Within the week, a long-awaited “episode” of the new season of his life Rupert Murdoch canceled. The scene was set when Murdoch arrived on the seventh floor of the Wilmington courthouse, which was packed with reporters. The script wasn’t written, but a lawyer was ready to put the media mogul in the spotlight and demand that he explain why his Fox News network relentlessly spread lies that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen by Donald Trump. Fox viewers wanted to hear it. It would be an interesting episode. This whole story cost Fox $787.5 million.

Those hoping to catch Rupert Murdoch’s show will have to settle for “Succession,” the hit HBO series inspired by the tycoon. Although in this case, truth really is stranger than fiction. Murdoch has had more wives (four), more children (six), has more years under his belt (92) and has been the star of more scandals, intrigues and corporate ventures than his fictional alter ego, Logan Roy.

There are episodes of Murdoch’s life that would hardly seem believable in a TV series. Like when his newspapers published the news of his death. Or when two men hatched a plan to kidnap his then-wife, Anne Murdoch, but accidentally kidnapped and murdered Muriel McKay, the wife of one of Murdoch’s assistants, Alic McKay, whom they followed to their home after he had borrowed the tycoon’s Rolls Royce, thinking they were following the Murdochs.

Murdoch became “the disreputable tabloid publisher,” Michael Wolff wrote in his biography, “The Man Who Owns the News.” It was 1969. At the age of 38, Murdoch had already accumulated vast experience as a publisher.

Murdoch was born in Melbourne, Australia on March 11, 1931, the same date Britain’s first daily newspaper, the Daily Courant, was launched in 1702. His father, Keith Murdoch, was a war correspondent turned tycoon of the regional press. When Keith Murdoch died of cancer in 1952, Rupert Murdoch, his only son, took over News Limited, the family business. He bought several regional newspapers in Australia and New Zealand, emphasizing sensationalism. He then started The Australian, the country’s first national newspaper, this time taking a more serious approach. It was a pattern he would repeat in the United Kingdom and the United States: impressing and then seeking dignity.

In 1969, Murdoch was in London having just completed the purchase of the tabloid newspapers ‘News of the World’ and ‘The Sun’. The fact that the publisher of these papers also bought The Times and the Sunday Times in 1981 came as a shock. Rupert Murdoch crossed the Atlantic and seized the New York Post in 1976, turning it into a tabloid. Later, in 2007, he also bought the prestigious newspaper “The Wall Street Journal”.

In 2012, journalist John Lisners published the book “The Rise and Fall of the Murdoch Empire”, but Murdoch was very much alive and his empire had not fallen. Fox News became the most watched news channel in the United States. It appeals to a conservative audience that wants to be told that Barack Obama is a Muslim, that the Democratic Party is the radical left run by degenerates, and that Donald Trump won the 2020 election only to steal the White House from him. . Such lies usually go unpunished, but the network’s hosts and guests have repeatedly claimed that voting machine company Dominion switched votes from Trump to his Democratic rival, Joe Biden. Dominion filed a $1.6 billion defamation suit, which looked set to give Murdoch one of the most humiliating days of his life. Following Fox’s out-of-court settlement, Murdoch avoided a damaging public hearing before a jury.

Dozens of books have been published about the tycoon. His professional biography is important, but his personal life has also been the subject of novels, films and series, as well as speculation about his succession.

Murdoch

The tycoon went from announcing his fifth marriage to canceling the wedding within two weeks. Less than a year ago, he informed his fourth wife, Jeri Hall, that he was divorcing her in an email: “Jeri, unfortunately I have decided to end our marriage,” he wrote. The couple’s divorce settlement stipulated that Hall not provide details or ideas to the writers of “Succession.”