Last summer, a rumor circulated through the media industry that Rupert Murdoch, the media titan at the helm of the News Corp. empire, was gravely ill. A Fox Corp. spokesperson dismissed it, but the denial carried little weight with those who have watched the company for years. Back in 2018, Murdoch’s representatives insisted he was fine after he broke his vertebrae falling on his son’s yacht—an injury that was far more serious than the public was led to believe.
The speculation about Murdoch’s health forced a question that has long loomed over the industry: What does the media landscape look like without its most dominant figure? Murdoch turns 95 in March and is now rarely seen in public. I believe his most influential properties—Fox News, the New York Post, and The Sun—have poisoned public discourse in the U.S., the U.K., and Australia. And yet, after 20 years of covering him, I know I will miss him when he’s gone.
