In court documents released Monday, Fox Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch admitted that some Fox News hosts purposely spread conspiracy theories that they knew to be false at the time.
“They endorsed,” Murdoch said under oath as part of his deposition last month in a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems. “I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing in hindsight.”
Murdoch was responding to questions specifically about Fox News hosts Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo. All of whom hosted guests who continually promoted election conspiracies, including that Dominion Voting Systems was a foreign company and a front for another company created to help the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez rig elections in his country.
While Murdoch admitted that the hosts endorsed the conspiracies, he insisted it was the actions of those individual hosts and not of Fox itself, stressing it was only “some of our commentators [who] were endorsing it.”
The documents were filed in response to Fox’s motion for a summary judgment in the case. It contends that Fox executives were aware of the falsehoods, were concerned about spreading them and even took action to stop them, until it became apparent that the network was losing viewers to Newsmax, and to a lesser extent, One America News (OAN).
The documents outlined that Murdoch had daily communications with other top-level executives and Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott about the outlet’s coverage of the 2020 election and its aftermath.
Murdoch also admitted in his testimony that he knew the claims were false when they were first made.
“Yes. I mean, we thought everything was on the up-and-up, I think that was shown when we announced Arizona [for then-candidate Joe Biden],” Murdoch testified.
Fox News was the first major network to declare Arizona for Biden, which angered former US President Donald Trump and many viewers, though the call ultimately proved to be correct.
The emails and testimonies in the documents also reveal more about what the hosts and executives thought about Trump, his allies, and their claims at the time. Murdoch admitted to calling then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and said it was “probably true” that he “urged him to ask other senior Republicans to refuse to endorse Mr. Trump’s theories and baseless claims of fraud.”
17 February 2023, 04:31 GMT
The documents also show that other top executives at Fox were concerned about spreading the claims made by Trump and his allies. Former House Speaker and current Fox Board of Directors member Paul Ryan emailed Murdoch after the January 6 riots, saying he was concerned Fox News’ coverage of the 2020 election may have contributed to some Americans’ belief the election was stolen. “[Many Americans believe Trump’s claims] because they got a diet of information telling them the election was stolen from what they believe were credible sources.”
In an email, Murdoch responded that the event was a “wake-up call for [Sean] Hannity, who has been privately disgusted by Trump for weeks, but was scared to lose viewers.”
The comment reflects communications that were revealed in previous court documents showing Fox News hosts, including Hannity, being openly dismissive about claims of election fraud from former Trump lawyers Rudy Guiliani and Sidney Powell.
“That whole narrative Sidney was pushing,” Hannity was quoted as saying in last week’s court document release. “I did not believe it for one second.”
More quotes mocking Trump allies were also revealed in Monday’s release. “[Rudy Giuliani is] unhinged. Has been for a while,” said former New York Post (another Murdoch-owned publication) editor Col Allan. “I think the booze got him.”
Dominion contends Fox News hosts not only brought on guests they knew were going to promote conspiracies that the hosts knew were false and didn’t push back, but also points to instances when hosts, such as Lou Dobbs, actively promoted the claims themselves on social media.
In its motion for a summary judgment, Fox defended its coverage saying the company is “proud of our 2020 election coverage, which stands in the highest tradition of American journalism, and will vigorously defend against this baseless lawsuit in court.”
Fox also claimed that the amount Dominion is asking for, far exceeds any possible damages it suffered from its coverage.
The court ruled earlier this month that the lawsuit can move forward. While defamation lawsuits are hard to prove, Dominion’s response to Fox’s motion for summary judgment appears to show Fox hosts and executives knew the statements were false and allowed them to air regardless. That may reach the standard of “actual malice” in their reporting which would be required to win a defamation judgment.
The document further claims that Dominion sent 3,682 emails to Fox or Fox employees to get them to stop spreading the election fraud claims and provided them with verifiable third-party information that proved they were false. Dominion says it also asked the producers of several shows to allow its representative on but they were denied.
Barring a settlement, the trial is scheduled to start on April 17 and will last five weeks.