The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty

Journalist Wolff (Too Famous) serves up a gossip-filled and inadequately sourced account of recent turmoil inside Fox News, delving into the rivalries between Rupert Murdoch’s children, Tucker Carlson’s tumultuous tenure at Fox, and Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation suit against the network for broadcasting false claims that the voting machine company helped rig the 2020 election. Wolff delivers behind-the-scenes drama, reporting that Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert’s eldest son, encouraged Carlson’s presidential ambitions in the hope that a Carlson administration in 2024 would grant Lachlan the kind of power his father wielded over conservative politicians, only for Rupert, who believed Carlson would be out of his depth, to fire the host as an informal condition of the Dominion settlement. Unfortunately, many of the more salacious details are inconsequential, and throughout Wolff is conspicuously silent on what events he witnessed firsthand, which are recreated from sources, and who those sources are. For instance, he doesn’t name any sources for his claims that Florida governor Ron DeSantis may have kicked Tucker Carlson’s dog during a visit to Carlson’s house and that former Fox host Kimberly Guilfoyle didn’t wear underwear to the 2018 funeral of Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, who was ousted from the network in 2016 in the wake of sexual harassment allegations. This is heavy on rumors and short on substance. (Sept.)