Watching “Succession” Amid the Fox News Scandals

 

 

 

"HBO could not have programmed the current season of “Succession” better if it had tried. The weeks-long humiliation of Fox News and the Murdochs during the show’s final ten episodes has supercharged its already potent satire, making even the most minor plot points and throwaway lines feel delightfully loaded. For example, a fleeting callback in the most recent episode to Mark Ravenhead, an anchor on the Roys’ conservative news network ATN, might have ordinarily garnered scant notice, except that the white-nationalist, occasionally bow-tied broadcaster clearly riffs on Tucker Carlson, who was abruptly fired from Fox News two weeks ago. ATN’s uncertain future—as a midsize media property in a business landscape dominated by tech giants, one of which may buy up the network—recalls, too, Fox’s ongoing occupancy in hot water: its struggles as an old-media establishment desperate to stave off competition from upstarts. The narrative onscreen and the headlines stemming from Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against Fox have been remarkably complementary: Season 4 killed off Logan Roy, and, although the character’s inspiration, Rupert Murdoch, is still alive, the real-life mogul is on his heels, his declining influence exposed and the future of his company in question. The looming litigation by Smartmatic, another voting-technology company suing Fox, and the sagging Presidential prospects of Ron DeSantis, reportedly Murdoch’s favored candidate for the 2024 election, have only added to the perception of the nonagenarian under siege."

 

read articlE by INKOO KANG