Fox News Owner To Pass The Torch?

Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch is preparing to hand the chief executive role of 21st Century Fox to his son James, writes The New York Times. Murdoch also owns The Wall Street Journal, Fox local stations, and many other media outlets.

Murdoch plans to ask the board of 21st Century Fox to install his younger son, James, as chief executive next week, writes the LA Times newspaper. That’s the job the elder Murdoch has held since his media company was incorporated in 1979.

He is embarking on the task of transferring control of a company to the next generation, while positioning it for future success, writes The NYT.

However, Mr. Murdoch, 84, is expected to stay closely involved with 21st Century Fox as executive chairman, a title he also holds at News Corporation, a conglomerate of media properties he spun off (but still owns) in 2013. The elder Murdoch helped build the companies into a $75 billion empire.

Murdoch has also been able to steer his companies beyond the British phone hacking scandal of four years ago, writes the LA Times newspaper. In that scandal, News Corp. journalists intercepted cellphone messages left for British celebrities, sports stars and even members of the royal family, according to the LA Times.

James Murdoch is expected to be named chief at 21st Century Fox. James has shown interest in streaming and ad technologies.

Murdoch built his conglomerate from a single Australian newspaper he inherited when his father died in 1952. The “changing of the guard” would represent a third generation of Murdoch family-controlled media, writes the LA Times.

(Updated article)

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-rupert-murdoch-future-20150613-story.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/business/media/business-dynasties-try-to-pass-the-torch-without-dropping-it.html

Does Rupert Murdoch Have Influence Over The Media?

Russell Brand

Rupert Murdoch is an Australian American business magnate, who became managing director of Australia’s News Limited, inherited from his father Sir Keith Arthur Murdoch in 1952. According to Wikipedia, he is the founder, chairman and CEO of global media holding company News Corporation, the world’s second-largest media conglomerate, and its successors News Corp and 21st Century Fox after the conglomerate split in June,2013.

Does Murdoch have a large amount of influence over the media?

21st Century Fox is known for possessing the media companies with the name Fox. That includes movie studio 20th Century Fox, Fox News, Fox (TV) Broadcasting, local Fox stations, and Fox radio. It owns other channels such as National Geographic. It also owns The Wall Street Journal and several other newspapers.

In 2014, Murdoch even made an offer to buy Time Warner, which owns CNN, the second largest cable news group in the U.S. (Fox News is the largest).

Does Murdoch have certain political views, or is he neutral?

Wikipedia states that News Corp papers were accused of taking sides in the 2013 Australian election. Following the announcement of the Liberal Party victory at the polls, Murdoch tweeted “Aust. election public sick of public sector workers and phony welfare scroungers sucking life out of economy…”

British newspaper The Independent wrote that Murdoch berated journalists at his papers for not doing enough to “stop the (left-of-center) Labour Party from winning the election” in Britain. He “warned them that the future of the company depended on stopping Labour from getting elected,” writes The Independent. After Mr. Murdoch paid a visit to his company’s The Sun newspaper, they devoted a two-page spread to the election – with the left-hand page containing a 10-point “pledge” to voters written by David Cameron.

What if Murdoch decided that a war in the Middle East (against Iran or Syria, for example) would be good for him or that he could profit from it? Do you think his news channels and print media would remain neutral, or would they push a pro-war agenda?

Murdoch’s News Corp owns several newspapers other countries as well. In England, he owns The Sun.

In fact, he seems to own everything under The Sun. Russell Brand talks about it in his “Trews” video.

(Updated article)

Fox News Chairman Ailes On Brian Williams: ‘I’d Put Him Back’

Recently, The Hollywood Reporter interviewed Fox News’ Chairman Roger Ailes, and near the end of the interview, the Hollywood Reporter asked him about the return of NBC News chairman Andy Lack, and that led to talk about NBC News anchor Brian Williams.

Ailes spoke of Andy Lack and then commented on anchor Brian Williams, who was put on a hiatus by NBC due to falsifying accounts of his time in the Iraq war and New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

“Andy is a smart guy,” said Ailes. “He’s going to work on several problems at the same time. That in and of itself will make a difference. He’s got to make the right call on Brian Williams. I’d put Brian back.”

This makes total sense, because – as Mother Jones, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, Media Matters, and CNN have shown – Fox News’ own Bill O’Reilly has been caught numerous times in his own lies / fabrications / exaggerations, and O’Reilly never suffered any consequences.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/introspective-roger-ailes-fox-news-789877

Joe Biden Preparing To Run For President: Rupert Murdoch Via Twitter

This could be good news for Democrats wanting a choice.

According to Bloomberg, on Sunday, Rupert Murdoch took to Twitter to share his own insights on how the Democratic field may be shaping up.

He tweeted: “Guess what! Joe Biden actively preparing to run against Hillary. Maybe others like Kerry.”

Murdoch gave no details on how he had come upon the knowledge that Vice President Biden, and possibly Clinton’s successor at the State Department, would challenge Clinton for the party’s presidential nomination.

A Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register poll of Iowa Democrats released over the weekend found Biden coming in a distant third place to Clinton and Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Biden received just nine percent support in the poll, while Clinton was the first choice of 56 percent of those surveyed.

Last week, Good Morning America host George Stephanopolous asked “Uncle Joe” whether he would seek the Democratic nomination, and Biden left the possibility open.

“Yes, there is a chance,” Biden said. “But I haven’t made my mind up about that. We’ve got a lot of work to do between now and then. There’s plenty of time.”