men between the ages of 23 and 70 in Mayers possession.
Historian and author Robert Rosen told the New York Post it would have been unusual if the Mayer family did not own slaves considering the familys wealth and the fact that Mayer and his wife had 14 children.
A Confederate Navy jack flag sits at the base of Confederate Mound, a memorial to more than 4,000 Confederate prisoners of war
Recommended Reading: New York To Italy Flight
James Murdoch Once The Heir Apparent Recently Resigned From The Board Of News Corp
James, Rupert Murdoch’s 47-year-old son, resigned from News Corp.’s board of directors on July 31. His resignation was included in a regulatory filing.
“My resignation is due to disagreements over certain editorial content published by the Company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions,” Murdoch wrote in a two-sentence resignation letter.
His resignation came six months after James had slammed News Corp. and Fox News for their coverage that promoted climate change skepticism amid the Australian brush fires. James is far more liberal than his father he and his wife Kathryn recently donated more than $1 million to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. They have been married since 2000 and have three children.
In his new book, “Hoax,” CNN’s Brian Stelter reported that James once likened Fox News to a “sinking ship” and said “some of the ‘rats’ would drown while others would scurry off,” the Daily Beast reported. An excerpt was also . He also reportedly criticized the “alternative reality” that Fox News created, and how his brother Lachlan allowed for that to continue.
Before his departure, James was considered a likely successor to Rupert Murdoch, as the CEO of 21st Century Fox from 2015 until 2019, when it was sold to Disney. He had been involved in the family business for most of his adult life.