Minority shareholders in Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation tried and failed this week to release the python-like stranglehold the nonagenarian media mogul has over the company. Realistically, these shareholders were never going to succeed.

The minorities want to collapse the company’s structure allowing the Murdoch family to vote 41 per cent of the shares despite only having a 14 per cent economic interest in the media giant.

However, a shareholder vote is required to achieve this outcome. You see the problem here – a classic catch-22.

Rupert Murdoch’s stranglehold on News Corporation remains despite the efforts of minority shareholders. Credit: NYT

Back in 2015, shareholders tried a similar trick. And while 90 per cent of non-Murdoch aligned shareholders voted to abandon the structure that gave Rupert Murdoch disproportionate control, it failed to pass.

Dual-class shareholding structures are the antithesis of shareholder democracy – more of a corporate version of a gerrymander.

This week’s vote was also an advisory one, meaning even if it had been passed,........

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