US media giant Fox Corporation has named Nicholas Trutanich as its next general counsel after the company said chief legal and policy officer Adam Ciongoli would not be renewing his contract and will be stepping down on 1 December.
Trutanich is currently the company’s principal deputy GC. In his elevated role, he will report directly to executive chair and CEO Lachlan Murdoch.
Murdoch said: “Nick Trutanich has been a critical member of the Fox team since joining the company five years ago and will bring deep legal, litigation and compliance experience to this expanded role. We look forward to Nick’s leadership.”
Trutanich joined in 2021 as chief ethics and compliance officer from the Department of Justice, where he was US attorney for the District of Nevada. He became deputy GC in August 2024.
He also had earlier roles with the DoJ, including as a federal prosecutor. He started his legal career at Kirkland & Ellis.
Trutanich said he was grateful to lead “such a talented legal team”, adding: “It is an exciting time of growth and innovation at Fox, and I look forward to working with colleagues across the company to advance our goals.”
Ciongoli steps down from the legal chief role after three years. He joined in December 2023 from Campbell Soup Company, replacing Viet Dinh shortly after the company settled a multi-million-dollar defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for Fox News’s coverage of the 2020 US presidential election. Ciongoli will remain on at Fox until June 2028 as a special adviser to the company.
Murdoch said: “I’d like to thank Adam for his many immense contributions over the last three years. I deeply appreciate his service to Fox and am grateful that he will continue to serve Fox as a special adviser.”
In other recent in-house media moves, last month the Associated Press hired Craig Linder as GC from Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones, replacing Karen Kaiser in the role.
And in June, US public broadcasting non-profit PBS named its acting CLO Jill Patrone as its full-time legal chief, replacing Katherine Lauderdale, who had led the PBS legal department since 2002.
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