a coalition of media organizations has petitioned in Nevada Court to open up the secret proceedings of a legal battle which could determine the future of the Murdoch media Empire in July the New York Times published a report that the Murdoch family is locked in a secret Court battle over the control of the family business Patty Manning is a journalist and author and his latest book is titled the successor the high stakes life of Lan Murdoch he joins us now from Hobart good morning morning Dan what's your assessment of what's going on here well you have a um highly secret uh hearing uh in a Family Trust dispute uh which would normally not be of any public interest it's entirely A Private Matter but but in this case um it's over the control the dispute is over the control of perhaps the most one of the most powerful media uh empires in the world and that of course is the Mur media Empire that spans Fox and news corporation and is helmed by L Murdoch since the retirement of his um father ret late last year and so what do you expect is at stake here is this about who has the majority shareholding yes so the way the trust Works uh while ret is alive uh he has complete control uh but he is now 93 and there has been and I you know my book also reported and reinforced this the prospect uh of a of a tussle for control of the Empire once he dies between his four Elder children who will have an equal say in the in how the trust votes and the trust is still the largest uh shareholder and certainly the holder of the voting shares in both Fox and news corporation and so what you have here is an attempt to expand uh the voting power on the trust of Lan Murdoch at the expense on its face of his three siblings uh who will have less voting power if rert and Lan are able to amend the Family Trust and that's what they're arguing in Nevada in the hearing that begins in uh you on Monday week yeah I'm bet you're going to be watching that very closely out of curiosity why Nevada well Nevada has a is more is less transparent if you like than other jurisdictions in the United States and so there's an over um over representation of family trusts that are registered there uh and that is um partly why you are having these uh proceedings that are so that have been so Under Wraps that even the existence of the proceedings has not been discoverable uh so that is what the Coalition of media organizations are arguing is that uh even if the proceedings themselves are closed uh there should there is a constitutional right of access and you've got the new New York Times which broke the original story about the existence of this dispute by by virtue of a leak uh and they obtained a sealed Court Document which nobody else has uh and so they're arguing for uh the proceedings to be opened up alongside CNN AP Reuters uh The Washington Post a few other organizations so it's a it is a significant uh case and yeah I've actually interviewed um uh a group called Al judges which is trying to open up these proceedings along with the media organizations I wanted to ask you Patty about finally about our Nevada judges who are they and what what is their aim here well because Nevada is uh has been traditionally uh you know more secret uh in its um in its uh civil proceedings and including here in Probate um they have been campaigning for they're an open Justice group nonprofit that have been campaigning successfully uh to open up um open up these proceedings uh and and in this case they it's the first Family Trust case that they are bringing so it's very hard to predict how they will succeed but they are a they are determined to appeal if they're um unsuccessful in the first instance to the Nevada Supreme Court and even all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States arguing about the public right to know uh what's going on in these proceedings and whether the trust laws being administered fairly very interesting couple of weeks ahead uh there thanks so much journalist and author padding Manning good to have you along thank you okay