CNN, New York Times collaborating on Rupert Murdoch documentary

CNN and The New York Times are working on a documentary about Rupert Murdoch, the executive chairman of News Corp and co-chairman of Fox Corp., a source at the newspaper familiar with the project has confirmed.

The documentary is being led by Jonathan Mahler and Jim Rutenberg, the journalists behind “Planet Fox,” an extensive three-part profile of the Murdoch family and its business interests that ran in The New York Times Magazine in April 2019. Details of the documentary were first reported by Bloomberg on Sunday.

CNN will be working with the production company Left/Right, according to Bloomberg, a firm that worked with the Times on a Britney Spears documentary and other productions.

CNN did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the project. A Fox Corp. spokeswoman declined to comment on the proposed documentary.

News Corp owns one of the Times’s larger competitors, The Wall Street Journal. CNN also competes directly with the Fox News cable network, which is owned by Fox Corp.

The new documentary will not be the first CNN-related examination of the Murdoch family or segments of its media empire.

Last year, Simon and Schuster published a book by CNN journalist Brian Stelter called “Hoax” that examined the dynamic between former President Trump and Fox News.

Stelter interviewed “250 current and former Fox insiders in an effort to understand the inner workings of Rupert Murdoch’s multibillion-dollar media empire” according to a description accompanying the book on Amazon.com. In addition, Stelter regularly covers Fox News on his “Reliable Sources” show and newsletter.

The 89-year-old Murdoch has made few public comments recently, though in January he railed against cancel culture and “woke orthodoxy” while accepting an award from the Australia Day Foundation.

His son, Lachlan Murdoch, the CEO of Fox Corp., said Thursday that Fox News ratings would benefit from its position as the “loyal opposition” to President Biden’s administration in the same way competitor MSNBC did during Trump’s tenure.