Rupert Murdoch admits Fox News lies

In the trial of voting machine maker Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, chief executive of parent company News Corp., has admitted that “some of our commentators” have “reinforced” the stolen election narrative. Jeanine Pirro did that, Murdoch said, as did Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo “maybe” and Sean Hannity “a little bit.” The broadcaster itself, said Murdoch, did not confirm these statements.

They thought it was nonsense and yet spread it

Fox News is accused by Dominion of spreading Donald Trump’s lie about voter fraud after the lost 2020 presidential election by manipulating Dominion voting machines, thereby damaging the voting machine maker’s reputation.

In short messages and e-mails published in court last week, it became clear that Murdoch and other senior officials as well as the station’s talk show hosts believed the story of election fraud to be nonsense – and yet, in front of the cameras, the crude theses that Trump made and his attorneys, Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, continued to gain momentum so as not to lose viewers who would rather not face the truth.

“We treated this as news”

His station has tried to “walk the tightrope between spewing conspiracy theories and clarifying that they are in fact false,” Murdoch said, according to publications at a media tycoon-under-oath hearing last month. “We treated this as the news that the President and his attorneys said so,” Murdoch said.

The question before the court is whether Fox News spread this misinformation against its better judgment. According to American law, in the case of a lawsuit against the media for damage to reputation, it must be proven that this was done in bad faith – “with actual malice”. The trial begins on April 17, and the documents that have now been published serve to clarify the evidence.

When asked by a Dominion attorney if Murdoch could have prevented Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani from spreading the false claims on camera, he said, “I could have done that. But I didn’t do it.” Murdoch said it was a “mistake” to invite Trump friend and entrepreneur Mike Lindell to Fox News’s Tucker Carlson show, where he continued to spread the theses about election fraud permit. “In retrospect, we should have criticized that more,” Murdoch said.

Did Murdoch have doubts? “Oh yeah.”

Murdoch’s concessions provide another glimpse into the cynical behind-the-scenes decisions of the network, which had made itself unpopular with its viewers by becoming the first news organization to declare the important state of Arizona for Joe Biden – correctly, as it turned out. Murdoch said he did not bow to pressure from Trump associates, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner, to retract the Arizona forecast. When asked if Murdoch’s assessment of the allegations of massive voter fraud was correct, a Dominion lawyer said, “Oh yes.”

Murdoch’s comments contradict Fox News lawyers’ claims that the network never reinforced the voter fraud allegations that Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani made, mostly unchallenged, on the Dobbs, Bartiromo and Hannity shows. Fox News also claimed that the hosts themselves were unaware that the claims made by their guests were false – a fact that has been refuted by the release of numerous text messages and emails in which Hannity and Carlson, for example, questioned these claims and called them “crazy “ designated. Media attorney Lee Levine told the New York Times that this proved to be “a pretty compelling argument that Fox has corroborated the veracity of what was said.”

Murdoch admitted that in a conversation with his son Lachlan, who owns Fox Corp. and Fox News boss Suzanne Scott debated the “direction Fox should be taking” after viewers appeared to have migrated to smaller channels. According to the documents, broadcaster Suzanne Scott said that “we have to be careful not to annoy viewers.”

Trump’s son-in-law received information

Murdoch also admitted to providing Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, with confidential information about Biden campaign ads and debate strategies. The documents disclosed in court also show the close cooperation between Fox News and the Trump campaign. Among other things, Trump’s decision to finally remove Sidney Powell from his team was fueled by severe criticism from Fox circles – behind the scenes.