Murdoch acknowledged the hosts of Fox News supported false election claims

Fox News Should Have Shuttered It Up: Lachlan Murdoch Resheaves on the Projected Democratic Success of Donald Trump’s Vote

On November 7, it was projected that Biden had won the election. The elder Murdoch told his son that Fox could have gone first once more, as it had in Arizona; “I think it’s good to be careful,” Lachlan Murdoch responded. “Especially as we are still somewhat exposed on Arizona.”

Fox News did not comment on the issue, as did Dominion’s lawyers. However, the arguments that played out during a hearing Tuesday reflected a looking-glass world. Dominion depicted the network’s executives scrambling to rein in the chaos engendered by its stars, while Fox’s attorneys were effectively arguing the executives had little time, ability or inclination to do so.

In a ruling yesterday, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis affirmed that Dominion should receive the contracts – the point of contention in Tuesday’s hearing.

Murdoch denied that the right-wing talk network supported Donald Trump in the election. Murdoch admitted that some people promoted a lie about the presidential contest being stolen.

In his exchanges with the judge, Keller drew a line distinguishing between a host or producer “who are sometimes pre-scripting material for the show, that is going to be tethered to a specific channel’s telecast” and a network executive.

Defaming the 2020 Election: Murdoch’s Bombshell Deposition and Fox News’s Robustness of the State of the Art

There is evidence to support the idea that Scott is going to be sacrificed. Murdoch distanced himself from decision making at Fox News during his deposition. Instead, he pointed to Scott: “I appointed Ms. Scott to the job … and I delegate everything to her,” he said. In doing so, Murdoch made the case that Scott is in charge of the network — and if there was wrongdoing, it rests on her shoulders. Of course, astute media observers know that Murdoch is the person actually calling the shots. It seems like the company could advance this narrative.

Nelson, the Dominion attorney, retorted by citing a document obtained from Fox that “talks about the daily editorial meeting that occurs, including almost all of these executives that we’re looking at right now.”

Murdoch’s bombshell deposition — in which he acknowledged that some Fox hosts endorsed false claims that the 2020 election was stolen — could be a game-changer for Dominion’s case, which hinges on meeting a high legal bar known as “actual malice.” To meet that standard, a plaintiff has to show that the defendant made defamatory statements with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard for the truth.

Defamation is notoriously difficult to prove in the United States, which grants news organizations and entertainment companies wide berth under the First Amendment. Fox stressed that the claims were news and protected by the Constitution.

The fear that Fox News’ audience would abandon it for good also appeared to drive programming decisions. In the days following the election, Alex Pfeiffer, a Carlson producer, told the host, “Many viewers were upset tonight that we didn’t cover election fraud …. It’s all our viewers care about right now.”

Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of Fox Corporation, acknowledged in a deposition taken by Dominion Voting Systems that some Fox News hosts endorsed false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

Dobbs’ show on Fox Business – in which he routinely promoted baseless conspiracies about the 2020 election – was canceled a few weeks after the January 6 insurrection.

Murdoch vs Brooks: The Murdochs have a No-Found Law against Political Lobbyists and Campaigners

According to the legal team of Dominion, Fox’s invocation of the reporter’s privilege to protect her from certain questions during her deposition led them to ask the court for more testimony from her. A ruling on whether Pirro must return for questioning has not been made public.

Fox News has repeatedly defended its conduct, using the importance of American free speech principles bound up in the First Amendment, saying that the Smartmatic and Dominion cases are attempts to chill independent reporting.

Murdoch didn’t accept that Fox News endorsed the election of Donald Trump. Murdoch admitted that several people in the broadcast industry promoted false stories about the presidential contest being stolen.

What’s the big deal? Murdoch is known to be a hands-on proprietor of his news outlets. A big lawsuit is threatening him with the consequences of decisions made at Fox News.

The Murdochs, however, have been forced to make hard choices about even their most favored chief executives when scandal overwhelms. In 2010, Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of Fox Corporation, reluctantly pushed out Rebekah Brooks, who ran his British newspapers and was a close protégé, amid a police investigation into phone hacking by journalists who worked for her.

How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.

The Fox News & Friends Network: How a Celebrity Comes Into The Donaldson-DeMumford Era: The Story of a New America

Ms. Scott keeps a more low profile than her predecessor, Roger Ailes, who had an image of being a dirty trickster to Republican presidents before he was ousted for sexual harassment.

She lives in Northern New Jersey with her husband and daughter. Her first job for Fox was as an assistant to one of Mr. Ailes’s top deputies. Her first big promotion was to a senior producer position on Greta Van Susteren’s show. She would manage network talent and then programming.

Colleagues say she pays careful attention to what’s on Fox, often watching from her office with the sound off and occasionally offering advice to producers and hosts on how sets could look better, outfits sharper and guests could be more compelling.

One of the biggest audiences in cable, Fox News has been drawing more viewers than traditional broadcast networks under her direction. And Fox News collects far higher ad rates than its competitors — an average of almost $9,000 for a 30-second commercial in prime time, compared with about $6,200 for CNN and $5,300 for MSNBC, according to the Standard Media Index, an independent research firm. (One of the writers of this article, Jeremy W. Peters, is an MSNBC contributor.)

Mr. Ailes believed that no host should ever assume they were bigger than the network — or him. After Mr. Ailes ordered Mr. Hannity to scrap his show from Cincinnati, he threatened to put a chimp on the air.

Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul who controls some of the most powerful organs in conservative media, appeared to make clear Wednesday that he would prefer to cast aside former President Donald Trump in favor of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the leader of the Republican party.​

“I think Governor DeSantis is the single biggest winner of the night,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on “Fox & Friends,” adding that he will “almost certainly become the rallying point for everybody in the Republican Party who wants to move beyond President Trump.”

The home page of Fox News also prominently featured a column by conservative commentator Liz Peek that declared DeSantis “the new leader of the Republican Party.” Fox News called it a new era.

And The Wall Street Journal, the broadsheet owned by Murdoch, the newspaper’s conservative editorial board published a piece proclaiming the “DeSantis Florida tsunami.”

The editorial board believes that his success in Florida will grab the attention of voters outside of the state. “You can bet Donald J. Trump was watching—unhappily.”

A person familiar with how Murdoch runs the companies told CNN Wednesday morning that it is not an accident that the billionaire’s media outlets are focusing attention on the future of the Republican Party.

Murdoch remarked after 2020 that we should throw Trump over, according to a recent report by a reporter at The New York Times.

Ryan warned the Murdochs to not allow the spread of election lies. The former House speaker said that Fox News should “move on from Donald Trump” and “stop spouting election lies.” Ryan told the Murdochs that many of those who thought the election had been stolen did so “because they got a diet of information telling them the election was stolen from what they believe were credible sources.” He was not wrong.

The Trump campaign lawyer was called a bit nuts by Ingraham. Carlson used a profanity for women to describe her. A top network programming executive wrote privately that he did not believe the shows of Carlson, Hannity and Jeanine Pirro were credible sources of news.

The court document offered the most vivid picture to date of the chaos that transpired behind the scenes at Fox News after Trump lost the election and viewers rebelled against the right-wing channel for accurately calling the contest in Biden’s favor.

The network said that the core of the case was about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are protected by New York Times v. Sullivan.

Hardly. For one thing, Fox was never a news network to begin with. Whereas a news network is a platform built on the premise that one of its first obligations is providing citizens with vetted information that they can use to be free and self-governing, Fox was founded in 1996 as a political platform and run by Roger Ailes, a political operative.

“Please get her fired,” Carlson told Hannity. What the f**k? I am shocked that I am. It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It is hurting the company. The stock price is down. It’s not a joke.

A person with direct knowledge of the matter told CNN that Heinrich was blindsided reading the details in the legal filing and was not aware of the efforts by top hosts behind the scenes to get her fired.

Neil Cavuto was attacked by his colleagues for pulling his show away from a presentation by a White House spokeswoman who made false claims of fraud once more. Murdoch is a host on Fox News.

Each Murdoch speaks roughly daily to Fox News chief executive Suzanne Scott, she testified. While Lachlan Murdoch talked with Scott daily, his father said it was only once or twice a week.

The amplification of political hatred as Rupert Murdoch perpetrated in the FOX News News admonitions: An apology to Vlasic

Slaven Vlasic is an administrator for the following: Carolyn Kaster/AP, Alex Brandon/AP, Michael Broshstein/SOPA Images, and more.

The network’sstars, producers and executives spoke of the same conspiracy as “mind-blowingly nuts” and ” totally off the rails” off the air.

The messages showed that Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham brutally mocked lies being pushed by former President Donald Trump’s camp asserting that the election was rigged.

Murdoch is the head of Fox News. The amplification of political hatred was one of the main parts in the creation of American politics. I would challenge anyone … to nominate which individual alive today has done more to undermine American democracy than Rupert Murdoch.”

The cable network’s attorneys said in a filing that the request for damages was part of a plan to “generate headlines” and enrich the company’s owner.

Fox News, the President’s Calling after the Capitol Attack, and the Times of the Day of the January 6, 2021 Congressional Shootout

Just a few days after the election, Baier sent a message to his friend saying that there was no evidence of fraud. None. Allegations – stories. There is a account on the social media website, Twitter. Bulls—.”

Sammon has declined to speak about his departure from Fox News, due to the terms of his departure.

According to court documents from a defamation case against the company, Donald Trump tried to call into Fox News after the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, but was refused on air.

A source familiar with the panel’s work said the committee didn’t know that Trump had made the call.

The panel sought to piece together a near minute-by-minute account of Trump’s movements, actions and phone calls on that day. The committee had to deal with many obstacles and some of the gaps in their record still exist.

“The afternoon of January 6, after the Capitol came under attack, then-President Trump dialed into Lou Dobbs’ show attempting to get on air,” Dominion lawyers wrote in their legal brief.

Fox executives didn’t like the decision, stated the filing. Why? Not due to a lack of newsworthiness. January 6 was an important event by any measure. The key figure of that day was the sitting President, Donald Trump.

But, despite privately acknowledging the realiity of the situation, the network allowed the lies to take hold on its air, in large part because executives and hosts were terrified that telling its sizable audience the truth would prompt them to tune out.

Behind the scenes, Fox News executives and hosts were in panic. Fox News needs to be on war footing and Jay Wallace described the Newsmax surge as troubling.

In the week after the election, Sean Hannity told Carlson and Ingraham, that the damage was incalculable because of the destruction of a brand that took 25 years to build.

The hosts were so concerned about Newsmax’s rise they were enraged when their colleague, a White House correspondent, wrote a fact check on Trump.

“Hannity is getting awfully close to the line with his commentaries and guests tonight”, warned Dinh, who also warned Murdoch and Scott. On the next day, Murdoch warned that if Trump refused to concede graciously, we should watch Sean especially and people else not speak the same language.

When Lindell appeared on Newsmax and criticized Fox News, executives at Fox News “exchanged worried emails about alienating him,” the legal filing said. The filing added that Scott then sent him a handwritten note along with a gift.

Powell was at a Trump press conference earlier in the day in which she spun a web of already discredited false assertions. She never said that a single actual vote was illegitimately moved by software from one candidate to another. Not one.”

The existence of the memo, its enigmatic author, and her role in Fox’s broadcasts surfaced in a devastating 178-page legal brief filed by Dominion Voting Systems and made public last week by a Delaware court. The election-tech company sued Fox News for defamation, after they aired false claims that it engaged in election fraud.

The woman was not named in the legal brief but she wrote that Scalia was killed during a hunting expedition at an elite social club. The local officials in Texas said that Scalia died there in 2016 of a heart attack.

The woman said that the late Fox News chairman Roger Ailes and the Murdoch family huddle “secretly” for days to decide how badly to portray Mr. Trump. By the time the woman wrote her memo, Ailes had been dead for more than three years.

“Who am I?” How do I know what this is all about? The woman wrote in the email that she had had the strangest dreams since she was a little girl. I live despite being internally decapitated.

Fox News Sensitivities to Voting Fraud: a Fox Business Network Report of Donald Bartiromo and Stephens’ Spotlight on Trump

“[T]hat whole narrative that Sidney was pushing, I did not believe it for one second,” Hannity said in a deposition conducted nearly two years later by Dominion’s lawyers.

Bartiromo replied glowingly to Powell, saying she had endorsed the information in the memo during a conversation with one of Trump’s sons: “I just spoke to Eric & told him you gave very imp info.”

The lawyers for the company stated that they did not think senior executives would block Bartiromo’s program, or that they would rebroadcast it hours later.

Bartiromo shared the memo with a senior producer and top booker, and many others, too.

The memo shouldn’t be used for air at this time, according to the legal documents, since Grossberg said it wasn’t something he would use for air. Grossberg is now a senior producer and top booker for Fox’s Tucker Carlson.

Powell appeared on Ingraham’s show again two days after Bartiromo. Powell asserted, “We have demonstrable, statistical and mathematical and computer evidence of hundreds of thousands of votes being injected into the computer systems repeatedly.”

She didn’t. Republican and Democratic state and local officials disputed and disproved her claims. So did Trump administration election integrity officials – as did some Fox News journalists. No matter. Powell appeared on the Fox Business Network many times, with other people, implicating the company.

Tucker Carlson challenged Powell on the air in the post- election season. Carlson told viewers on Nov. 19, 2020 that they took her seriously. “She never sent us any evidence, despite a lot of requests, polite requests. Not a page. When we kept pressing, she got angry and told us to stop contacting her.”

On Jan. 26, Tucker Carlson had Lindell on his show. Rupert Murdoch told Dominion’s attorneys he could stop taking money for MyPillow ads, “[B]ut I’m not about to.”

Carlson gave Lindell plenty of time to make wild claims about Twitter, the media, and Dominion. “They don’t want to discuss voting fraud but I have the evidence, they don’t want to prosecute me,” he said on Carlson’s show.

Fox hosts were okay with defaming the essence of America’s democracy, our ability to peacefully transfer power, if it would increase their audience and boost their stock.

The story of Haley Fox before Donald Trump: A successful South Carolina governor and a U.N. ambassador to the United Nations and the daughter of an Indian immigrant

I’ve never met Haley, but from afar it seemed that she had a reasonably good story to tell — a successful South Carolina governor from 2011 to 2017, Trump’s first U.N. ambassador and the daughter of Indian immigrants. Her mother, Raj, studied law at the University of New Delhi, and after immigrating to South Carolina, earned a master’s degree in education and became a local public-school teacher. Her father taught biology at Voorhees College for 29 years after receiving a doctorate from the University of British Columbia. They opened a clothing boutique on the side.

And Fox takes those calls. In the time before Donald Trump, I spent my share of moments in Fox green rooms and pitching stories to Fox producers. I knew they were more interested in stories about, say, religious liberty than most mainstream media outlets were. I knew they loved human-interest stories about virtuous veterans and cops. Sometimes this was good — we need more coverage of religion in America, for example — but over time Fox morphed into something well beyond a news network.

“Some of our commentators were endorsing it,,” Murdoch said, according to the filing, when asked about the talk hosts’ on-air positions about the election. “I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it, in hindsight,” he added.

“It’s a major blow,” renowned First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams said of Dominion’s motion for a summary judgment, adding that the “recent revelations certainly put Fox in a more precarious situation” in defending against the lawsuit on First Amendment grounds.

Tushnet said that in her years of practicing and teaching law, she had never seen such damning evidence collected in the pre-trial phase of a defamation suit.

Fox Corp. Reports to Murdoch, Scott, Dinh, and Rupert Murdoch in the Lead-up to the Arizona Supergirl Election

Mr. Dinh stated that Fox executives had an obligation to prevent hosts of shows from broadcasting lies.

Editor’s Note: David Zurawik is a professor of practice in media studies at Goucher College. He was a media critic for thirty years at the Baltimore Sun. He doesn’t have to tell you the opinions expressed in this commentary. View more opinion on CNN.

In the wake of the election, Murdoch wrote in an email to the New York Post’s Col Allan, describing election lies that Trump was pushing as “bulls**t and damaging.”

The filing states that Murdoch gave a preview of Biden’s ads before they were public, and offered Trump’s wife a preview of his ads. This type of action would result in an investigation at most news organizations.

The documents lay bare that the channel’s business model is not based on informing its audience, but rather on feeding them content — even dangerous conspiracy theories — that keeps viewers happy and watching.

Murdoch was asked if he would have told the Fox News executives to stop giving airtime to Rudy Giuliani. “I could have,” Murdoch said. I didn’t.

To counter that defense, Dominion’s legal filings summon the words of seemingly authoritative figures: Fox Corp. founder Rupert Murdoch and his top corporate advisers.

Emails and other communications introduced into the case by Dominion reflect deep involvement by the Murdochs and other Fox Corp. senior figures in the network’s editorial path.

“I’m a journalist at heart,” the elder Murdoch, who is just two weeks shy of his 92nd birthday, said in his deposition. I enjoy being involved in these things.

He was steadfast about defending the call of Arizona for Biden on election night. Murdoch could hear Trump yelling in the background as he heard that the situation was terrible.

Scott forwarded his recommendation to the top executive. Along with another executive, she canceled Pirro’s show that weekend over fears that the “guests are all going to say the election is being stolen and if she pushes back at all it will be just a token,” according to the filings.

By Nov. 13, Raj Shah, a senior vice president at Fox Corp., was advising Lachlan Murdoch, Scott and Dinh of the “strong conservative and viewer backlash to Fox that we are working to track and mitigate.” He said that positive impressions among Fox News viewers “dropped precipitously after Election Day to the lowest levels we’ve ever seen.”

The Murdochs were given a letter from the Fox Corp. board of directors. “I believe the time has come for Fox News or for you, Lachlan, to take a stance. It is an important moment for the nation and Fox News as a brand.

Rupert advised Lachlan, “Just tell her … Fox News called the election and is continuing to do so. We have to be on top of our game and not easy to do.

“When damages get into the billions, with a B, that can be an existential threat to a journalistic organization — even one as lucrative as as Fox,” said Lyrissa Lidsky, a constitutional law professor at the University of Florida.

Norm Eisen, CNN legal analyst, said Monday that this deposition was one of the most devastating he had ever seen. If your chairman admits there was endorsement, that opens you up to liability for the actual malice standard, which is when you go beyond reporting.

“The evidence that’s been put into the public sphere so far looks like strong evidence that Fox knew the truth and decided to go with an alternate narrative,” Lidsky says.

Murdoch conceded that some people promoted lies about the presidential contest being stolen.

Who is he? One of the inspiration for the character in Succession is Murdoch, the media mogul and the controlling owner of the Fox News Channel.

Fox News Republicans What Matters: The Failure of the United States to Integrate Russia into American Corporate Communications and Business Communications during the Second Reionization War

The painful truth about email and text messages, which every TV anchor and media executive should learn, is that you never know which message will be publicly released when your company is sued.

It is doubly painful if the messages show that you are allowing false information on the air.

Ryan said that there isn’t a bigger platform in America. The conservative movement is going through a lot of turmoil right now and I do not like where it is.

During the George W. Bush administration, Fox would have been a major backer of military aid for Ukraine if Russia had invaded as it did a year ago. On the network, guests talk about the importance of Ukraine aid.

Carlson is mimicking Trump and questioning whether the US should be opposed to Russia.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump’s current chief rival as they look ahead to the 2024 presidential race, represents the evolution in his own policy positions, as CNN’s KFile notes: “DeSantis wanted to send weapons to Ukraine when he was a congressman – as a presidential hopeful he questions US involvement.”

The Conservative Political Action Conference is a major stop for potential Republican presidential candidates. One of the big announced candidates, former South Carolina Gov. Haley, will also attend.

But DeSantis, who is soft launching a nascent campaign, is skipping the event as he prepares promote his new book. He’ll also pop into a private retreat for the anti-tax Club for Growth in Palm Beach, Florida, where he can hobnob with donors, according to Politico.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/01/politics/fox-news-republicans-what-matters/index.html

Murdochs, the Sun, and the Future: What Can We Learn About Donald J. Trump, the Freedom Caucus, and DeSantis

While interviewing a group of congress people, CNN’s Melanie Zanona said that “hardcore Trump supporters, people who were part of the Freedom Caucus, people who were essentially his fullest defenders during his four years in office” were interviewed.

“The overriding concern among Republicans: They are concerned about Trump’s viability as a candidate,” Raju said. “After he underperformed in the last three election cycles, they’re worried that he could give Joe Biden another four years in the White House.”

Multiple members of the Freedom Caucus actually traveled to Florida not to meet with Trump, but instead to talk to DeSantis, according to Raju. They were impressed by what they saw.

Ben Smith said the Murdochs are positioning Suzanne Scott to take the fall for this.

“Looking back to previous scandals, Murdoch and the companies have tended to try to pay early and quietly to make things go away, or they ignore them thinking they’re so big they can ride things out,” Folkenflik said. “And then when things really come to a head, they try to cauterize the wound at the lowest level possible.”

“If he threw [Scott] over, he would only do it because he thought he needed to cauterize the wound before it goes higher,” Folkenflik added. That is his record. That’s what he does. It is capable of being editors. It can be someone in an executive position. It can be stars. He isn’t throwing himself over the side.

Folkenflik explained that a senior executive position under Murdoch is the ultimate fall position. They understand that part of the job. You’re very well paid. It can be an exciting life. If you fall out of favor with the sun king, that’s a factor.

We’ll see what Scott’s fate ultimately looks like. Fox doesn’t have public support for her at the moment. When I reached out to Fox spokespeople on Wednesday asking for comment, the company declined.

Why did Ailes and Murdoch let Fox News go? How Fox News is changing people’s lives – Is it logical to think that the money is coming out of the pockets of the American people?

Ailes, a key member of the media team that helped put Richard Nixon in the White House in 1968, saw it as an outlet that could be used to promulgate and amplify a conservative viewpoint. From day one, it was about propaganda – not information. It was created as a counterbalance to what Ailes saw as a liberal bias in network TV, public radio and the top newspapers in the country. The channel was always about politics and ideology first and he cleverly referred to it as news.

Now, it’s all about right-wing politics (the hotter and nastier, the better) and money. Murdoch suggested in his description of why he allowed the CEO of MyPillow to speak on Fox that it wasn’t necessarily in that order.

It has become much deeper culturally. Fox News is a way of seeing the world and it’s mostly for older adults who feel left behind by the changes in American life. Fox told them that if they are struggling, it’s their fault. It’s illogical and false that money is coming out of the pockets of viewers as Democrats give the country to immigrants and minorities.

Some audience members would be so angry that they would tune out the channel forever, if you took that into account.

As shocking and even disgusting as some of us in the mainstream media find Murdoch’s deposition, my relatives won’t be changing their viewing habits because of it. I think most other viewers will not be the same one who let Fox News into their lives.