"Natalie Bancroft: Perhaps the best example of how Murdoch has rigged the game. Bancroft, 31, an aspiring opera singer whom Murdoch handpicked to be the only woman on the board. (At the company's annual meetings, Murdoch is often asked about the lack of female representation on the board; once, in rehearsing his answer to that question, he quipped, 'They talk too much.') Bancroft has her seat thanks to her family’s decision to sell Dow Jones & Company and The Wall Street Journal to News Corp. One condition of the deal was a guaranteed seat for a Bancroft family member on the board until 2018. 'At the time, she was literally the least equipped person to do that job,' a Bancroft family member told Adweek. 'This nice girl had never had any involvement in any family business.' According to the family member, Natalie Bancroft’s appointment was seen by her family as a 'ploy by Rupert'—he kept to the letter of the deal, but it was all for show. When a reporter asked Bancroft in 2008 whether she was planning to get an MBA to help prepare her for the position, she responded, 'In journalism?'” [Source]
Another photo (with interesting caption) after the jump.
Another photo (with interesting caption) after the jump.
