James Murdoch, the younger son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, is buying New York magazine and the news website Vox.com, according to an email reviewed by The Washington Post, a deal that cements his journalistic ambitions apart from the conservative media empire built by his family.
As part of the deal, announced Wednesday morning, Murdoch — through a holding company called Lupa Systems — will also acquire Vox’s podcast network, which distributes dozens of shows including Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway’s “Pivot” and Esther Perel’s “Where Should We Begin?”
In an email to staff members, Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff wrote that the company would cleave into two.
A new Murdoch-owned company, run by Bankoff, will include New York, Vox.com, and the podcast network. Another company, run by Vox Media President Ryan Pauley, will get a new name and comprise brands not included in the purchase: Eater, Popsugar, SB Nation, the Dodo and the Verge.
The company said that the deal is expected to close in four to six weeks. Vox Media and Lupa Systems did not respond immediately to a question about the sale price.
“Separating into two distinct companies best sets up our brands, shows, businesses, talent and teams to continue to lead and prosper in the changing media landscape,” Bankoff wrote.
“This acquisition aligns well with our existing holdings and investments and reflects both our interest in the forward edge of culture and our deep commitment to ambitious journalism and agenda-setting conversations,” Murdoch said in a statement.
In a separate email to Vox.com staff reviewed by The Post, editor in chief Swati Sharma said the sale was a “deliberate decision” and backed the new owners.
“In James and Kathryn Murdoch, we have owners whose record reflects their values — values important to Vox,” she wrote. She noted that the Murdochs have committed more than $50 million to strengthening journalism through their Quadrivium Foundation, including the website SciLine that connects journalists and scientists and the local news-focused nonprofit American Journalism Project.
“They believe in editorial independence, see the value in multiplatform journalism, and through their foundation, are invested in finding solutions to societal problems,” Sharma wrote. “I couldn’t have hoped for better stewards of Vox.”
Vox Media’s sale comes days after Byron Allen announced he had reached a $120 million deal to buy BuzzFeed, a fellow darling of the 2010s media ecosystem. Vox has fared better than peers, growing through acquisitions (including New York in 2019), podcast investments, and a pivot to membership model as traffic from social media platforms and search engines has plummeted.
In a separate email to New York magazine staffers reviewed by The Post, editor in chief David Haskell said the Murdochs have struck him as “thoughtful, careful, and principled,” with a “sophisticated understanding” of the media business.
In his email to New York’s staff, Haskell acknowledged that James and his wife, Kathryn, have sought their own way to make a mark, distinct from the existing Murdoch empire.
“They also have a palpable sense of responsibility. They have asserted, publicly and at times painfully, within the family business and then from outside of it, that the media should play a positive role in society,” he wrote.
James Murdoch is perhaps best known as the left-leaning offshoot of a right-wing media family.
His father is Rupert, the 95-year-old Australian-born media titan who built Fox News into a cable news juggernaut and has been the steward of the Wall Street Journal since 2007. The Murdoch family’s combined fortune is north of $23 billion, according to Forbes. (The deal is also an odd return for New York magazine, which was owned by Rupert Murdoch between 1976 and 1991.)
James Murdoch, who served as the CEO of 21st Century Fox from 2015 until 2019, stepped away from the family media business in 2020 over what he described in a letter as “disagreements over certain editorial content published.” He and Kathryn expressed dissatisfaction with how the family’s Australian news outlets covered climate change amid a spate of wildfires in the region.
Kathryn and James have also invested in the Bulwark, a media company aimed at Republicans opposed to President Donald Trump, and the 19th, the gender-focused nonprofit newsroom.
Following a high-profile succession battle over the future of the family business, Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert’s eldest son, took control in a deal reportedly worth more than $3 billion. Lachlan is seen as Rupert’s ideological companion, while James has sought to chart his own course — a reality cemented by Wednesday’s purchase.
The post Media scion James Murdoch buys New York magazine, Vox.com appeared first on Washington Post.
