Bancroft gravitated to music early. As a toddler, she began playing the piano and was soon studying two hours a day. She carried a Fisher-Price cassette player, usually blasting Rachmaninoff, everywhere. At 10, she started singing lessons; at 16, she decided on a career as an opera singer. Her parents agreed to her choice as long as she finished high school, which she did in 1998. Over the next few years, Bancroft studied with private vocal instructors and, in 2002, enrolled at L'Institut de Ribaupierre, a conservatory in Lausanne, Switzerland. Last spring, she graduated and returned to studying privately.

At 5-feet-10, her wide eyes rimmed in black, Bancroft is an odd mix of confidence, wariness, and innocence. She expresses strong opinions about her family, for example, yet refuses to reveal her birth city. (Her father says it's Newport Beach, California.) Ticking off her qualifications to serve on the News Corp. board, she points out that she grew up in Europe, has a flexible schedule (she commutes to Milan for voice classes every few weeks), and sleeps only three to five hours a night. She also says she is multilingual and routinely reads foreign-language newspapers. Instead of being intimidated by the accomplished men who will be her colleagues, she says the prospect thrills her: "I have a much easier time understanding men. I was a tomboy. I love camping. I love sailing. I love doing boy stuff."

Is she planning to get an M.B.A. to help prepare for the position? "In journalism?" she asks.

Murdoch's offer to create a board seat for a family representative was part of his overture in early April of last year. The deal progressed in fits and starts but was finally accepted by the Bancrofts at the end of July. At that point, the focus of discussions shifted to finding board nominees. Candidates discussed by family members ranged from Paul Steiger, a longtime managing editor of the Journal, to John Carroll, the former editor of the Los Angeles Times. Murdoch was initially pulling for Bancroft family member Elizabeth Steele, who was in charge of the board-nomination process.

But neither Steiger nor Steele wished to be considered. News Corp. rejected Carroll, adding the stipulation that the representative should be a family member. With no one selected as of September, the Bancrofts decided that interested family members should nominate themselves. Three threw their hats into the ring: Michael Hill, a second cousin of Bancroft's who had been active at Dow Jones; Elisabeth Chelberg, an equestrian cousin known for past activism against the company's management; and Bancroft herself, who put her name forward in a four-line email to the family.

"There were better candidates than me by far, but they weren't in the running," she says. "I wouldn't say I was excited. There were so many negotiations going on, and the family was screwing it up right and left. My focus was more on, Jesus Christ, how am I related to these people?"

In an official family email poll taken in late September, Hill, an environmental scientist from Boston, came in first. Chelberg came in second. Out of 35 eligible family members (the exact number who voted is not clear), Bancroft garnered two votes, hers and her father's. Though Murdoch was notified of the family's choice, he never interviewed either Hill or Chelberg. Instead, he met with Bancroft privately, having been introduced by Andrew Steginsky, a News Corp. investor and a longtime Murdoch acquaintance who also happened to be friendly with Billy Cox III, Natalie's second cousin. According to someone familiar with the situation, it was Steginsky who suggested to Natalie that she run for the board seat in the first place.

In late October, unbeknownst to the rest of the family, Lon Jacobs, News Corp.'s general counsel, and Viet Dinh, a News Corp. board member and head of the nominating committee, flew to London to vet Bancroft at Murdoch's request. Jacobs and Dinh spent a morning with her, explaining the requirements of the job over breakfast. In a pro forma followup, Bancroft sat down with representatives of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, News Corp.'s outside legal counsel, to fill out a questionnaire to evaluate her fitness as an independent board member.