Fox News apologized for the misunderstanding in regards to Murdoch’s role

The Murdoch Trial — Bringing Up Power in the Left-Wing Media and the News Corp. Murdoch is Not a Beehorse

Murdoch is about to come up! Succession is back, Dominion Voting Systems won’t drop its suit, and our boy Rupert may be open to further [LCD sound system voice] discovery, discovery, discovery.

I am a long time Murdoch watcher, and I’m thrilled about this trial. I love having more details about Rupert et al. blasted into the public sphere. This family, which owns News Corp, lurks over American journalism like Dracula’s brides over Jonathan Harker. This defamation suit is maybe the most serious challenge to their power in America I’ve seen so far.

At hearings this past week in Wilmington, Delaware, Fox attorneys said they never withheld any material from Dominion. They maintain that Murdoch wasn’t involved in any of the allegedly defamatory broadcasts in 2020, and he testified in his deposition that he never heard of Dominion.

We are aware that power motivates Murdoch. More audience means more money. The Murdoch family has been told that truth doesn’t matter, and that you keep score on power through money.

The original grift from Fox News said that it was fair and balanced. The outlet wanted to make it appear like it was biased to the left in order to make itself look less like the Republican Party. This was fairly successful. I think of it every time someone tells me that The New York Times, a paper written by and for middle managers who live in New Jersey, is a left-wing outlet. In comparison to Fox News, sure. In comparison to actual left-wing outlets such as The New Republic or The American Prospect? Please.

The objectivity journalists can’t let their face crack. That gave Murdoch the only thing he needed to run them over. The bias that suited him was named, rather than the ones that mattered, after he said journalists can be biased. He was able to build the audience he wanted. You can identify the audience by looking at the advertisements. Fox is old, scared and easy to take advantage of. It’s a very lucrative audience.

Murdoch said that Sean Hannity had been privately disgusted by Trump but was afraid to lose viewers.

Essentially, Fox News built a behemoth by telling people what they wanted to hear. But when what people wanted to hear was a fantasy — a possibly defamatory fantasy! — its hosts were trapped. They could say the truth and make their audience happy.

We talk about rich people and politics before. Whatever will make them richer, they don’t really believe in anything. The documents released so far in the Dominion suit back that up. If Rupert Murdoch woke up tomorrow and thought there was a lucrative audience in far-left socialism, I suspect Fox News would tack left so hard its hosts’ heads would spin. After all, he built Fox Broadcasting Company on The Simpsons and Married… with Children — not exactly right-wing fare.

Fox News has never particularly been my cup of tea. I will be riveted to the trial coverage while the witnesses report and the jury decides.

Fox News formally apologized to the judge in the Dominion defamation case, taking responsibility for the “misunderstanding” regarding Rupert Murdoch’s role at the network that led the judge to launch an investigation into potential legal misconduct by Fox, according to a letter obtained by CNN.

In the letter, which was dated Friday and filed with the court, Fox attorney Blake Rohrbacher said the right-wing network “never intended to omit information” and that its inaccurate representations about Murdoch’s formal role at Fox News were “not meant to mislead the Court or evade the question.”

Murdoch had roles in both Fox News and Fox Corporation. In the past, Fox lawyers have repeatedly said that he did not have a title at Fox News. But last week, Fox disclosed that he is also an executive officer at Fox News.