This is In Conversation from Apple News.

I'm Shemitabasu.

Today, the first-hand account inside the Murdoch's succession drama.

Say the name Rupert Murdoch, and it conjures the enormously influential media empire he's created.

From Fox News and the Wall Street Journal to Dow Jones and Harper Collins to the scores of tabloids and TV stations he's built across the world.

And over the decades of his career,

his name has also become synonymous with his extraordinary power as a conservative force in global

media. Rupert, through his newspapers, TV outlets, has the ability to make or break political careers,

topple governments. And I think a lot of people would

say that he played a large role in delivering Donald Trump to the White House.

That's McKay Coppins, staff writer for The Atlantic. In his latest piece, McKay reminds us that

for six people on the planet, Rupert Murdoch isn't just a powerful media mogul. He's also

dad.

His family has become a point of fixation for many in the media because Rupert has always tried

to draw his adult children into the family business.

Rupert is now 93 years old. And when he dies, four of his children, Prudence, Elizabeth, Lachlan, and James will be in control of the family trust and the direction his news outlets will take in the future.

But it almost didn't happen this way.

Last year, Rupert attempted to change the trust, which resulted in a court battle that ruptured the family in a way that

may be beyond repair.

I think it is a tragedy, and I think it's a cautionary tale.

And we all live with the consequences in some ways of this family's dysfunction.

But the dysfunction matters in its own right as well.

...