Rupert Murdoch has made the explosive admission that several of the hosts on his Fox News network endorsed the dangerous election fraud claims continuously espoused by Donald Trump.
Murdoch proclaimed he “would have liked us [Fox] to be stronger in denouncing” the baseless fraud claims which were so often echoed without challenge by members of Fox’s extensive line-up of talking heads. These revelations came out during Dominion Voting System’s defamation suit against Fox for insinuating the company played a role in manipulating electoral process of the 2020 United States presidential election to sinister ends.
These claims were constantly shared by major players at Fox over a long period of time, even well past the point of fact-checkers denying any manipulation. Murdoch told the deposition it wasn’t Fox per se who made the call, but instead put it on individuals from the network, “not Fox, no. Not Fox. But maybe Lou Dobbs, maybe Maria [Bartiromo], as commentators.”.
Murdoch also faced questioning over what should be done to reprimand those who spread disinformation about election fraud, saying those who did should be “reprimanded, maybe got rid of” in a question and answer stage of the proceedings. Murdoch also took some responsibility for some of Trump’s most vocal allies being allowed onto the network without challenge, and being allowed a platform regularly.
Dominion’s deposition features many texts between Fox News staff which show they didn’t want to stop the election fraud angle, out of fear of alienating a largely conservative audience – despite having serious doubts over the claims they were making and shared on the network.
Fox’s defense seems to center on how if it is being called up for defamation for sharing Trump’s messaging, then all other media outlets should be as well.
The court paper is available to read here.