Tycoon’s eldest son promises ‘no change’ in Fox News strategy but suite of legal claims threaten to derail family empire
Lachlan Murdoch has been chairman of News Corporation and Fox Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, for more than a week now after his father Rupert finally officially handed the reins to him.
Beyond the titular changes, how much of a transition is in fact being made is open to question. “I hope to continue an active role in the company,” the elder Murdoch, 92, remarked during the company’s most recent annual shareholders meeting.
Lachlan Murdoch told investors that there will be “no change” in strategy at Fox News, but earlier this week told a dinner in Australia that this was an era of “generational realignment” that would require “clear vision, great courage, and political will” to navigate.
But what Lachlan will inherit in full is a suite of legal claims affecting the TV news division of the slimmed-down Fox empire, many of which are directly or more casually dependent to Fox News’ $787m settlement with Dominion Voting Systems earlier this year.
That claim, settled as Dominion’s claim that Fox deliberately promoted 2020 election falsehoods was about to be presented to a Delaware jury, comes with others. At the high end is a $2.7bn claim brought by the smaller voting system company Smartmatic in a similar defamation complaint brought in New York.
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