Lachlan Murdoch’s path to power | Part 1 | Australian Story

Who is Lachlan Murdoch? When you grow up in a family business, it's  all around you from a very early, early age.   There's no sense of starting work at 9:00  and finishing at 5:00. There's no sense   of turning business on and off. So, so  so, you know, News Corp and business is,   you know, is my life as it is my father's  and brothers and and the whole family. I   hope it's healthy thing because it's the  only thing I've ever I've ever known. Everyone sort of likes the idea of a soap opera.  And, you know, the reality is really not that.   We actually are a very close family. I,  you know, I love my brothers. I love my   sisters. We're in ... we're a normal family.  We just have a bit of a spotlight on us  I think that all of Murdoch's children, their  stories are about proving themselves to their   father. Lachlan's story is the happiest  story; all Lachlan had to do to prove   himself to his father was to be Lachlan,  to be adoring, to see the world the same   way Rupert did. That was Lachlan’s ace  in the hole in the succession fight. Lachlan Murdoch is the Chosen  Son, the CEO of Fox Corporation,   the ultimate boss at Fox News. But he  operates almost entirely in the shadows. What drives Lachlan? You know, Paddy, I don't. You know,   I'm not his psychiatrist. I think  Lachlan is doing Rupert proud. Lachlan wins the crown. But he finds  himself estranged from his family. It reads like an episode of Succession. Billionaire Rupert Murdoch is said to be  in a legal battle against his children Rupert wants to give sole control of his   right-wing media juggernaut to  his like-minded son Lachlan. Rupert set this up to be a  fight between his children. So   there's a lot of poignant family  drama mixed up in this very corporate,   very global fight. This is still, at the end of  the day, a family and now it's really broken. Paddy Manning research Making Lachlan Murdoch: Blood To the topic of Lachlan Murdoch.  Lachlan Murdoch you say! This book by … Acclaimed journalist and author Paddy Manning … Rove McManus, The Project, Channel  10: Paddy Manning has a great name Paddy really is the leading expert  internationally on Lachlan Murdoch. The Lachlan Murdoch biography, The Successor  The unauthorized biography of Lachlan Murdoch  is making headlines around the world … He wrote a biography of Lachlan Murdoch  and made a podcast on Rupert Murdoch   and his PhD thesis is on 100 years of News  Limited, News Corporation in Australia. Paddy, the reason I'm here  is to support your book mate,   because it is important we bring scrutiny  to bear on the Murdoch enterprise. People   in politics are frightened to take on Murdoch  directly. The Murdoch media. Murdoch senior.   Murdoch junior. Murdoch period. And  it is not an irrational fear. Lachlan Murdoch into the archives Thank you. We're looking for the original  camera tapes of an interview that Lachlan   did for the ABC back in 2001. Because, you know,  we're making this documentary series about him,   but he won't do an interview. So we're  sort of dependent on the archive. We're looking for number 644 – 641, 642, 640 …  should be in this bin. And I think these are the   three tapes that you requested. Brilliant. OK, here we go. That looks like Holt Street. I  reckon I've been in there. You’re the product of an international culture. Lachlan: Yeah, I think that’s right. You know,  I was born - I hate to say this because I'm   embarrassed, but I was born in London … um, and,  uh, grew up in a great part of my life. Uh, uh,   uh, in the early years in the US,  um, picked up this bloody accent,   which I wish I could get rid of, but but but  I can't, and we've always felt from the time   I was a very young child until now that we were  Australians living overseas. Expatriates. A family legacy in media To understand Lachlan Murdoch, you really  need to understand his family's history. And   that means not just understanding Rupert's  career, but understanding his grandfather,   Sir Keith Murdoch as well. And of  all of all Rupert's kids, Lachlan is   the one that's most invested in the Murdoch  mythology. It’s a big part of his story. Keith Murdoch was undoubtedly one of  the enigmas of Australian journalism,   being described variously as tyrannical,  humane, narrow minded, a great liberal,   power hungry and a true patron of the arts.  I wish I had met Keith Murdoch, but he died  long before I was born. My grandfather was   a journalist. That was all he wanted to be from  the time when he was a very young boy. That was   despite the fact that my grandfather was painfully  shy and had a serious and often, uh, debilitating   stammer. In 1921, he took over editorial control  of the Herald. He would turn a modest company into   one of the world's largest evening newspapers. He  was uncompromising and correct in his belief that   the media not be controlled by any elite,  be they social, political or economic. Adelaide news Paddy: For Lachlan Murdoch. Adelaide is  where the culture of News Corporation   was really established. And, um.  Yeah, it's where his father, Rupert,   came in 1953 and took over the Adelaide  News after the death of Sir Keith Newspaper men aren't soft and young Rupert  certainly didn't look very hard with his   round face and socialist ideals. However,  violent tremors soon were felt all over   conservative Adelaide when it became known  just how single-minded Murdoch could be. Well there it is, old son. Very  different today, very different. 54 years ago. Hey. Hey, Paddy. Mark, how are you? Nice to see you. Thanks for inviting us. The old stomping ground. That's where it all used to   be. But it's very different now. It used  to be a three-storey building. And that   was Rupert's office on the far left. It's a  breakfast room in the Playford Hotel now. My name is Mark Day. I joined the  News on February 29th, 1960 I'm Rex Joury. I joined in 1959 as  a trembling copy boy. We're probably   really the last of the very first people  who worked with Rupert in Adelaide.  You’ve got to remember the Adelaide News was  the number two paper in the market to the   Adelaide Advertiser. So there’s also this,  this is underdog culture. News Corp still,   I think, operates best as an underdog, when we’re  uncomfortable and when we’re really striving. Well, I think that's absolutely correct, because,   um, the News was the underdog paper. Rupert was  the underdog publisher. And he did have to fight,   and he fought well. He learned that there's  nobody on his side except himself.  How did he make the Adelaide News profitable?   He found ways of of saving money  in the smallest possible way. He   used newsprint in the toilets for  people to dry their hands.  He launched a lot of campaigns about the  living conditions of Aborigines and so   on. And it was these days you'd describe it  as true bleeding-heart, left attitudes. But   he discovered that there was no financial  reward, or no great financial reward. And   that heightened his appreciation of what did  sell, what did work, what did make profits. Expanding into Sydney market I might be reckless at times I suppose. Narrator: Murdoch's entry into  Sydney was both swift and dramatic,   with the $2 million purchase of Cumberland  Press. He consolidated the position with the   Daily Mirror and Truth, promptly  renamed the Sunday Mirror.  He had a sign up pinned on the wall  for all of us cadets. ‘Make it bright,   tight and right.’ He wasn't ever an intimidating  presence in the newsroom. He was just there. The   boss was in here working, quite often in  his shirtsleeves. It wasn't at all clear   that he was going to conquer the world, but  he had newsprint running in his veins.  Meeting Anna I find Rupert a very gentle man. He's  very compatible. He's a generous man. Uh,   he's also highly idealistic, which I think is  something that most people don't understand.  Tell us about Anna Torv. How did you meet her? Well, she applied to become a cadet and  We just became friends. I liked her and   she liked me. And, yeah, we became  buddies. Her father was Estonian,   her mother was Scottish and the family came  to Australia when she was young and lived in   Blacktown. She put her hand up and became the  editor of the cadet magazine. And in that job,   she had the chutzpah to ask for an interview with  Murdoch. She was absolutely smitten. Then Rupert   started the Australian and Anna moved to Canberra  with Rupert and they moved in together. Launching The Australian Why did Rupert launch The Australian?    Because his father said, there's  got to be a national newspaper. I think the Australian has given Rupert a national  voice, which in turn is national power. Do you like the feeling of power  you have as a newspaper proprietor? Well, there's only one honest answer  to that of course and that's yes. Rupert goes to England By 1968, his newspaper empire was  flourishing and Rupert Murdoch had   emerged as a powerful press baron, now keen  to seek new titles in the Old World. Rupert Murdoch clearly understood that  Fleet Street was the place to be. It was   a place where if you owned a newspaper, you  could make an awful lot of money. In 1968,   when he heard about the fact that The News  of the World was available. It opened the   door for him and he leapt through. One of  his first moves at The News of the World   was to rehash something called the Profumo  affair, a big sex and politics scandal. And   he it looked as if he was taking the News  of the World even further down market. London began to notice Rupert Murdoch.  He bought the failing Sun newspaper at   a giveaway price, transforming its image  and circulation figures. It proved to be   a gold mine. Some critics claim it has  lowered the standards of Fleet Street What Makes Rupert Run, ABC Rupert Murdoch: I'm not ashamed of any of my  newspapers at all, and I'm rather sick of snobs   who tell us that they're bad papers, snobs who  only read papers that no one else wants. The combination of a down-market News of  the World, the fact that he ran lots of   sex surveys and page three girls in The  Sun cemented the view of Rupert Murdoch   as the dirty digger and a sleaze merchant. Kidnapping of Muriel McKay The disapproval of the British establishment  was one thing, but at the end of 1969,   something terrible happened in London that changed   the way the Murdochs felt about the place. Rupert  and his family were in Australia for Christmas,   but just before he left, he lent his  car to his deputy, Alec McKay. My name is Ian McKay. I’m the son of Alick McKay,  who worked for Rupert Murdoch in his UK operation.   My father joined Rupert Murdoch just some 10 days  before my mother was kidnapped. Rupert suggested,   as he left for Australia, that my father should  use his Rolls-Royce and chauffeur. The kidnappers,   after seeing the Rolls-Royce outside of The News  of the World offices, uh, decided to follow it So they had kidnapped Muriel McKay,  thinking that was Anna Murdoch.   Well I was in Australia at the time.  I phoned my father. And he said this   terrible things happened. [tears up] Sorry. Mr McKay, you flew in from Australia this  morning. How optimistic are you now?   Well of course you know so long as …  one just hopes she’ll be returned as   soon as possible. I mean I’m just  so stunned I don’t understand The kidnappers were demanding  a million pounds. Hello Yes Who’s speaking please? Alick McKay here Oh Alick, if you want her back  you have to pay the money alright? Well, nobody's got 1 million pounds. And  I mean, quite frankly, it's ridiculous. We give you a few days Look, you give me 10 years if you  like, you might as well kill me now If you don't cooperate. I'm cooperating. But I can't  cooperate with impossible sums. I have this letter here, which is appalling,   but iit was the first letter we received from  the kidnappers and it's written by my mother,   obviously at the direction of the kidnappers.  ‘Alick, darling, I'm blindfolded and cold. What   have I done to deserve this treatment? Can you do  something, please.’ Just a hopeless situation. Could the newspaper not have just paid the ransom? I've often wondered whether  it had been Anna, whether he   would have found the money.   Did Alick ask Rupert to pay?   No, he didn't. I mean, he, he regarded  it as an absurd sum of money.  The police tactics worked out.  They managed to locate who the   kidnappers were. And they arrested them. They charged the two kidnappers with my mother's  murder, but they could never get any admission;   they never got any help. And I guess we'd very  much like to be able to discover her remains. So, how was Anna affected by the kidnapping? It certainly affected how Anna thought of being in   Britain, and certainly tightened  security for her and Rupert.  That really did affect me much more  my living in Britain than anything   about the Profumo case or rerunning the story. You were the intended target for the kidnappers. Yes That must have been a nightmare. It wasn't so bad for us as it was  for Alick McKay. But certainly one   has to think about it and it it coloured my  time there in Britain after that happened. Was that why you left? Um, partly. Lachlan Murdoch is born Wow. This is some prestige real estate. We've  come to London because this is where Lachlan   Murdoch was born in 1971. He was the second child  of Rupert and Anna. Elizabeth, his older sister,   had been born in Sydney and they also had custody  of Prudence, Rupert's daughter from his first   marriage, who was about 10 years old by now. I  think the Murdochs didn't, you know, they didn't   love their time here, and certainly the murder of  Muriel McKay really cast a pall over the Murdoch's   time in London. So I think Lachlan, even as a  really young kid, has absorbed some of that. Growing up in New York That's what Murdoch does, Murdoch.  He's very well known for that. Murdoch,   did you know that Murdoch is a table banger?  I'm Jim Rutenberg and I've been writing about   the Murdochs off and on for the better part of  25 years. Rupert Murdoch conquers the tabloid   world of the UK. But what Rupert Murdoch is driven  to do is to not only have a foothold in America,   but to be a major player, if not the  biggest player in America. He's looking   for a newspaper in New York. He finds it in  the New York Post and is off to the races. We moved to New York when I was three  or four years old. And we were very,   extremely close. It was very exciting, actually,  intellectually growing up in the family.   America's reaction to Rupert Murdoch was  prompted more by fear than admiration. He   was seen as a journalistic king Kong let loose  among the citadels of American journalism. I remember one cover of Time magazine that  had my father as King Kong on top of the   World Trade Centre with a little biplane  shooting, trying to shoot him down. And   that was the first probably the first memory  that I have that well, you know, the other the   other dads at school weren't on the on the cover  of Time magazine portrayed as this monster.  To be the child of someone very much in the  public eye and in public controversies. Um,   children do pay a do pay a price for that.  How would you describe your dad?  Well, different from what the newspapers   say and the TV shows. Well, I think that the  papers and the shows about him and stuff make   him look a little like too, too mean and dark and  sinister. And really, he's a really nice person,   a fun person.  Sometimes,   eh, when you're behave, when you're behave.  That's a wonderful admission that you just   made. Tell us about you, dad. You see him like  nobody else sees him. Tell us a little story.   Here’s another witness for  the defence, Lachlan Murdoch.   Hi. We're talking about your  father. I'm Stanley Siegel.   Hi  And you   know your brother. And of course, you know your  father, right? Tell us about your father a little   bit. Tell us the best thing about your dad.  Best thing. Let's see. Um, well he always likes to   go camping with us and we'll go. Actually, we're  going camping after the Olympics for a week.   Does he spend a lot of time  with you? Lachlan: Yes.  Liz and James and I would come up to breakfast  before, before we had to get the bus to school   and all the papers would come out and my dad would  be handing out stories - ‘read that’ or he’d say,   ‘look at the headline; that's a shocking headline’  and ‘that's badly subbed’. We're like seven years   old and eight years old. We began to understand  that we were part of the media business. He grew up at the feet of his father and he  saw how it all worked from a young kid. And   years later I went to a dinner and in the middle  table there sat Rupert with Lachlan next to him,   and Lachlan had one of those  tiny little reporters’ notepads,   and he was assiduously making notes as dad was  speaking to him. And Anna looked over and said,   ‘Ah, isn't that sweet, he’s  acting just like his dad. Anna Murdoch's foresight Your sons, are they planning to  go into the newspaper business?  I think so, and so is my  daughter. I mean, I can see,   um, lots of arguments along the way,  so who knows what will happen. Rupert always wanted one of his kids to run the  empire the same way Keith, had wanted him to run   it. But Anna knew it was going to be trouble and  she said it in here. So this is Anna Murdoch's   second novel. Family Business, it's called.  Written in 1987, the kids are all teenagers, and   she's thinking, how is this succession thing going  to play out? Yarrow McLean, the key character who   is, I think broadly the Rupert Murdoch figure, um,  has three kids, has the, um, newspaper business.   And there's this great line in here. ‘I've called  you all here this morning because I have something   important I want to say. I thought you would come  to trust and respect each other. I thought that   responsibility would teach each of you humility. I  was wrong. It taught you greed and disloyalty and   hatred. I've decided, for the sake of peace  and harmony, to sell McLean Publishing’ I wanted to show the break-up within the family,   that I think power and and money can  actually affect sibling relationships. I think Anna's advice in this book is,  um, don't bother trying to hand it on   to the kids. You might want to, but,  you know, no good will come of it. Princeton University, an Ivy  League college among America's   finest. Lachlan graduated from here  last year, majoring in philosophy. I chose a school near New York so that I could  get back and see my parents quite regularly.  At   the time, I was doing a lot of sports. I was  doing a lot of climbing, specifically. He was a quite striking presence in  class, although rather quiet. Um,   he was very intense, very thoughtful, very  kind. But my impression is that he he was   rather isolated as a student because  of his interest in rock climbing. I studied philosophy and specifically  ethics. But I wasn’t a great student.   I tended to leave everything to the last  minute. So I’d be finishing up my essays   until you know, the last second,  the morning they had to be due in.  Reporter: That’s the journalist in you.  Absolutely, that’s right, pushing  those deadlines whenever I can!  Lachlan's thesis was on Kant, the German  philosopher and more particularly his   conception of morality. My own impression is  that his interest in ethics was mainly related   to making himself the best person he could be.  It was a fine thesis, not an exceptional thesis,   but a good thesis, an interesting one. There  was a graduation dinner in New York. Rupert   made a very short speech just to say that he  was proud of his son. But then, um, the brother,   the younger brother James, made a speech which was  very funny, where he, I think typically for him,   made it kind of a joke and said, well,  you know, we're all celebrating Lachlan,   but I've done actually much better than him and  then went on to list all the, uh, goofing ups   he may have done during his youth that were much  better, much bigger than what Lachlan had done. I realised at one stage I had to make a decision  as to what I was going to do. And I was actually   at the time reading one of the biographies of  Sir Keith and thought about his life. I had a   unique opportunity So I thought, how could you  not take up that opportunity to be a part of the   larger community and to play a role, which  hopefully, you can bring a lot of good.  After Lachlan graduated from  Princeton, Rupert sent him to Brisbane,   home of the family company Icon Queensland Press. Rupert Murdoch: I'm very pleased about it,   but I'm going to … it will be a test.  Lachlan Murdoch: I’ll work as hard as I   can to do as much as I can, and, uh,  I'll take one challenge at a time.  There seems to be a lot of focus on who will  be Rupert Murdoch's successor. Do you think   that could be you of the four children?  Lachlan Murdoch: Oh, I can't think that   far ahead. I'm gonna work on Queensland and  and do the best job I can in Brisbane.  There was a clear plan that each of the  kids would move into the company just as   it was ordained and inevitable that Rupert  himself would take over from his father,   Keith Murdoch. These are the facts  of life in the Murdoch family.