Outside In | Why Rupert Murdoch stepping down can only be good news
- The media mogul has arguably shaped the news business as no one else has, but his legacy is also tainted by scandals over journalistic ethics and his role in stirring the pot of populist politics
- His son and successor now faces multiple challenges, but the Murdoch star may have waned
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Media mogul Rupert Murdoch steps down as chairman of Fox, News Corp, handing over reins to son
There are few journalists alive today, and few major news organisations, that have not had their lives and careers shaped in some way by Rupert Murdoch, for good or bad. For consumers of news, he has done more than any other media mogul to determine what we read about, and the narrative around which it is spun.
I, for one, have had my journalistic career impacted by Murdoch, though not in a bad way. And to get my prejudices clearly out on the table, I regard most of Murdoch’s influences on the business in general as harmful.
Rupert Murdoch’s love affair with the media undoubtedly started in childhood, watching his father Keith run several newspapers and radio stations in Australia. He studied politics, philosophy and economics at Worcester College Oxford, and worked for a time at the Daily Express in the UK. After his father died in 1952, he returned to Australia to take over his father’s reins.
He went on to launch The Australian, the country’s first national broadsheet, became a dominant force in the UK media, then turned his sights on the US, consuming the New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, and then Fox News. Politically agnostic, always heavily hands-on, he stuck to the mantra of melding entertainment with news, and leveraged his media influence to exert real political power.
