#TheBattleForTruth

Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as chairman of Fox and News Corp, leaving his eldest son Lachlan the sole executive of his media empire.  Murdoch, 92, said that he would take on a new role of chairman emeritus in November.  Murdoch wrote in a memo to staff that although his daily engagement with “news and ideas” would not change, the time was “right” for him to take on a different role.  He said that the “battle” for freedom of speech and freedom of thought, “has never been more intense” and that most of the media were in “cahoots” with elites who have “open contempt for those who are not members of their rarefied class.” Murdoch also stressed that the companies – and himself – were in “robust health”.  Over seven decades Murdoch amassed vast wealth and influence through his ownership of some of the world’s largest news and media companies across the UK, US and Australia.  The news of Murdoch’s departure comes after Fox News was forced to pay a $787.5 million settlement to voting equipment company Dominion over falsely reporting that the 2020 US election was rigged against Donald Trump. The company faces a similar lawsuit from voting machine company Smartmatic. Earlier this year, Murdoch withdrew a proposed plan to merge News Corp and Fox saying the transaction was “not optimal” for shareholders at that time.  In a statement, 52 year-old Lachlan – who will become sole chair of News Corp and continue as executive chair and CEO of Fox Corp – congratulated his father on his “remarkable” career and thanked him for his “vision”, “pioneering spirit” and “enduring legacy”.  “We are grateful that he will serve as Chairman Emeritus and know he will continue to provide valued counsel to both companies,” he said.  More from Tortoise

Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as chairman of Fox and News Corp, leaving his eldest son Lachlan the sole executive of his media empire.  Murdoch, 92, said that he would take on a new role of chairman emeritus in November.  Murdoch wrote in a memo to staff that although his daily engagement with “news and ideas” would not change, the time was “right” for him to take on a different role.  He said that the “battle” for freedom of speech and freedom of thought, “has never been more intense” and that most of the media were in “cahoots” with elites who have “open contempt for those who are not members of their rarefied class.” Murdoch also stressed that the companies – and himself – were in “robust health”.  Over seven decades Murdoch amassed vast wealth and influence through his ownership of some of the world’s largest news and media companies across the UK, US and Australia.  The news of Murdoch’s departure comes after Fox News was forced to pay a $787.5 million settlement to voting equipment company Dominion over falsely reporting that the 2020 US election was rigged against Donald Trump. The company faces a similar lawsuit from voting machine company Smartmatic. Earlier this year, Murdoch withdrew a proposed plan to merge News Corp and Fox saying the transaction was “not optimal” for shareholders at that time.  In a statement, 52 year-old Lachlan – who will become sole chair of News Corp and continue as executive chair and CEO of Fox Corp – congratulated his father on his “remarkable” career and thanked him for his “vision”, “pioneering spirit” and “enduring legacy”.  “We are grateful that he will serve as Chairman Emeritus and know he will continue to provide valued counsel to both companies,” he said.  More from Tortoise

Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as chairman of Fox and News Corp, leaving his eldest son Lachlan the sole executive of his media empire.  Murdoch, 92, said that he would take on a new role of chairman emeritus in November.  Murdoch wrote in a memo to staff that although his daily engagement with “news and ideas” would not change, the time was “right” for him to take on a different role.  He said that the “battle” for freedom of speech and freedom of thought, “has never been more intense” and that most of the media were in “cahoots” with elites who have “open contempt for those who are not members of their rarefied class.” Murdoch also stressed that the companies – and himself – were in “robust health”.  Over seven decades Murdoch amassed vast wealth and influence through his ownership of some of the world’s largest news and media companies across the UK, US and Australia.  The news of Murdoch’s departure comes after Fox News was forced to pay a $787.5 million settlement to voting equipment company Dominion over falsely reporting that the 2020 US election was rigged against Donald Trump. The company faces a similar lawsuit from voting machine company Smartmatic. Earlier this year, Murdoch withdrew a proposed plan to merge News Corp and Fox saying the transaction was “not optimal” for shareholders at that time.  In a statement, 52 year-old Lachlan – who will become sole chair of News Corp and continue as executive chair and CEO of Fox Corp – congratulated his father on his “remarkable” career and thanked him for his “vision”, “pioneering spirit” and “enduring legacy”.  “We are grateful that he will serve as Chairman Emeritus and know he will continue to provide valued counsel to both companies,” he said.  More from Tortoise

Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as chairman of Fox and News Corp, leaving his eldest son Lachlan the sole executive of his media empire.  Murdoch, 92, said that he would take on a new role of chairman emeritus in November.  Murdoch wrote in a memo to staff that although his daily engagement with “news and ideas” would not change, the time was “right” for him to take on a different role.  He said that the “battle” for freedom of speech and freedom of thought, “has never been more intense” and that most of the media were in “cahoots” with elites who have “open contempt for those who are not members of their rarefied class.” Murdoch also stressed that the companies – and himself – were in “robust health”.  Over seven decades Murdoch amassed vast wealth and influence through his ownership of some of the world’s largest news and media companies across the UK, US and Australia.  The news of Murdoch’s departure comes after Fox News was forced to pay a $787.5 million settlement to voting equipment company Dominion over falsely reporting that the 2020 US election was rigged against Donald Trump. The company faces a similar lawsuit from voting machine company Smartmatic. Earlier this year, Murdoch withdrew a proposed plan to merge News Corp and Fox saying the transaction was “not optimal” for shareholders at that time.  In a statement, 52 year-old Lachlan – who will become sole chair of News Corp and continue as executive chair and CEO of Fox Corp – congratulated his father on his “remarkable” career and thanked him for his “vision”, “pioneering spirit” and “enduring legacy”.  “We are grateful that he will serve as Chairman Emeritus and know he will continue to provide valued counsel to both companies,” he said.  More from Tortoise

Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as chairman of Fox and News Corp, leaving his eldest son Lachlan the sole executive of his media empire.  Murdoch, 92, said that he would take on a new role of chairman emeritus in November.  Murdoch wrote in a memo to staff that although his daily engagement with “news and ideas” would not change, the time was “right” for him to take on a different role.  He said that the “battle” for freedom of speech and freedom of thought, “has never been more intense” and that most of the media were in “cahoots” with elites who have “open contempt for those who are not members of their rarefied class.” Murdoch also stressed that the companies – and himself – were in “robust health”.  Over seven decades Murdoch amassed vast wealth and influence through his ownership of some of the world’s largest news and media companies across the UK, US and Australia.  The news of Murdoch’s departure comes after Fox News was forced to pay a $787.5 million settlement to voting equipment company Dominion over falsely reporting that the 2020 US election was rigged against Donald Trump. The company faces a similar lawsuit from voting machine company Smartmatic. Earlier this year, Murdoch withdrew a proposed plan to merge News Corp and Fox saying the transaction was “not optimal” for shareholders at that time.  In a statement, 52 year-old Lachlan – who will become sole chair of News Corp and continue as executive chair and CEO of Fox Corp – congratulated his father on his “remarkable” career and thanked him for his “vision”, “pioneering spirit” and “enduring legacy”.  “We are grateful that he will serve as Chairman Emeritus and know he will continue to provide valued counsel to both companies,” he said.  More from Tortoise

Who is lurking behind the Covid conspiracies spreading across social media? Why do they do it, and how worried should we be? Our daily digital ThinkIns are exclusively for Tortoise members and their guests.Try Tortoise free for four weeks to unlock your complimentary tickets to all our digital ThinkIns.If you’re already a member and looking for your ThinkIn access code you can find it in the My Tortoise > My Membership section of the app next to ‘ThinkIn access code’.We’d love you to join us.Disinformation continues to disorient us. As part of our ongoing investigation into the sources and structures that perpetuate the spread of fake news, join Tortoise’s investigations team and invited experts in tracking far-right Facebook groups as we examine the social media accounts consistently and deliberately spreading lies on many subjects, and to great effect. What are their motivations? Who funds them? And what can be done – by the platforms, the fact-checkers and ordinary social media users – to halt the infodemic at source?Chair: James Harding, Editor and Co-founder, TortoiseOur special guest include:Manlio De Domenico is a physicist, Senior Researcher at Fondazione Bruno Kessler (Italy), where he leads the interdisciplinary Complex Multilayer Networks (CoMuNe) Lab, and national coordinator of the Italian Chapter of the Complex Systems Society. His research is focused on the study of collective phenomena emerging from natural and artificial interdependent systems, with leading contributions to modelling and analysis of multilayer networks, their structure, dynamics, information capacity and resilience to shocks. His applications range from biological to socio-technical systems, with impact on personalised medicine, smart city engineering, risk assessment and policy-making in response to spreading phenomena such as epidemics and infodemics. Recently, he coordinated the team behind the COVID19 Infodemic Observatory.Raymond M Serrato is an open source investigator and social media analyst based in Berlin. His research on social media and elections, influence operations, and mis/disinformation has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, and CNN. He has worked for the United Nations, the EU, and civil society organisations managing projects in countries as diverse as Tunisia, Pakistan, and Myanmar. In another life, he was a communications specialist in the US Navy, where he learned how to dog down a hatch and fight a class “B” fire.Lucy Hooberman is Professor of Digital Media & Innovation at the University of Warwick. Her research is focussed on real world, practise-based projects such as the qualitative research necessary to launch a new NHS digital health platform serving the needs of NHS staff as well as the patient population of the West Midlands. She joined Academia from a career in “mainstream” media as a Producer and executive Producer for Channel 4 and at the BBC in their Innovation Lab, BBC Imagineering for eight years in “new” media supporting and leading the BBC’s transition onto the internet and into the world of the WWW.How does a digital ThinkIn work?A digital ThinkIn is like a video conference, hosted by a Tortoise editor, that takes place at the advertised time of the event. Digital ThinkIns are new to Tortoise. Now that our newsroom has closed due to the coronavirus outbreak, we feel it’s more important than ever that we ‘get together’ to talk about the world and what’s going on.The link to join the conversation will be emailed to you after you have registered for your ticket to attend. When you click the link, you enter the digital ThinkIn and can join a live conversation from wherever you are in the world. Members can enter their unique members’ access code to book tickets. Find yours in My Tortoise > My Membership in the Tortoise app.If you have any questions or get stuck, please read our FAQs, or get in touch with us at memberhelp@tortoisemedia.comWhat is a Tortoise ThinkIn?A ThinkIn is not another panel discussion. It is a forum for civilised disagreement. It is a place where everyone has a seat at the (virtual) table. It’s where we get to hear what you think, drawn from your experience, energy and expertise. It is the heart of what we do at Tortoise.