Keith Rupert Murdoch (11 March 1931-) was an Australian-American business magnate, conservative media proprietor, and investor who, through his ownership of New Corp, owned hundreds of international publishing outlets, from The Sun and The Times in Britain to The Daily Telegraph, the Herald Sun, and The Australian in Australia and The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post in New York, as well as the broadcasting channels Sky News Australia and Fox News.
Biography[]
Keith Rupert Murdoch was born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia in 1931, the son of Keith Murdoch. Murdoch inherited his father's The News newspaper in Adelaide in 1952, and he acquired a number of newspapers in Australia and New Zealand during the 1950s and 1960s before moving to the United Kingdom in 1969 and buying the News of the World and The Sun. In 1974, he moved to New York City to expand into the American market, becoming a US citizen in 1985 and giving up his Australian citizenship in order to become a television network owner in the United States. In 1986, Murdoch consolidated his UK printing operations on London, and his holding company News Corporation acquired Twentieth Century Fox in 1985, HarperCollins in 1989, and The Wall Street Journal in 2007. By 2000, Murdoch had expanded into Asia and South America and owned over 800 companies in more than 50 countries, with a net worth of over $5 billion.
Murdoch used his media empire to promote libertarian causes, closely allying himself with the Conservative prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major during the 1980s and 1990s. However, his papers supported New Labour during the 2000s. He also formed an alliance with the Conservatives' rising star David Cameron in 2008, and Cameron met with Cameron's executives 26 times in 14 months from 2010 to 2011. Murdoch had The Sun back Brexit, calling it a "prison break" from the European Union. Murdoch also helped Ronald Reagan win the 1980 United States presidential election, but he was an enthusiastic supporter of Democrat Barack Obama in 2008. In 2011, he even advocated more open immigration policies in western nations generally, advocating for immigration reform and legal status for all undocumented immigrants in the United States. In 2012, he again changed his mind when he supported Republican Mitt Romney's campaign to "save us from socialism", and he supported Donald Trump in 2016.
Murdoch was a highly controversial public figure due to his companies' regular involvement in phone hacking against celebrities, royalty, and public citizens; this scandal led to bribery and corruption allegations against Murdoch, who resigned as director of News International in 2012. His papers and television channels were also accused of biased and misleading coverage to support his business interests and political allies, and Fox News' dissemination of far-right conspiracy theories during the Trump era helped mobilize the American far-right and lead to COVID-19 skepticism and the January 6 coup attempt in 2021. Murdoch retired as chairman of Fox Corp. and News Corp. in September 2023, with his son Lachlan Murdoch succeeding him.