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Continued >

Rupert risked Lachlan’s ire with the 21st Century Fox sale to Disney

After returning from exile, Lachlan anticipated fully taking the reins of the Murdoch empire. So understandably he was upset to learn of his father’s plans to sell off a large chunk of the business to Disney:

‘“Why the [expletive] would I want to run this company?” he told people close to him. Lachlan’s anger at his father boiled over during a dinner in Manhattan in the fall of 2017, three people who were familiar with the incident told us. “If you take one more call on this deal, you will not have a son!” he threatened. “I will never talk to you again.” (Representatives for Murdoch and Lachlan denied that he made these threats.)’

Cockburn is alarmed to learn that Australians could have such a temper!

Uncle Rupert didn’t always take Trump seriously

The narrative of the feature plays out over several decades, showing how Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump became intertwined over the years, particularly after Murdoch’s acquisition of the New York Post. Who could forget that Marla Maples ‘best sex I’ve ever had’ headline? But while Donald and Rupert always worked well together, the prospect of Trump as a serious presidential candidate didn’t immediately sit right with the baron:

‘“He’s a [expletive] idiot,” Murdoch would say when asked about Trump, three people close to him told us (Through a spokeswoman, Murdoch denied that he ever used this phrase to describe Trump.).’

Given what’s unfolded since, it appears this judgment may have jumped the gun.

Trump takes criticism from Fox very personally

The most widely-quoted anecdote from the feature concerns an insight into how much Trump cares about what Fox News viewers think of him. While the Donald was happy with how he was received by the likes of Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, some of the more neutral or critical coverage rubbed him up the wrong way. Take Bret Baier’s show for example:

‘After the Fox contributor and Weekly Standard editor Stephen F. Hayes called Trump “a clown,” Trump faxed Baier a copy of his résumé, with a note scrawled across it in black marker: “Tell Hayes no clown could have done all this!”’

The love went both ways though. With Trump safely in the White House, he would enjoy taking calls from Rupert, who had stepped in to fill Roger Ailes’s shoes:

‘“Rupert, Rupert!” Trump would say, talking on the phone with Murdoch in the Oval Office, according to a former White House official who overheard the conversations. “You love the action, don’t you? You can’t get enough of this shit.”’

Bari Weiss was wrong about Australia

If, for some reason, you chose to Google New York Times op-ed columnist Bari Weiss, one of the first suggestions that pops up is ‘bari weiss australia’. This is because of a nuclear article from back in January, when the writer went Down Under and decided it was Utopia because there were fewer libs to own:

‘Australians are also, mercifully, not in the midst of a raging culture war. At home, friends are largely delineated by political tribe; couples that date across the divide are newsworthy. Here, it is normal. The political is not personal, and that’s not just because so many of the big issues that tear Americans apart (health care, guns, the social safety net) are settled. It’s that Australians never seem to doubt that there is more to life than politics.’

Her colleagues in the investigations department are evidently not on the same page, as they dedicate several paragraphs to the Murdochification of the Australian airwaves:

‘Known as Sky After Dark, the opinion-heavy, almost-uniformly right-wing lineup was an entirely new phenomenon in Australian TV. Its nighttime ratings spiked as the network quickly became required viewing for the country’s political class.’

The story describes how Lachlan deployed culture warriors to focus on the ouster of Malcolm Turnbull from the Australian prime ministership, with the nationalist Scott Morrison filling his shoes. Still, who cares about being accurate when you can expense the flights?

It’s not what you know, it’s who you know

It really is very important that Times readers know about the intimate ties between the Trump White House and Fox News. (Forget CNN head Jeff Zucker’s bid for New York mayor or the number of Obama staffers on his payroll, it’s not relevant!) Alongside Trump’s appointment of Ailes’s right-hand man Bill Shine in the White House comms department comes this delicious morsel:

‘[Hope Hicks]…remained very close to the president, the Trump family and others in the White House. (Kushner has privately told people that he provided a reference for her to Murdoch.)’

Imagine having Jared Kushner, vice-undersecretary of basically everything, as one of your references. Alright for some!

The full three articles really are worth a read, if you can stomach the prospect of a Times subscription fee. Cockburn wonders whether you might prefer to sign up to Spectator USA’s Blend newsletter here instead. It is free after all…

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