Billionaire Rupert Murdoch is buying the nonprofit National Geographic Society for $725 million. Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox will take a majority stake in the 127-year-old science journal and other media properties including National Geographic Channels. The board will be split between the two partners.
The magazine is known for its promotion of environmental conservation. Murdoch is known as a “climate change skeptic” (his words). That said, the 84-year-old is passing the keys to the empire to his son James Murdoch, who drives a Prius and is married to an environmentalist. Together, the couple founded the Quadrivium Foundation, a non-profit organization that works on sustainable fishing, among other things. The Murdoch/Fox investment will allow National Geographic to “double its investments in science, research and education.”
