A real-life ‘Succession’ story

Before HBO’s Roys, there were the Binghams of Louisville

I have not, I admit, watched “Succession,” HBO’s ongoing series about the trials and travails of the fictional Roy family, whose patriarch is at at least partially inspired by Rupert Murdoch. I’ve read some recaps on the AV Club website, though, and been curious about the show.

But for years, I wanted HBO or someone to do a series about a real-life story with some similar family squabbles.

Jump back a few years, to 1991. I had been working at the Shelbyville Times-Gazette for six years. Franklin Yates, who had merged the Bedford County Times and the Shelbyville Gazette in the 1940s, was still serving as its publisher. I went in to see Mr. Yates about something and noticed the book “The Patriarch: The Rise and Fall of the Bingham Dynasty,” by the husband-and-wife team of Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones, on his desk. This is not, let me make clear, the right-wing “InfoWars” Alex Jones, but a journalist whose family owned and operated the Greeneville Sun for many years. Alex S. Jones had met Mr. Yates at some time or another, no doubt at a Tennessee Press Association meeting, and had sent him an autographed copy of the book.

The Bingham family had a media empire in Louisville, Ky., for decades, until family squabbles led to…