[33] He began to direct his attention to acquisition and expansion, buying the troubled Sunday Times in Perth, Western Australia (1956) and over the next few years acquiring suburban and provincial newspapers in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory, including the Sydney afternoon tabloid The Daily Mirror (1960).

The Economist describes Murdoch as "inventing the modern tabloid",[37] as he developed a pattern for his newspapers, increasing sports and scandal coverage and adopting eye-catching headlines.

In January 1964, while touring New Zealand with friends in a rented Morris Minor after sailing across the Tasman, Murdoch read of a takeover bid for the Wellington paper by the British-based Canadian newspaper magnate Lord Thomson of Fleet.

[41][42] After the Keating government relaxed media ownership laws, in 1986 Murdoch launched a takeover bid for The Herald and Weekly Times, which was the largest newspaper publisher in Australia.

[53] Ownership of The Times came to him through his relationship with Lord Thomson, who had grown tired of losing money on it as a result of an extended period of industrial action that stopped publication.

In England, the move roused the anger of the print unions, resulting in a long and often violent dispute that played out in Wapping, one of London's docklands areas, where Murdoch had installed the very latest electronic newspaper purpose-built publishing facility in an old warehouse.

Many on the political left in Britain alleged the collusion of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government with Murdoch in the Wapping affair, as a way of damaging the British trade union movement.

"[76] In a speech he delivered in New York in 2005, Murdoch claimed that Blair described the BBC coverage of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, which was critical of the Bush administration's response, as full of hatred of America.

Other guests attending the "social events" included the then EU trade commissioner Lord Mandelson, the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and co-chairman of NBC Universal Ben Silverman.

[85] It was also reported that Murdoch had given Cameron a personal guarantee that there would be no risk attached to hiring Andy Coulson, the former editor of News of the World, as the Conservative Party's communication director in 2007.

[98] The day before the committee, the website of the News Corporation publication The Sun was hacked, and a false story was posted on the front page claiming that Murdoch had died.

[101][102] On 15 July, Murdoch attended a private meeting in London with the family of Milly Dowler, where he personally apologised for the hacking of their murdered daughter's voicemail by a company he owns.

[113] The six television stations owned by Metromedia formed the nucleus of the Fox Broadcasting Company, founded on 9 October 1986, which later had great success with programs including The Simpsons and The X-Files.

[122] In late 2003, Murdoch acquired a 34% stake in Hughes Electronics, the operator of the largest American satellite TV system, DirecTV, from General Motors for $6 billion (USD).

[128] In 2007, Murdoch acquired Dow Jones & Company,[129][130] which gave him such publications as The Wall Street Journal, Barron's Magazine, the Far Eastern Economic Review (based in Hong Kong) and SmartMoney.

[153] The coalition, reflecting Murdoch and Bloomberg's own views, also advocates significant increases in legal immigration to the United States as a means of boosting America's sluggish economy and lowering unemployment.

[154] The Wall Street Journal editorial page has similarly advocated for increased legal immigration, in contrast to the staunch anti-immigration stance of Murdoch's British newspaper, The Sun.

[159] In early 2018, Mohammad bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, had an intimate dinner at Murdoch's Bel Air estate in Los Angeles.

[161] In October 2010, the Anti-Defamation League in New York City presented Murdoch with its International Leadership Award "for his stalwart support of Israel and his commitment to promoting respect and speaking out against antisemitism".

A judge ruled the then prime minister's media arm Mediaset prevented News Corporation's Italian unit, Sky Italia, from buying advertisements on its television networks.

[184][185][186] In 2019, Murdoch and his new wife Jerry Hall purchased Holmwood, an 18th-century house and estate in the English village of Binfield Heath, some 4 miles (6.4 km) north-east of Reading.

[191] In January 1998, three months before the announcement of his separation from Anna, a Roman Catholic, Murdoch was made a Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great (KSG), a papal honour awarded by Pope John Paul II.

The split was said to be caused by Murdoch's discomfort with Smith's religious views and her infatuation with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, reportedly referring to him as "a messenger from God".

Murdoch's voting privileges are not transferable but will expire upon his death and the stock will then be controlled solely by his children from the prior marriages, although their half-siblings will continue to derive their share of income from it.

[249][250] Towards the end of his touring career, Eagles drummer and lead singer Don Henley would often dedicate his 1982 hit "Dirty Laundry" to Murdoch and Bill O'Reilly.

[251][252] Australian psychedelic rock band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard wrote the track "Evilest Man" about Murdoch, for their 2022 album Omnium Gatherum.

[259] In connection with Murdoch's testimony to the Leveson Inquiry "into the ethics of the British press", editor of Newsweek International, Tunku Varadarajan, referred to him as "the man whose name is synonymous with unethical newspapers".

[262] In late 2015, The Wall Street Journal journalist John Carreyrou began a series of investigative articles on Theranos, the blood-testing start-up founded by Elizabeth Holmes, that questioned its claim to be able to run a wide range of lab tests from a tiny sample of blood from a finger prick.

Murdoch, who became the biggest investor in Theranos in 2015 as a result of his $125 million injection, refused the request from Holmes saying that "he trusted the paper's editors to handle the matter fairly.

"[266][267] In November 2021, Murdoch accused, without providing evidence, Google and Facebook of stifling conservative viewpoints on its platforms, and called for "substantial reform" and openness in the digital ad supply chain.