Rupert Murdoch

Biography

Rupert Murdoch was born on 11 March 1931 in Australia but he was naturalized American in 1985. He is the founder of News Corporation, a society which was in the top 3 of the world's largest media groups before that Murdoch decide its split in 2011 which is explain below. He has also been the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of 21^st Century Fox since 28 June 2013.


He got married four times; his current wife is Jerry Hall, Mick Jagger's ex-wife and they got married in March 2016. He has got six children.

According to the Forbes Magazine, Murdoch remains, in 2016, the 96^th richest billionaire in the world and the 38^th in the United States.

In the 1950s and 1960s, he came to the head of a lot of newspapers both in Australia and in New Zealand. In 1974, he moved to New York aiming to break into and capture the US market – which he did. Even though his life was now in the United States, he always retained interest in Australia and in Britain, where he bought The Times in 1981.

In 2000, Murdoch's company owned nearly 800 companies in no fewer than 50 countries with a yearly profit of five billion dollars. Murdoch also has some activities in Europe and in Asia.

In 2012, he decided to resign from directing News Corporation, and he took the same decision in July 2015 about 21^st Century Fox because of the Phone-Hacking Scandal that took place in July 2011 when other media discovered that they had been hacking the phones of common people, celebrities and even members of roal families, but we are going into further details below

News Corporation

News Corporation was an American multinational mass media corporation. The headquarters of the company, initially in Adelaide, Australia, were soon moved to New York City. The founder was Rupert Murdoch but he left his job in 2012.

It had been the 4^th largest media group in the world before its split in June 2013. The company split in 2 parts, 21^st Century Fox and a more secondary one, News Corp (also referred to as New News Corp). This division occurred so that 21^st Century Fox would be News Corporation’s official successor, while the new News Corp would become an entirely new company. Murdoch settled the split while resigning from his functions, he thought it would “unlock the true value of both companies [...]”.
The division of the company is also deeply linked to the 2011 scandal, which had a major impact on the reputation of News Corporation's properties such as The Times.

Phone-Hacking scandal

The scandal involved the English branch of News Corporation, News International which publishes magazines such as News of the World in Great-Britain. Some of its journalists were accused of phone hacking in the pursuit of their stories.

The investigations that were carried out from 2005 to 2007 by the FBI demonstrated that only celebrities' phones had been accessed, although in 2011 it was revealed that the phone of a murdered schoolgirl had been accessed too. Following this revelation, the number of high-profile employees of the company who decided to stand down was incredible : Rupert Murdoch himself, Dow Jones and Rebekah Brooks, both chief exécutives, and even Tom Crone, News International's legal manager. 

There was also a boycott of advertisers which led to a shut down of News of the World. Another consequence to this scandal was the splitting of News Corporation into two distinct enterprises, 21^st Century Fox and News Corp.

Conclusion

To conclude we can say that Rupert Murdoch is iconic because of his impact on the US market. He has indeed a big influence on plenty of newspapers all over the world but especially in the United States. His power could have been decreased by the implication of his enterprises in the Phone-Hacking scandal but he resigned so that he could keep his notoriety which still make him one of the richest person in the world.