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00:17Jim Rutenberg and I first started writing about the Murdochs more than 20 years ago.
00:24And, you know, I would say with some humility that I think we have, like, gotten to know
00:29the family pretty well.
00:33One day, out of the blue, we get contacted by this mystery person.
00:39It's like, you're gonna find this pretty interesting, given what you do and who you cover.
00:46So we agreed to meet.
00:51All I can say is the way that we had to get that first document was pretty involved.
00:56Nothing was gonna be given to us electronically, because it's all so sensitive.
01:01So that meant meeting in secret locations, passing envelopes.
01:06Until, finally, we got our hands on these secret documents.
01:12We couldn't believe it.
01:13I mean, it was jaw-dropping.
01:14This was thousands of pages.
01:19Emails, text messages.
01:21Every page was unbelievable.
01:27You're being lobbied by James, and you're going to bend to his will.
01:31To this, Liz responds, do you think I'm a fucking moron?
01:37That family was airing decades of dirty laundry in a Nevada court.
01:43That's when it first dawned on us that, oh my God, the Murdoch family is in a massive lawsuit against
01:48each other.
01:49Breaking news.
01:50According to the New York Times, 93-year-old Rupert Murdoch allegedly surprised three of his children
01:56by filing to change an irrevocable trust.
01:58It reads like an episode of Succession.
02:00Sacred proceedings of a legal battle.
02:02At issue, who controls his right-leaning media empire.
02:05Joining me now is one of the reporters who broke this story.
02:08All right, Jim, why are the three siblings going up against Lachlan and Rupert?
02:13I just would say it's really why is Rupert going against the three siblings.
02:24After our story ran, everyone knew the family was suing each other over Rupert's desire
02:29to lock in Lachlan's control over the company.
02:34Good morning.
02:35Do you have any comment this morning?
02:37But then there was no more information available.
02:40The case was sealed.
02:41Do you have any comment?
02:42No one was really allowed to talk about it.
02:45And then we learned that all the Murdoch family members were going to actually testify against
02:50each other.
02:51The Murdochs were going to war in a pitched court fight over the future of the entire empire.
03:13In early 2024, before the New York Times piece came out, I approached James really just on
03:23a hunch that he would have an interesting story to tell.
03:27He couldn't quite believe that his father was willing to divide the family, maybe permanently.
03:36So when James was deposed as part of the preparation for the trial, he was really ready to go to
03:43battle.
03:45James had spent 20 years as a senior executive.
03:49He had been in depositions where you have to be really aggressive.
03:53And so he decided that he was going to approach the whole thing in a spirit of corporate combat.
04:01But the deposition was much more difficult for James emotionally than I think he was prepared
04:08for.
04:09When he walked into the boardroom, James saw that it wasn't just his father's lawyer and
04:17his lawyer, but sitting in this office was his father himself.
04:25James didn't know that Rupert would be there.
04:28This is the first time he had seen Rupert in years.
04:31They were fully estranged.
04:34His dad just sat down across from him.
04:38They didn't talk to each other.
04:40And for the next several hours, Rupert's lawyer just grilled James with incredibly
04:47witheringly personal questions.
04:52Questions like, have you ever accomplished anything on your own?
04:57Or, why don't you ever take responsibility for the things that go wrong in your life?
05:04Or, why were you too busy to call your dad on his 90th birthday?
05:10James told me that he tried to concentrate on the lawyer's questions, but he just kept looking
05:16over at his dad, who was staring inscrutably at his son.
05:20And every once in a while, Rupert would pick up his phone and tap something out.
05:27And eventually, James realized that these super aggressive, mean-spirited, personal questions
05:35were actually coming from his father.
05:41I remember talking to James weeks later, and he was still sort of reeling from the experience.
05:47He couldn't quite believe what had happened.
05:51He was constantly analyzing it and trying to make sense about why his dad did what he did.
05:58The question that kept coming back to him was, how did we let it come to this?
06:14If you look at the succession in 2011, James is in the box seat.
06:20But Binocle has been the strong challenger as they turn for home.
06:23Binocle now strikes the...
06:24Elizabeth walked away from the company, and Lachlan's back in Australia.
06:29And Binocle, who's had this patchy season, win the champion hurdle!
06:34James is running News Corp in Britain.
06:36And their tabloids were making an absolute fortune.
06:40He sits atop what's now called News UK, their publishing empire in Great Britain.
06:46The four newspapers that they own.
06:48Most importantly, the news of the world.
06:52They have a villainous reputation in Britain for down-market tabloids and conservative politics.
06:59One of the Rupert's editors once gave a staff talk.
07:03He said, imagine the old man down the end of the bar.
07:06He doesn't like immigrants.
07:08He doesn't like poofs.
07:10He thinks that there's too much smut on TV.
07:13But he wants to see tits in the newspaper.
07:15That's who we're writing for.
07:17You're feasting on the missteps and embarrassments of celebrities.
07:22That's a News of the World excuse.
07:24If you were a royal, if you were a politician, if you were some fancy actor, a sports star or
07:31a singer, you were fair game.
07:34The News of the World's the duelling the crown of Rupert Murdoch's empire.
07:37Enormously profitable.
07:38Britain's biggest selling newspaper with an unrivalled reputation for journalistic scoops.
07:47I went to work for the News of the World because I liked its reputation.
07:53It was like the Death Star.
07:55The dark art of the evil empire.
07:57And that emanated from the characters Uvani.
08:03Piers Morgan, who you might have heard of, was my first boss.
08:07One day I turned up with a load of stolen photographs.
08:12Pictures of Naomi Campbell, Eva Herzegovar, Carla Bruni.
08:18All of them topless.
08:21I gave them to the picture editor.
08:23He said, well, you can't use these. They're stolen pictures.
08:26And Piers went, yeah, barges to it. Stick it in. Good work.
08:31And on the basis of that, I got my staff job at the News for stealing, basically.
08:41One thing which is interesting about Rupert Murdoch and his corporate culture
08:44is a sense that anything can be achieved by a force of will.
08:49And this is a really important characteristic of the people who worked for him.
08:54He needed people that would do whatever it took to continue his way of doing business.
09:00And at the News of the World, that was Rebecca Brooks.
09:04Rebecca Brooks was the features editor.
09:07Used to work as a secretary in the magazine.
09:10And Murdoch made her editor of the biggest newspaper in the world.
09:16Rebecca Brooks was sort of the daughter that Rupert never had because she was unfailingly loyal to him.
09:26Elizabeth Murdoch hated her, but Murdoch loved her.
09:30Rebecca Brooks is an excellent example of a senior Rupert Murdoch executive.
09:37Moves at 800 miles an hour, knows all about newspapers, makes quick decisions, is resourceful.
09:43Quite hot, nice arse.
09:46She walked through the office with bits of paper, just throwing them behind her.
09:50This is shit, this is shit.
09:52And her secretary is scurrying behind her, picking up the bits of paper.
09:56There was no moaning or excuses.
10:00It was get the story at any cost.
10:05Throughout the 2000s, the News of the World was going gangbusters.
10:09They were getting great scoops about celebrities, politicians, football stars.
10:15And every entity in the UK was trying to get to the bottom of them.
10:21How are they doing that?
10:24The Murdoch organization at the News of the World was an organized crime group by any definition.
10:32Scores of people were involved, journalists and private detectives trading unlawful information.
10:38They were spending millions of pounds a year on gathering it.
10:42It went on all over the world.
10:45It was called the Dark Arts.
10:48What have you done, Kate Hudson?
10:50Dark Arts are hiring private investigators, sitting in surveillance vans.
10:56Getting the phone bills, medical records, bank records, flight details.
11:02Paris? Paris?
11:04And what that means is you can get to the story first.
11:08It gave Murdoch a competitive advantage against other newspapers and exclusive stories.
11:15Hello, dear.
11:19I had a contact who could give me stories on Prince Charles who was having an affair with Camilla Parker
11:24Bowles.
11:25You know, she's the queen now.
11:26I saw a new inside movements.
11:28I'll wield my ball with Pat, you and I will.
11:33I spent the last month of Diana's life just chasing around the world.
11:38I can see why Harry hates us.
11:41Sorry, Harry.
11:45Wherever you went, bang, out came a Pat.
11:50And you thought, how do they know where I am?
11:53I got sent to L.A. to follow Hugh Grant crawling for black hookers.
12:00So, what did Murdoch want us to do?
12:03Find the girl.
12:05Give her $250,000.
12:09To tell us all about what Hugh Grant asked you to do in his car.
12:14All the dirty details.
12:18I think I thought, well, this is all part of my punishment.
12:21But life at that time was extremely difficult because their power grew and grew and grew.
12:28I mean, you know, you could do anything as long as you didn't get caught.
12:33But it's important that a war is maintained.
12:37So the Murdochs can't see how the sausage is made even though they know how it's done.
12:43So there's plausible deniability on every level.
12:46That's really important in a Murdoch organisation.
12:52Technically, James is in charge of all of Murdoch's papers in Britain at the time.
12:56But he doesn't really care about newspapers that much.
13:00He was very much interested in tech.
13:02And he was making investments all over the place.
13:05I think he was trying to say, you know, this is not my daddy's old media company.
13:12B-Sky B, Britain's most lucrative satellite TV provider.
13:16News Corp is trying to buy the 60% of B-Sky B it doesn't already own.
13:23At that point, James is right on the cusp of getting this deal with B-Sky B, which would make
13:29a huge amount of money for them.
13:30B-Sky B is an incredibly powerful satellite television operation.
13:34And it will give the Murdochs a launch pad to control the media environment around the world.
13:42We're about to complete the merger of the three European Sky businesses, which, you know, creates something really new, a
13:50real 21st century digital television company.
13:52James sees that if he's able to bring B-Sky B into the fold, that will be his crowning achievement.
14:00But in order to be approved, you need to be, quote unquote, fit and proper, which means your newspapers are
14:07not doing things that are illegal or untoward.
14:11This requires an enormous amount of review by the British government.
14:15And it's James's job to get it across.
14:19James has managed to befriend and ingratiate himself with Jeremy Hunt, a key cabinet figure.
14:26And Rebecca Brooks is a close friend and confidant of the new prime minister, David Cameron.
14:33So everything seems aligned perfectly to go James's way.
14:40When a headline erupts in early July of 2011.
14:48Heenous and despicable.
14:49Shock and anger.
14:51Going much too far to get a story.
14:53New allegations against the news of the world.
14:55News of the world hacked into the...
14:57Voicemails of the families of murder victims.
14:59The murdered schoolgirl, Millie Dowler.
15:02Millie Dowler was a schoolgirl who was abducted and murdered.
15:09And before she was...
15:11Before her body was found, the news of the world were hacking her phone.
15:20The way to hack someone's phone is to make sure they're asleep or engaged.
15:26You just ring them up on one phone, they answer it, then you just dial again on the other one,
15:30get through to their messages.
15:31Please enter your security code.
15:33And the private investigator has given you the code, so you put the code in and you listen to their
15:37messages.
15:38When the voicemail became full, messages were deleted so that more could be left.
15:43A private detective working for the news of the world deleted some of those messages, giving her family the false
15:49hope that she might still be alive.
15:51I rang her phone.
15:53Yes.
15:54And it clicked through onto her voicemail, so I heard her voice.
15:58Yes.
15:58And I was...
15:59It was just like...
16:00She's...
16:01She's picked up her voicemails, Bob!
16:02She's alive!
16:03They made the parents think the girl was alive.
16:06It just was...
16:07Who...
16:07Who would do that?
16:10That's when I started calling him Uncle Satan.
16:11Boycott murder!
16:13Boycott murder!
16:14Boycott murder!
16:16Boycott murder!
16:16There had been stories about celebrities getting hacked, but there's not as much sympathy for the victims of those stories
16:25because these are wealthy people.
16:26But when it was a schoolgirl, people realized this stuff could happen to anybody.
16:33This was fiendishly vile.
16:35Money!
16:36Power!
16:37Lies by the hour!
16:38Rupert Manor!
16:39We were reviled by everybody.
16:42My wife fucking hated me for my job.
16:45You're a fucking lowlife.
16:47I said, is this my wife, you know?
16:49Boycott murder!
16:50Boycott murder!
16:51The cover-up started to take place.
16:53Deletions of emails and destruction of evidence.
16:57The private eye I used to use, he'd burn all his records quickly.
17:02This developed into a raging, roiling scandal.
17:05It affected the law enforcement establishment, top officials at Scotland Yard, who had essentially looked the other way for years.
17:13And politicians who appeared compromised by their ties to the Murdochs.
17:18What I've read in the papers is quite, quite shocking.
17:22Britain's Prime Minister vowing no stone will be left unturned.
17:27James Murdoch and other News Limited executives could face charges over a suspected cover-up, with reports millions of emails
17:34were deleted from an internal archive.
17:37According to James, he immediately ordered the lawyers to turn over everything they had to the police, to start cooperating
17:47with an investigation, over Rupert's objections.
17:54Detectives made their first arrest and seized evidence.
17:57Thousands of pages of notes were seized.
17:59There are more alleged crimes, rampant computer hacking, stolen bank data, even break-ins.
18:05This was not a one-off thing.
18:08Journalists at News of the World had been working with private investigators to hack voicemails for years.
18:15They'd hacked the voicemails of parents of a child who was murdered by a pedophile, and troops who were killed
18:24in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq.
18:32This was emotional stuff, and Rupert was very much painted as the villain here.
18:39Boycott murder! Boycott murder!
18:42One thing we understand about Rupert with his executives is, if you win, you can do whatever you want. Just
18:50keep winning.
18:50The hacking showed just how far his executives were willing to take that. This was a crossed line.
19:00Here was pretty good evidence that they were leveraging these papers to push agendas, and to blackmail people, and to
19:10invade people's privacy.
19:12All the stuff that you kind of suspected but didn't know, it was all out there and laid bare.
19:17I'm not making any comments.
19:21Stuck in Murdoch's parent company, News Corp, has dropped nearly 15%.
19:26Advertisers leaving in droves.
19:28On Wednesday, the Prime Minister David Cameron joined opposition politicians in Parliament to call on Rupert Murdoch.
19:35The Prime Minister has promised a public inquiry.
19:37The people involved, however high or low they go, they must not only be brought to justice, they must also
19:45have no future role in running a media company in our country.
19:49The three principal executives are being called to testify before Parliament.
19:55I think they really are in a lot of trouble.
19:58This could be the moment his newspaper power crumbles.
20:02The question was how high up was this scandal going to go? Would there be a Murdoch scalp?
20:13Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
20:15First of all, I would like to say as well just how sorry I am and how sorry we are
20:21to particularly the victims of illegal voicemail interceptions and to their families.
20:27Before you get to that, I would just like to say one sentence.
20:31This is the most humble day of my life.
20:35So in order to claw out from under this Millie Dowler scandal, he gives an apology.
20:42Rupert clearly knows that that's the posture that he has to strike.
20:47At what point did you find out that criminality was endemic at News of the World?
20:56Endemic is a very hard, a very wide ranging word.
20:59I was absolutely shocked, appalled and ashamed when I heard about the Millie Dowler case only two weeks ago.
21:12He mumbled.
21:13I don't know anything about that.
21:15He seemed like a confused older man.
21:18I forget the date.
21:20This was not the fearsome media mogul that people expected that they were going to see.
21:24And it was a very effective performance, whether it was real or not.
21:29I don't remember meeting him.
21:30I might have shaken hand walking to the office, but I don't have any memory.
21:34I just don't remember.
21:35I literally turned to someone.
21:37I was like, he's pretending?
21:39He's addled?
21:40Are you kidding me?
21:41This guy is a viper.
21:43Rupert said he had no idea.
21:45Rupert said he had no idea.
21:45James said he had no idea.
21:48I have no knowledge and there is no evidence that I'm aware of.
21:56They all stood back.
21:58Him, James, Rebecca all said, oh, they knew nothing about that.
22:03It's just the journalists did it.
22:14You know, Rebecca Brooks, by all accounts, would have been the natural scapegoat for all
22:21of this, right?
22:22She was running News of the World and then the newspaper division.
22:26But Rupert loved Rebecca Brooks and was more loyal to Rebecca Brooks than he was to James.
22:35Can I ask in 2008?
22:37In fact, there's this moment where one of the members of parliament asks Rupert about a specific
22:45incidence of phone hacking.
22:47And Rupert, rather than answer, says...
22:51I think my son can perhaps answer that in more detail.
22:54He was a lot closer.
22:57Rupert really threw James to the wolves on that one.
23:00Have you been made aware prior to the Millie Dowler story breaking that your reporters hacked
23:05into the phones of any other crime victims?
23:08No, I had not.
23:08I had not been made.
23:09I had not been made aware of them.
23:11Most of this hacking took place before James came into the job.
23:14But then it comes out that James has in fact been on an email chain approving a settlement
23:20in order to keep the phone hacking situation quiet.
23:24When you signed off the Taylor payment, did you see or were you made aware of the full Neville email?
23:31No, I was not aware of that at the time.
23:35James approved a million pound settlement to an official with a football association that they had hacked into.
23:43James said the fact of the payment was on an email chain that he read over the weekend that he
23:49hadn't really realized what he was signing off on.
23:51Mr. Murdoch, you must be the first mafia boss in history who didn't know he was running a criminal enterprise.
23:56Mr. Watson, please. I think that's inappropriate.
24:00So at the hearing with James and Rupert is Wendy Dang Murdoch, who is there by his side.
24:07So then there's this crazy moment where this guy rises to smash a cream pie into Murdoch's face, like he's
24:15on some sort of Benny Hill slapstick episode.
24:19And Wendy knocks it out of his hand, which is incredible television.
24:25It's an absurd moment, but it's also really destabilizing.
24:31It creates sympathy for Murdoch.
24:34The instant Murdoch was hit with that pie, News Corp stock spiked.
24:39He's brilliant. He needs to be hit with more pies.
24:44I think that the spectacle of the pie did distract a bit from the substance of the allegations.
24:52And it turned the whole thing into a farce when the issues that were being litigated were very serious.
24:59Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
25:01Thank you, all of you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
25:02Thank you, all members.
25:04It didn't bring justice and it didn't get to the truth of this organized crime group.
25:13I must have watched that video a hundred times.
25:16It's striking because Wendy has such protectionism instincts for him.
25:23And James is not, which is the interesting thing.
25:27Your wife is a very good left poet.
25:29I have to say, she was fast.
25:31I wrote her. I'm like, wow, you're fast. I'm not getting in your way, my friend.
25:34I am not a big proponent of the four decade marriage age gap.
25:39But if ever there was a situation where it would pay dividends, it would be an ambush like that.
25:52It's very good for Wendy's brand because she's seen as Rupert's protector and a badass.
25:57A full jury. And who's the jury?
26:00Wendy is just a much hipper person than Murdoch is. She's young. She's with it.
26:06She would call Rupert an old man. She would say that he was stupid.
26:10She belittles him in private and then over time socially in public as well.
26:15Can you understand that she's a girl and she's a girl?
26:19Yes, she's very tough.
26:20Really?
26:22And she is linked to a number of other prominent figures romantically.
26:30There were rumors about a relationship with Tony Blair.
26:36Rupert grilled his staff to try to figure out if that was true or not.
26:39The family went crazy. They were like all hands on deck. Get rid of her.
26:44James and Lachlan got together and created a dossier on Wendy to present to their father.
26:51And this included a note that Wendy had written to herself in her diary and then thrown away.
26:58A housekeeper who was cleaning up in Rupert and Wendy's triplex found that piece of paper.
27:06And in that note, she was describing her feelings for Tony Blair.
27:11There were exchanges about the curve of his bottom.
27:16How hot he looked when he was talking on stage.
27:19His piercing blue eyes.
27:21And how attracted to him she was.
27:25And when James and Lachlan presented that to their father, that was the last straw.
27:31He was convinced to divorce Wendy.
27:34Media mogul and billionaire Rupert Murdoch is heading for divorce court again,
27:38ending a 14-year marriage to his third wife.
27:42A Vanity Fair story about the alleged relationship between Wendy Ding and Tony Blair is published.
27:50And it had access to the private note written by Wendy Ding.
27:57This was deeply humiliating for Rupert.
28:00But it was perfect tabloid fodder.
28:03And because Rupert has always made his money on sex and scandal,
28:08a lot of people felt that he had finally gotten his just desserts.
28:17A complete bombshell.
28:20After 168 years in print, this Sunday's edition of the News of the World will be the last.
28:26The biggest-selling newspaper was dramatically killed off.
28:29Staff gasped in shock.
28:30Others reduced to tears.
28:33Closing the News of the World to Rupert Murdoch is like Paul McCartney deleting the White Album
28:39that would have been heartbreaking for him.
28:42It not only made his fortune, it was also a massive part of British popular culture.
28:48They were trying to protect their empire.
28:51And then they did what it took to fix it.
28:54They're good at sacrificing things they need to to survive.
28:58News International chairman James Murdoch said the paper's proud history
29:01had been tarnished by the behaviour he called inhuman.
29:05We all got sacked. 200 journalists got laid off.
29:09Then he decided to turn us over to the cops.
29:12And I just thought, you fucker.
29:16Actions taken by certain individuals in what had been a good newsroom
29:20have breached the trust that the News of the World has with its readers.
29:26The main private art, Glenn Mulcair, got arrested, got sent to jail,
29:31as well as a bunch of reporters.
29:33I am baffled by the decision to charge me today.
29:37Rebecca Brooks was arrested.
29:40Rebecca played a blinder.
29:42Oh, I had no idea so far, but I didn't know what they were doing.
29:46I really, really do want to understand what happened.
29:49I think all of us do.
29:51She was smart, really manipulative.
29:54Thank you, Jim.
29:56She walked free.
29:58We've just finished our meal and we're just going home.
30:00James really took a hit from the hacking scandal.
30:04That UK parliamentary committee did issue a very searing opinion.
30:08The younger Murdoch deemed, quote, not fit to run a major company.
30:13This is a moment when, if he was able to finally purchase the entirety of BSkyB,
30:21the company as a whole was there for James' taking.
30:26And the phone hacking crisis just puts an absolute end to all of that.
30:33Rupert Murdoch is backing down.
30:36Rupert Murdoch to withdraw news corporations' takeover bid for broadcaster BSkyB.
30:41The tabloid hacking scandal forced him to pull the plug on that deal today.
30:44Media titan Rupert Murdoch in retreat.
30:49The Murdochs have had to pay vast sums of money as a result of this hacking scandal.
30:55It's well over 1.5 billion pounds.
30:59That scandal did so much damage to the Murdoch name.
31:06Rupert is chased out of London and shouted down anywhere he goes.
31:10He's public enemy number one.
31:12I was appalled to find out what had happened to me.
31:15And I cried and I apologized and I had nothing for it.
31:22Morning.
31:22Good morning, Elizabeth. This way, please.
31:24Every time Liz left her house, she'd be swarmed.
31:27People would be yelling things at her.
31:30So, Elizabeth urges her father to fire James.
31:37I actually talked to James and Liz about this.
31:41James is hunkered down in his office working on a response.
31:47And Liz comes into his office and tells James,
31:54Dad and I were talking and we really think that you need to resign.
32:01And take the fall for this.
32:03Because people are so upset.
32:06And it's not going to do to simply fire lower level executives.
32:11It has to be a Murdoch.
32:12And we think you should be it.
32:15As you can imagine, James was furious.
32:18Not just with the idea that he would be the one to take the fall.
32:21But with the idea that his father wasn't willing to come and tell him.
32:27And what James said in that moment was,
32:30If Dad wants to fire me, he can do it himself.
32:32And then he threw Liz out of his office.
32:37That ended up being a defining moment in his relationship with Liz.
32:42And he and Liz barely spoke to each other for years afterward.
32:51One of the things that's so fascinating about this family is that there's so much maneuvering.
32:56And there are billions of dollars at stake.
32:59But at the end of the day, they are family.
33:03They do love each other on some level.
33:08When James was at his breaking point,
33:11Lachlan ended up flying to London in the midst of this whole scandal
33:15to calm his dad down and convince him not to fire James.
33:20So instead, James was given an exit ramp.
33:24He had a job set up in New York that was presented as a promotion,
33:28but everybody knew it wasn't.
33:32But it was one of the last moments of brotherly solidarity,
33:38where Lachlan really ended up supporting James.
33:43You are a Murdoch.
33:44It's either a blessing or a curse, but it's there, like it or not.
33:47It's obviously been a very big year.
33:50It's obviously been a very nightmare year for the family.
33:54Elizabeth thinks the hacking scandal's a disaster,
33:56and it would never have happened if the company had been run properly.
34:02Liz is outside of the News Corp, building her own company, Shine.
34:09She helps make a huge success of The Biggest Loser,
34:13a perfect Murdochian type of show.
34:16Shut up and focus.
34:19She has shown that she's got talent for the sorts of things that you need
34:24in running a media company.
34:25Elizabeth, do you mind, please?
34:27Elizabeth Murdoch.
34:28She has her own production company that was recently bought by News Corp,
34:32an indication, some say, that she may be directly next in line.
34:37Rupert buys Shine, and she makes a lot of money.
34:41And so she was brought back inside his orbit.
34:45Whenever he wanted one of his kids to work for him, and they were resisting,
34:50Rupert would just throw enough money at the problem
34:53that he could buy them off and force them back into his employ.
34:58Do you feel that in succession terms, or in sort of family terms,
35:02that you've been overlooked for the top job?
35:04No.
35:05But I don't think that way.
35:06I always think about what can be done.
35:09So I never feel completely satisfied.
35:12You always think of what more you can do.
35:14Elizabeth is probably the media executive who has had the greatest success
35:20outside the Murdoch company of any of the kids.
35:23But Rupert is of a certain generation.
35:26And so he always saw either James or Lachlan as the most likely successor.
35:34James, for what it's worth, told me that Rupert is a misogynist
35:38and never considered Liz a viable successor.
35:41So she is dispirited.
35:44She clearly does really admire and respect him.
35:47But she cannot deny the damage done by the family empire.
35:52Please welcome the one and only Elizabeth Murdoch.
35:59Elizabeth goes to Edinburgh Television Festival to give a very prestigious lecture.
36:04Being asked to give the James McTaggart Memorial Lecture has been quite a welcome distraction from some of the other
36:15nightmares much closer to home.
36:18Yes, you have met some of my family before.
36:24Elizabeth makes this absolutely scorching speech.
36:27She says all the sort of stuff that you don't want to see in public.
36:30Speaking of independence, my brother James spoke about it in his McTaggart three years ago.
36:38James ended his lecture with a line in which he claimed the only reliable and perpetual guarantor of independence is
36:49profit.
36:49The reason his statement sat so uncomfortably is that profit without purpose is a recipe for disaster.
37:00News Corp has been accused of putting profits first and nothing else.
37:05Elizabeth saying the same thing everyone said about Murdoch to this point.
37:10Profit must be our servant, not our master.
37:16And so she's aligning herself with the enemies of James and the enemies of her father.
37:22We see all of this play out in public, the deep, deep fissures in the Murdoch family.
37:29Not surprisingly, her father doesn't speak to her for nine weeks.
37:33Liz ended up leaving the company altogether, setting out on her own.
37:38She wants to get away from all of the toxicity of the family empire.
37:45And the phone hacking scandal was her opportunity to do that.
37:49Thanks.
37:51Good morning, Mr. Murdoch.
37:57We're going to retire soon, finally, huh? And have a good life?
38:00Good life.
38:01The time after the phone hacking scandal was a real ebb in Murdoch's professional and personal life.
38:10B-Sky-B has been denied to him.
38:12The stalled deal and the scandal that caused it has thrown open the question of succession in the Murdoch empire.
38:19He thought he was rolling to world domination and now things are starting to fall apart.
38:30Earlier in his life, Rupert reveled in the idea of a battle royale between his children to succeed him.
38:39Rupert pitted them against each other, played them off each other like they were cogs in this dynastic power game
38:46he was playing.
38:49But he allowed his quest for some kind of immortality to destroy his actual relationship with his actual kids.
39:01This is about control and about the lack of respect that Rupert Murdoch is showing in his very last chapter
39:10in life.
39:12Basically saying to three of his children, I don't think you have it.
39:20And this litigation brought all of it to the surface.
39:29This morning, the family believed to be the inspiration behind the HBO hit show Succession is locked in a similar
39:36battle playing out in real life.
39:38This is a dispute about the Murdoch family trust.
39:42And this is very much shrouded in mystery and we aren't sure exactly what's going on inside.
39:48In September, we found out that the trial is about to start.
39:53The setting is Reno, Nevada, the birthplace of divorce in this country.
39:57Of all places for the Murdoch family to end up in court in Reno, Nevada, no offense to Reno.
40:04I personally went to that courthouse every day.
40:07The first day was just a bizarre scene.
40:11SUV, SUV, SUV. Press everywhere.
40:15Lawyers are swooping up the courthouse steps and then the children come.
40:21You know, so much of the Murdoch story has been narrated by anonymous sources and self-interested parties speculating about
40:31what was going on behind the scenes.
40:33But for the first time with this trial, we were getting the actual story.
40:39The real human drama of this family was being laid bare.
40:44Rupert! Rupert!
40:46It's not Rupert!
40:47Mr. Murdoch, are you confident of victory?
40:51Every major member of the family is testifying in front of each other in court.
40:57Rupert went first.
41:00And here is Rupert Murdoch taking a witness stand in defense of his effort to unilaterally change this inviolable family
41:08trust, even though, by definition, an inviolable trust cannot be changed.
41:13But on some level, you can understand why he would feel entitled to do it.
41:19He built this empire.
41:20He made everyone in this room a multi-billionaire.
41:24And it's his money.
41:26The judge said that he was open to their argument.
41:30If he can prove that he's doing it in good faith and for the sole benefit of his beneficiaries.
41:39But Rupert is a man who speaks his mind.
41:41He's a master of the universe.
41:43And so, you know, how disciplined is he going to be on the witness stand, I think, is a question
41:47right from the very beginning.
41:48What will become a problem is that when Rupert's cross-examined about this, he's incredibly honest.
41:54He was very upfront about the fact that this was about his legacy and he didn't trust James or Liz
42:02or Prudence to retain the conservative political slant of his media outlets.
42:07That's why he wanted Lachlan to take control.
42:12I'm not a legal expert, but a legal expert would probably say that was not in his best interest to
42:17make that argument.
42:19But Rupert's legal team appeared to think they had an ace in the hole.
42:23And that was an exchange between Rupert and Anna, his second wife.
42:33One day, several months prior, she had reached out to Rupert, which was a bit strange.
42:39She doesn't ordinarily just call Rupert. It rarely happens. As Rupert says, it's out of the blue.
42:45They're talking, catching up, and Rupert shares with her some of his angst about James doing something with the sisters
42:53to shove Lachlan aside.
42:55And after they get off the phone, Anna writes Rupert by email.
43:01I think it's imperative that you get this sorted out soon. Some toes will be trod on and egos hurt,
43:07but it would be worse to leave things as they are.
43:11Then she tells Rupert, you are the kingpin. You still hold the power.
43:16And Rupert tells Anna he'd love nothing more than peace all around, but it's just not looking that way.
43:23And then Anna and Rupert start talking about the kids.
43:26And intriguingly, Rupert is sort of complimentary of James. He's bright, he's articulate, but time and time again showed bad
43:35judgment.
43:37Rupert tells Anna this isn't just about the children. He says Fox and our empire is the only thing standing
43:45in the way of this woke mob, that we are the true defenders of the free world.
43:50And James and his wife, Catherine, want to change it. And Anna does something kind of surprising.
44:00She talks about her resentment of James and Catherine as well, that they and their like-minded woke friends are
44:08going to be the ruination of the country.
44:10America will be doomed if these cultural elites take over.
44:16She's in perfect agreement.
44:19Rupert's lawyers try to use this to say, look, if all of this mess we're in is because Rupert was
44:26trying to accommodate Anna in their divorce.
44:30Anna, who set these parameters. Anna, who never wanted to see one child succeed above the others.
44:37She is now saying that doesn't matter to her. She is endorsing Lachlan's leadership. She's endorsing Rupert, backing up Lachlan's
44:45leadership.
44:47Why are we even here is basically the implicit argument.
44:52This, of course, has no legal weight. This is just an exchange of emails.
45:00There's binding language around the trust and Anna has no control.
45:04And she wasn't telling him he should change the trust.
45:08She doesn't have the authority to tell him to change the trust.
45:11Still, as a matter of atmospherics, it was important.
45:16And it shows what's at stake in this trial.
45:21Once the litigation began, years of internal Murdoch family communications, texts and emails, started to surface that were really painful
45:31for, I think, everyone involved, but especially James.
45:37He started telling friends, my advice is to never get involved in litigation with your family where there's discovery and
45:44the discovery is all about you.
45:47I mean, just imagine what that's like if you were suddenly able to read everything that your family says about
45:56you behind your back for two decades.
45:58It was brutal.
46:01And I think there is a tragedy in that that transcends whatever you think about the Murdochs or Fox News.
46:13This is the story of a family unraveling.
46:17And it was just in the beginning.
46:45I had been having fun with it.
46:46It was just in the beginning.
46:46I tried to inspire all the other people to do this but if I could just kind of learn why.
46:46It's not that much, without being uncomfortable.
46:46This is the story of a family, and I wish that I've been doing.
46:46I had a relationship with a family member and amass in the world.
46:47I was trying to experience what is my family member who was not having to be with.
46:47This is a family member and I had a family member who was just following the family members.
46:48It's a family member who was just saying to be a family member and to be a family member.
46:49So it's a family member and to be a family member of the family member.
46:51I watched my family members because I sΓ and I did know that I did not have any family members
46:53about you.
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