THE WASHINGTON POST: Why reporters are shut out of the big Murdoch family trust case

The fate of Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the rest of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire was presumably being decided in a courtroom in Reno, Nev., this week, as the media mogul wages a legal battle against several of his children over their family trust.

It’s the kind of high-stakes, “Succession”-esque drama that reporters dream of, with the potential to expose the workings of one of the world’s most powerful news empires.

But outside of the Murdoch family, their lawyers and some court employees, no one knows anything about what has been taking place inside since probate court took up the case on Monday - and media organisations are fighting to find out more.

Citing confidential information at the heart of the case, county probate commissioner Edmund J. Gorman Jr. has put under seal nearly all details of the dispute - from the names of the parties to almost all of the motions filed by lawyers.

Reporters who had hoped for days of a trial that could expose the financial and interpersonal guts of the Murdoch empire have instead had to make do with brief glimpses of the family passing from their black SUVs into the courthouse.

Until recently, the case wasn’t even listed on the court’s calendar, making it difficult to know it existed. A July report in the New York Times revealed the secret legal battle’s existence, and the article remains one of the few public sources of information about it.

The fight pits Murdoch, 93, and his eldest son, Lachlan, against three of Murdoch’s other children: onetime heir apparent James, and daughters Elisabeth and Prudence. Under the terms of a family trust Murdoch set up to avoid a messy dispute in his second divorce, the four siblings would share power in the event of his death.

But, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post in July, Murdoch is worried that his other children could dislodge Lachlan, his chosen successor who oversees his father’s Fox Corporation and News Corporation, and who is considered to be more politically aligned with the conservative patriarch than the others.

Because the trust allows for amendments that benefit all the heirs equally, Murdoch has argued that placing only Lachlan in charge would preserve the outlets’ financial success in a way that would mean more money for all of the children, according to the New York Times.

A representative for James Murdoch’s side of the legal case declined to comment. Lawyers for Rupert Murdoch didn’t respond to a request for comment.

A group of major media outlets, including the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Associated Press and CNN, have jointly filed motions seeking to open up access to the trial.

In a Sept. 4 filing, the group argued that the “immense” stakes of the Murdoch trial mean the case should be opened up to the public.

“This proceeding does not pertain to some generic family trust matter which concerns few people, but one that will decide the future of the massive media empire which owns one of America’s most influential news outlets, Fox News,” the group argued in its filing.

A district judge rejected most of their argument on Sept. 12, making a few details about the case’s existence public but keeping everything else sealed. As signs of how much secrecy remains over the case, the Murdoch trust is still referenced in court records as “Doe Trust #1,” and lawyers for the media have complained that they find it difficult to file motions around the case because they don’t know the names of other parties or their lawyers.

The media group filed a petition to the Nevada Supreme Court on Thursday, asking the justices to unseal more details and pause the probate court case until the proceedings could be opened to the public.

In its Nevada Supreme Court filing, the media coalition said the Reno court had sought to “shroud every single piece of information about the case - even its existence and a prior order sealing the case - in perpetual secrecy.”

While the coalition asked the high court to respond quickly, it’s unclear whether any decision will be made before the Murdoch dispute is finished.

Nevada courts often default to a “culture of secrecy” when families are involved, even in the case of a globe-spanning media business like the Murdoch empire, according to Alexander Falconi, who advocates for more judicial transparency on his website Our Nevada Judges.

“It’s the exact same thing that the Nevada judges and lawyers have been doing since the beginning of Nevada,” Falconi said.

Because of the sealing, it can be difficult to know who is arguing to keep the proceedings sealed. But a party described as “Doe #9” in filings has made at least one novel argument: that opening up the case and others like it could expose elderly Nevadans to identity theft by making personal information more accessible.

In their Sept. 4 filing, the media coalition quipped that the elder Murdoch had enough resources to protect himself from would-be scammers.

“Rupert Murdoch may be elderly, but he is far from vulnerable and there are extensive legitimate interests in much of the information surrounding this dispute,” the coalition’s lawyers argued.

Falconi has pressed for more public access to the Murdoch case and won a Nevada Supreme Court case over public access to family-court hearings in February that has been cited by the media coalition in its filings.

But even if journalists ultimately triumph in their fight to access more information about the case, Falconi fears it will only come after the Murdoch case is resolved, rendering it moot.

“I think this is a travesty; this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Falconi said.

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