The Sun has been in the news over the past few days after making a sensational report that said a BBC presenter had paid a teenager for sexually explicit images. The news organization is owned by Rupert Murdoch.

Who is Rupert Murdoch?

Keith Rupert Murdoch is an American media mogul, investor, and business tycoon who was born in Australia on March 11th, 1931. The 92-year-old is the owner of hundreds of regional, local, and international media outlets through his company News Corp, including the newspapers The Sun and The Times in the UK, The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, and The Australian in Australia, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Post in the US, as well as the publishing company HarperCollins and the television networks Sky News Australia and Fox News (via the Fox Corporation).

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He also held ownership positions in 21st Century Fox (until 2019), Sky (until 2018), and the now-defunct News of the World. According to Forbes magazine, Murdoch had a net worth of $21.7 billion as of 2 March 2022, ranking him as the 71st richest person in the world and the 31st in the United States.

He attended Geelong Grammar School, where Prince Charles attended for two terms, before continuing his education at Oxford University. When Sir Keith Murdoch, his father, passed away when he was 22 years old, he received a half-share in two Adelaide newspapers.

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Over the course of the following decade, he purchased Australian newspapers such as The Daily Mirror in Sydney and the Sunday Times in Perth. He first purchased The News of the World in 1968, then a struggling Sun the following year.

He later acquired The Times and The Sunday Times, moving all four publications into a new electronic printing facility in east London in 1986 while laying off 5,000 employees.

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The relocation altered how newspapers were run in the UK, despite clashes with pickets outside the Wapping offices. He shut down Today newspaper in 1995 before closing the News of the World in 2011 following the phone hacking incident.