Updated / Saturday, 1 Aug 2020 12:26
James Murdoch, the son of the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, has resigned from the board of News Corporation.
The news was announced in a document released by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
A letter sent by James Murdoch to the board said the decision was due to “disagreements over certain editorial content published by the company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions”.
News Corp owns the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, The Times and The Sun newspapers among others, but not Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News network.
James Murdoch was once seen as his father’s successor, but the departure reinforces his disengagement from the family media empire, which grew from a newspaper group in Australia.
Rupert Mudoch’s younger son headed 21st Century Fox until last year when he left after Disney acquired most of the group’s assets.
The 47-year-old has recently been critical of his father’s business and its media coverage.
In January, he denounced the climate change scepticism of some Murdoch media, citing coverage of the fires which devastated large parts of Australia.
He has launched his own private holding company called Lupa Systems, which among other things has taken a stake in Vice Media.
In a joint statement, James Murdoch’s older brother, Lachlan, and their father, Rupert, expressed their gratitude to him for his service to the company and wished him the best for the future.
