Gabfest Reads | The Real Succession
Political Gabfest
Slate Podcasts
4.4 • 8.5K Ratings
🗓️ 21 March 2026
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
David Plotz talks with journalist Gabriel Sherman about his new book Bonfire of the Murdochs: How the Epic Fight to Control the Last Great Media Dynasty Broke a Family—and the World. Sherman, who also wrote the bestselling biography of Fox News chief Roger Ailes, spent 15 years reporting on the Murdoch empire. In this book he turns his lens on the family itself — the rivalries, the wounds, and the secret Nevada courtroom battle that finally forced Rupert's hand.
Sherman sketches each of the three main Murdoch children: the shrewd and overlooked Elisabeth, the conservative golden child Lachlan, and the restless, brittle James. He explains how Rupert pitted each of his children against each other to consolidate his own power. He and Plotz explore the parallels between the Murdoch and Trump dynasties, debate whether a James-led Fox News could ever have been tethered to reality, and ask what happens to the empire once Rupert is gone. Sherman's prediction: Lachlan sells.
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Podcast production by Nina Porzucki.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Gapfest reads for March 26. I'm David Plotz, one of the hosts of the Slate Political Gap Fest. |
| 0:20.2 | Gabriel Sherman, what do Rupert Murdoch's children call their father? |
| 0:24.6 | Pop, the old man, the chairman, the boss. |
| 0:27.8 | I mean, there's a whole dad. |
| 0:30.1 | I mean, they got the whole gamut of, depends the context. |
| 0:33.9 | To his face, pop, you think? |
| 0:35.7 | Yep, to his face, pop. |
| 0:36.9 | Gabriel Sherman has spent much of his magnificent journalist's career deep inside the universe built by Rupert Murdoch. |
| 0:43.3 | He wrote the best-selling book about Fox News, Imperator Roger Ailes, the loudest voice in the room. |
| 0:48.3 | Now he's followed it up with a biography of the Murdoch family, Bonfire of the Murdox, |
| 0:53.1 | how the epic fight to control the last great |
| 0:55.2 | media dynasty broke a family and the world. Reading Bonfire of the Murdox makes you understand |
| 1:01.2 | why the family has been so paranoid about the HBO show Succession, why even divorce agreements |
| 1:06.8 | in the family include clauses forbidding people from talking to succession writers. |
| 1:17.1 | Since the kind of stories that you saw played out for gruesome comedy on that show actually happened in a more vivid and tragic and human way with the Murdox themselves as Gabe Chronicles. |
| 1:24.1 | Gabe, welcome to GabFest reads. |
| 1:25.3 | Congratulations on the book. |
| 1:26.5 | Thank you. |
| 1:27.0 | It's good to be here. |
| 1:28.3 | So you have not really written a book about Fox or Tucker Carlson or the Wall Street Journal or even the |
| 1:34.6 | kind of monumental impact that Fox's journalism has had on the world. It is about the miserable |
| 1:39.2 | family life of half a dozen people. Why did you write about this family rather than the effects the family's |
... |
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