Lachlan,52,is the third-oldest of Rupert Murdoch’s six children. Born in London to Murdoch and his second wife,Anna,he grew up steeped in the media business. In an interview with the ABC’sDynasties program,he said that every morning,before catching the school bus,he and his siblings would read the morning papers -The New York Post,The New York Times,the Daily News and the Wall Street Journal - with his father flagging stories of interest,ordering:“Read that.”
The best way to capture their father’s attention in the evenings was to talk about media or politics,according to Paddy Manning’s 2022 biography,The Successor. As Lachlan got older,he would spend summers working in the family business,cleaning the presses for Sydney’sDaily Mirror,or working as a cub reporter for theSan Antonio Express-News.
A rivalry between Lachlan and his younger brother,James,played out from an early age,where even family Monopoly games “were intense and everybody was prepared to cheat,” according to one published account.
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Murdoch and his siblings attended Dalton,a private school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side,and other elite schools,including Trinity School,where he formed the Trinity Conservative Society,“In an attempt to create a healthy balance between all points of view,” according to one yearbook entry cited by Manning.
After graduating in 1994 from Princeton,where he majored in philosophy,Lachlan entered the family business,spending three years in Australia,ascending the corporate ladder to become chairman of News Limited.
Lachlan returned to New York to join News Corp. He rose to deputy chief operating officer,overseeing the company’s US television stations group and publishing assets,including theNew York Post. Many saw him as being trained to assume the corporate reins as his father’s successor.