It is barely a hairline crack in the multi-billion dollar Fox News empire that minor shareholders Rupert’s younger son James and his wife Katheryn slammed Fox News and News Corp over their climate change denial. This was the main story on Daily Beast today:
We don’t know if this had any effect on Lachlan and Rupert’s decision to donate what for them is a paltry sum of money:
On Wednesday, The Daily Beast contacted a representative for Lachlan and Rupert requesting comment on James’ statement and asked about both men’s position on climate change but received no response. The Beast followed up with a query asking if Lachlan or Rupert planned on donating money to bushfire relief efforts.
However, the next day this happened:
Late Thursday, it was announced Lachlan and his wife, Sarah, had pledged $1.4 million (A$2 million) to bushfire recovery efforts.
On Monday, News Corp announced that it will donate $3.5 million (A$5 million) to bushfire relief. Rupert, whose net worth is estimated by Bloomberg News to be in excess of $7 billion, and his wife, Jerry Hall, pledged $1.4 million (A$2 million).
“It is clear that confronting the bushfire disaster in Australia requires both an immediate response and an ongoing investment in rebuilding the lives and livelihoods of those most affected by the fires across the country,” Rupert said in a statement.
Putting this in perspective: Fox CEO Lachlan and his wife Sarah recently splashed out $150 million on a mansion in Bel Air, California, the second most expensive residential property sale in the United States.
These donations amount to the equivalent of you or I making a big deal out of giving a quarter to help hurricane victims.
Even John D. Rockefeller, one of the richest men ever, who is famously known to gave $35,000 worth of mint condition dimes ($5 in today’s money) mostly to children everywhere he went, actually interacted with normal people. Rockefeller donated more than half a billion dollars to various educational, religious and scientific causes through the Rockefeller Foundation. Reference
Rupert Murdoch’s personal net worth is $7.57 billion. News Corp just sold 20th Century Fox to Disney for $71 billion. So we’re supported to be impressed that this is an act of generosity in helping the people of Australia.
Meanwhile this is how they are allowing the issue of climate change to be covered on Fox News:
On Jan. 6 on Fox News, contributor Raymond Arroyo—speaking on The Ingraham Angle about Golden Globes winners warning about climate following the Australian fires—said, “They just arrested 12 people in Australia for those fires and they were blaming it on climate change. Wrong again!”
Two nights later, host Laura Ingraham referred to it as a “climate-change flameout” and said that “celebrities in the media have been pressing the narrative that the wildfires in Australia are caused by climate change” while again hosting Arroyo, who added: “This is incomplete reporting, Laura. Though Australia has had the highest temperatures on record—the driest season ever—it’s not correct to say climate change caused these wildfires.”
Other family members are refusing to respond when asked about their position on climate change:
- Elisabeth Murdoch hung up after being quizzed on the issue. In 2011, News Corp bought Elisabeth’s TV production company, Shine Group, for $673 million.
- Wendi Deng, the mother of Murdoch’s two youngest daughters, Chloe and Grace—and who divorced Rupert in 2013—told The Daily Beast, “I can’t talk about this.”
- Prudence Murdoch, Rupert’s first child, who resides in Australia, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Belief in climate change, or rather disbelief in climate change, has become enmeshed in right wing politics and support for the fossil fuel industry. This is from The Washington Post:
A growing number of Americans describe climate change as a crisis, and two-thirds say President Trump is doing too little to tackle the problem.
The results, from a poll conducted by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), point to a growing disconnect between Americans worried about the warming planet and Trump administration officials, who have aggressively scaled back Obama-era environmental regulations and relinquished the nation’s role as a global leader in pushing for climate action.
The poll finds that a strong majority of Americans — about 8 in 10 — say that human activity is fueling climate change, and roughly half believe action is urgently needed within the next decade if humanity is to avert its worst effects. Nearly 4 in 10 now say climate change is a “crisis,” up from less than a quarter five years ago. Reference.
If public opinion changes enough is there a point that we'll see a change in how Fox News covers the subject? Take the poll.