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Secrets, sexism and hypocrisy: Bonfire of the Murdochs reveals the family’s real succession drama
Matthew Ricketson is the co-author, with Andrew Dodd, of Getting Murdoched: How Murdoch's Media Wields Power and Punishment, to be published by Hardie Grant in mid-2026.
Deakin University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.
Does the world need another biography of Rupert Murdoch? It depends what it has to say and who has written it.
Bonfire of the Murdochs, by journalist Gabriel Sherman, looks promising. He made his name with an exhaustively researched biography of long-running Fox News head and serial sexual harasser, Roger Ailes. The Loudest Voice in the Room (2014) has 98 pages of endnotes and a team of three fact-checkers. It was made into a series starring Russell Crowe as Ailes. Sherman was also the screenwriter of Donald Trump biopic, The Apprentice, which Trump fought hard to prevent being screened.
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This Netflix’s documentary about Rupert’s warring children blurs the lines with HBO drama Succession. But, ultimately, it’s a depressing catalogue of nepotism that it’s hard to be enthused about
‘To explain the Murdochs, you have to understand the television show Succession.†So quips New York Times writer Jim Rutenberg a few minutes into this four-part documentary about Rupert Murdoch’s empire – and, specifically, his children’s battle for control of it when he dies.
It’s a canny opener. Jesse Armstrong’s series about media mogul Logan Roy and his warring children, thought to be based on the Murdochs, was a gripping smash hit, and this documentary is soon excitedly matching the eldest Murdoch siblings – independent Prudence from Rupert’s first marriage, dutiful favourite Lachlan, “problem child†James and brilliant but overlooked (pesky X chromosomes!) Elisabeth – to their Succession counterparts. (Rupert’s two younger daughters from his third marriage aren’t in the running.) But don’t be fooled: despite the suspenseful strings and off-key piano motifs, this is no Emmy-award-winning drama. Rather, it is an exhausting if exhaustive rundown of all things Murdoch, with the siblings’ manoeuvrings often the least interesting part. In the documentary, as in life, they are overshadowed by their dad.
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