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| @mjrowland68 |
The Hollywood Reporter, 31 July 2020:
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| Getty |
Former 21st Century Fox CEO James Murdoch has resigned from the board of News Corp., the parent company of the Wall Street Journal.
In a letter of resignation filed Friday afternoon, Murdoch wrote: "My resignation is due to disagreements over certain editorial content published by the Company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions."
James Murdoch had been on News Corp.'s board of directors since 2013. News Corp. is one of two media companies controlled by James' father Rupert Murdoch and the Murdoch family.
The other is Fox Corp., the parent company of Fox News and the Fox broadcast network, which was created after 21st Century Fox sold its entertainment assets to The Walt Disney Company.
Murdoch stepped down as Fox CEO following the sale, with his brother Lachlan Murdoch becoming CEO, and father Rupert becoming co-chairman.
News Corp., which owns the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, New York Post, News U.K. and newspaper and TV assets in Australia, is run by CEO Robert Thomson.
After leaving the Fox fold, Murdoch started his own company, Lupa Systems, which has invested in technology companies and other firms.
Lupa Systems has acquired stakes in Vice Media, tech startup Betalab, and is pursuing a stake in MCH Group, the parent company of the Art Basel fair.
Lupa Systems and Joe Marchese's Attention Capital also acquired a majority stake in Tribeca Enterprises last year, the parent organization of the Tribeca Film Festival.
In a joint statement released after the letter was made public, Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch said "We’re grateful to James for his many years of service to the company. We wish him the very best in his future endeavors.”
Earlier this year James Murdoch and his wife Kathryn issued a joint statement expressing disappointment with the level of climate change denial found in News Corp’s Australian outlets.
James Murdoch became chief executive of British Sky Broadcasting in 2003 at the age of 30, when his father Rupert was still chairman.
By 2012 after the News of the World phone hacking scandal and the subsequent Leveson Inquiry, U.K. media watchdog Ofcom declared James' ''conduct in relation to events at NGN repeatedly fell short of the conduct to be expected of him as a chief executive officer and chairman'' when he was running News Corp's News Group Newspapers.
At that time James was also a director of British Sky Broadcasting Group as well as a director of News Corporation.
He apparently stepped back from any day-to-day roles within the family business at the end of 2018.
His resignation does not imply that he has sold or intends to sell his shareholdings in News Corp or Disney.
