Rupert Murdoch

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump outlined his demands for conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch live on Fox News Friday morning, musing that Murdoch should stop airing negative ads and allowing Democratic guests on the network in the run up to Election Day.

After Fox & Friends’ Lawrence Jones thanked Trump for appearing on the show Friday, the former president jumped back in to ask Jones and his co-hosts, “You know what the event I have now?”

“Vegas is where you get married, Reno is where you get divorced,” as the saying goes in the US state of Nevada.

State law allowing some legal cases to be conducted more quickly and discreetly than elsewhere in the US means this relatively small city has served as the quiet backdrop to dramatic family fallout over a global media empire.

Rupert Murdoch and his family flew in from all over the world to determine how the empire would be divided among his children when the 93-year-old patriarch dies.

A court battle to determine the future of Rupert Murdoch's media empire and a £14.9bn family trust begins in the US on Monday.

The case will pit 93-year-old Mr Murdoch against three of his eldest children over who will gain the most voting shares and power to control News Corp and Fox News when the billionaire dies.

Rupert Murdoch is locked in a secret legal battle against three of his children over the future of the family’s media empire, as he moves to preserve it as a conservative political force after his death, according to a sealed court document obtained by The New York Times.

Mr. Murdoch, 93, set the drama in motion late last year, when he made a surprise move to change the terms of the Murdochs’ irrevocable family trust to ensure that his eldest son and chosen successor, Lachlan, would remain in charge of his vast collection of television networks and newspapers.

Rupert Murdoch is engaged in a legal fight with some of his children, as he tries to hand control of his media empire to his eldest son, Lachlan, a battle with major ramifications for the future of the mogul’s two companies.

Murdoch, 93 years old, controls a trust that holds the family’s substantial stakes in News Corp NWSA 1.06%increase; green up pointing triangle, parent of The Wall Street Journal, and Fox News parent Fox Corp. Under its terms, when Murdoch dies, voting control would pass to four children—Lachlan, James, Elisabeth and Prudence.

Rupert Murdoch is involved in a legal battle with his children over his plans to hand over his global media empire to son Lachlan, according to a report. 

The fight for power between the 93-year-old mogul's four eldest children appeared to be decided when Lachlan emerged as the designated heir.  

But Murdoch is now fighting to extend his eldest son's voting power in the Murdoch Family Trust, the New York Times reported. 

Will Lewis, publisher of The Washington Post, is not having a good week.

And you can’t help but wonder what his long-term future is at a job he has held for only a few months.

Lewis was already in the middle of chaos when the week began. Post executive editor Sally Buzbee resigned abruptly over the weekend as Lewis announced a major shakeup in how the newsroom would operate going forward.

In late April, Will Lewis arrived at the former Georgetown home of Katharine Graham.

Graham was the most revered publisher in the Washington Post’s history, who steered the newspaper through Watergate and the Pentagon Papers.

Lewis is the Post’s recently installed CEO and publisher, and a bit of a fish out of water — a British former Rupert Murdoch man running a newspaper built around values at odds with Fleet Street.

“We are losing large amounts of money. People are not reading your stuff. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”

So said Will Lewis, the publisher of The Washington Post, in a widely reported exchange with angry staffers upset about major restructuring at the 147-year-old publication.

He’s 100% accurate. The Post is losing large amounts of money — to the tune of $77 million in 2023 alone. 

And, yes, people are largely not reading its stuff anymore.