Peter Bart: Rupert Murdoch’s Legacy At Center Of Family Succession Drama In Reno Courtroom

“The bankers are trying to crunch me. They’ll fail.”

Rupert Murdoch looked frazzled but defiant. We were having what was supposed to be a friendly coffee, but this was 2006 and he was under siege from bankers who were trying to cope with his financial over-reach. Having just become an American citizen, the Aussie had devoured 20th Century Fox, was losing millions on the New York Post, yet now was boldly bidding for the legendary Wall Street Journal.

I thought back this week to our cordial sessions since Rupert, now age 93, was under siege yet again. His challengers this time were not Wall Street bankers but his own progeny. The Reno, Nevada, setting seemed appropriate for the grizzled gambler.

What was at stake? Power. And this was not another TV version of Succession.

Having regularly encountered Murdoch over the decades, and been absorbed in his maneuvers, I found myself finally facing the historic impact of his mission: He had compromised the integrity of newspapers and news networks on three continents, using their combined clout to push politics and politicians toward the hard right.

Along the way, he’d even taken time to exploit and diminish the movie industry, ending the life of one of Hollywood’s legacy studios.

In retrospect, I wish I’d pushed back on him years ago and asked: Rupert, is this really going to be your legacy?

Murdoch’s mission in court this week is to rewrite his documents of succession to ensure that control remains in the hands of a chosen son, Lachlan, rather than those in the family who might deviate from the mandates of the patriarch.

The trust embraces 40% of the voting shares in Fox and News Corp.

Ironically, the drama was precipitated by movies, not politics. Disney’s acquisition of Fox netted some $12 billion to be divided among his four children, each of whom was to donate $100 million back to their Daddy. James, the youngest son, declined to go along.

And now he and three other heirs are challenging Rupert’s desire to rewrite the language of the overall trust. His purpose is to ensure that his handpicked successor can preside over Murdochian properties and ideologies.

Supervising the complicated proceedings, which have been kept behind closed doors this week in Reno, is an obscure figure named Edmund Gorman, who is a county probate commissioner. He will weigh in over such arcane questions as whether Rupert’s proposed rewrite of the trust would be in “the best interest” of the family as a whole. Decades of appeals and renegotiations might be in the offing.

It is difficult to imagine Rupert sitting steely-eyed in probate court, his progeny around him, in a building that in past years seemed dedicated to Hollywood divorces. I remember sharing a row with him during tense screenings at the Fox studio, rarely sharing a comment or emotion about a film, whether a pricey budget sequel like Speed 2, destined for the disaster file, or a drastically over-budget Titanic destined for cinematic immortality (a frustrated Murdoch had to send his troops to Paramount to beg for co-funding).

It was never clear to me whether Murdoch really liked movies to begin with and I’ve gotten mixed theories on this from his former executives. In any case, Murdoch was tactful in his Hollywood interactions, carefully separating politics from filmmaking decisions.

He was more vocal when it came to Fox News.

As the editor in chief of Variety over a 20-year span, I often talked with Murdoch about film and TV and perhaps we regarded each other as a source on the business. He also knew I had once been a reporter for the pre-Murdoch Wall Street Journal and a frequent contributor to its op-ed page. I had also been a Fox News guest at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and had had lunches with both Lachlan and James on separate occasions.

To me, the younger Rupert Murdoch, circa 2006, had seemed like an adventurer in the media world who was willing to take astonishing risks in challenging the establishment. He enjoyed sharing the details of those challenges as both news maker and news source.

With the dawning of the Trump era, however, his political focus narrowed. While he had resisted the extremism of Roger Ailes, his first chief of Fox News, he now seemed ready to capitulate to the hard right. Even if it ultimately meant the ordeal of probate court in Reno.

Some of Rupert’s faithful assume there might be an eleventh-hour settlement – one that would entail reason and harmony. Unless those now seem like qualities of a calmer past.