Lachlan Murdoch is the heir apparent to the world's most famous conservative media empire -- but he says he's really a libertarian. At least on the issue of personal rights.

Murdoch is the Deputy Chief Operating Officer of the News Corporation, a worldwide, multibillion-dollar empire built by his father, Rupert Murdoch.

The News Corporation owns Fox Entertainment Group, Inc., the New York Post, 20th Century Fox, Australia's National Rugby League, HarperCollins Publishers, 120 Australian newspapers, The Times of London, British Sky Broadcasting, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the Asian satellite company, Star TV.

In his role as Deputy Chief Operating Officer, Murdoch oversees the New York Post, HarperCollins, and 33 television stations in the Fox Television Stations group.

Previously, he worked as publisher of the New York Post and Executive Chairman of News Limited, the company's Australian newspaper division.

A photogenic young man whose social life provided fodder for the tabloids before he married Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Sarah O'Hare in 1999, Murdoch has been called the publishing world's John F. Kennedy, Jr.

While his father has used his media empire to promote conservative causes and politicians, Murdoch said in an interview in The New York Times Sunday Magazine (July 19, 1998) that he is "economically conservative but libertarian on people's individual rights."

That libertarian impulse manifests itself, he said, on issues like cigarettes.

"I don't smoke," he said. "But I think taxes on cigarettes are the most outrageous example of the Nanny State. It would be one thing if every penny went to researching lung cancer, but in fact it's greedy politicians using the money to pork-barrel roads or put into the welfare state. People who want to smoke shouldn't be burdened because of the political correctness of our times."

-- Bill Winter

Quotable

"[I'm] economically conservative but libertarian on people's individual rights." -- Lachlan Murdoch in The New York Times Sunday Magazine (July 19, 1998)

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