When some of the mind games and manoeuvres that turned a Murdoch family “retreat” into an ordeal appeared in Succession, the TV drama about squabbling family members of a right-wing media company, members of the real-life family started to suspect each other of leaking details to the writers. The truth was more straightforward. Succession’s creator, Jesse Armstrong, said that his team hadn’t needed inside sources – they had simply read press reports.
Future screenwriters have been gifted a whole load of new Murdoch material in the past few days, after two astonishing stories in the New York Times and the Atlantic lifted the lid on the dysfunction, paranoia and despair at the heart of the most powerful family in global media.
The stories followed the end of the secret trial involving the fate of the Murdoch family trust. The mogul’s four eldest children – Lachlan, James, Elisabeth and Prudence – were set to inherit the family firm following Rupert’s death. But four years ago, just after turning 90, Rupert had tried to cut James, Liz and Prue out of their inheritance and hand the businesses over to Lachlan, his favoured heir who also happens to share his increasingly right-wing politics.
The lawsuit was brought by the three errant offspring, and in December a Nevada commissioner ruled in their favour, accusing Rupert and Lachlan of acting in “bad faith”. The trial took place in secret, but the fallout – thanks to the New York Times investigation and a 13,000-word Atlantic interview with James – has been anything but.
Reagan removing the fairness doctrine and Murdoch setting up Fox News rank among the biggest blows in democracy and prosperity IMO.
I acknowledge that many left and center-left news organizations will also push agendas, tell partial truths, etc. (Fairness doctrine would help reign them in as well).
edit: Fairness doctrine didn’t cover cable only radio. That’d still help cut down some misinformation but in an ideal world IMO it’d apply to most forms of media.
I write about the Fairness Doctrine all the time.
Someone commented that they thought it was a terrible idea, because a Flat Earther would be given time.
People today are so used to propaganda that they can’t even imagine what a level playing field looks like.
If it is interpreted in malicious intent, that is indeed how a fairness doctrine can be abused.
For instance during Covid in German public broadcasters, far right politicians and conspiracy theorists were given disproportionately much screen time and often not followed by fact checking. So if you have 70% science based and 30% lies and deceptions, at the end the lies will make up 70% of what the audience receives.
The original laws were written in broadcast days. Even if we had it today, so many people get their news from privately produced videos that there’d always be a huge number of deliberately uninformed people.
This is one of the most level headed comments on Lemmy I’ve seen.
Never before, have I been so offended by something I agree with 100%
Fairness Doctrine (wikipedia)
The fairness doctrine of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, was a policy that required the holders of broadcast licenses both to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that fairly reflected differing viewpoints.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_doctrine.
ok, i get it now.You might want to look up a movie called "Network.’
It went from cutting edge satire to staid docudrama in real time.
Reading the plot of the film on Wikipedia reminds me i might have seen it once. This film ends on : “This was the story of Howard Beale: the first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings.”
Most of MSM is now mostly right wing, and younger cons have been looking for further right wing sources and listening to grifters. There really isn’t al left wing media at all, on top of my head the closest is one that is more like interviews, that isn’t on any of the main channels. It’s a lady that owns that channel? Or segment late night
It says if he lives to be 99, in 2030 when the trust expires, he can then again cut the other kids out. May his health fail quickly for everyone’s sake
I wish nothing but pain for this fuckhead. May he develop dementia and circle the drain for years, living in a puddle of his own mess, then die alone and sobbing the day before he would get the power to dissolve the trust.
A couple weeks or months would be better, that way they can’t pretend that he lived just long enough to sign it over.
I don’t think that’s how it works, but I am not a lawyer.
Initially, I reached the same conclusion, but by the sounds of it, once the trust expires it simply means that the kids can now sell the stocks or do whatever they want freely. I think they don’t lose control of the stocks and if anything, they actually start to enjoy more control or at least freedom.
But again, I am not a lawyer.
And not a minute too soon.
Fuck Murdoch to hell and back with a rusty wire brush.Lached out.
Finally some good news
“It is irrevocable, but it includes a provision that gives Rupert the ability to make changes as long as he is acting solely in the best interests of his beneficiaries.”
:D
Outside of blatant corruption Murdoch probably isn’t getting out of that.
I’m not a lawyer, but the penalties alone over the 2020 election BS among many other things, arguably prove the the current editorial environment and management is bad for both the kids personally and the company as a whole. Damage to the company is ultimately damage to the kids, and Murdoch dug his own grave with that.
And in its place Musk has his own now. :\
