Murdoch and the Fox News Project: Money and Power in Murdoch’s Investigation of Biden and Joe Biden’s Left-Right Campaign
Everything’s coming up Murdoch! Succession is once more occurring, there is a suit pending, and our boy may be open to more discovery.
We are still at the beginning. The trial is scheduled to begin Monday, and I expect Murdoch, along with a bunch of his hosts, will be compelled to testify. I think we’ll see a lot about the inner workings of money and power. We already know from the court documents that Murdoch provided Jared Kushner with “confidential information” about Joe Biden’s campaign strategy and ads — something no real journalistic outlet would ever do. But then, Fox News isn’t about journalism. It’s about drawing the largest possible audience, and it has gone to dangerous lengths to do so.
Dominion says this distinction may have narrowed what Fox turned over as part of the discovery process in the case – potentially blocking the voting technology company from obtaining more Murdoch-related emails and text messages. The judge was livid over Fox’s misrepresentations and said he would bring in a third-party lawyer to investigate whether Fox lied to the court and withheld evidence from Dominion.
We are aware that power motivates Murdoch. More audience means more money. Succession shows how power and money are important things in the Murdoch family, and that they don’t care about truth.
Fox News had claimed to be fair and balanced. To make it look less like the Republican Party, the outlet painted other outlets as being biased to the left. This was a success. I always think of it when a person tells me that The New York Times is a left-wing paper. 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, though. Murdoch needed the only thing he could get to run them over. Audiences have already observed that journalists can be biased, and he named the bias that suited him rather than the ones that mattered. That gave him the ability to build the audience he wanted. When looking at advertisements, you can figure out who the audience is. Fox’s is old, scared, not very mobile, and easily taken advantage of. It’s a very lucrative audience.
Murdoch replied that Sean Hannity had been disgusted by Trump but was scared of losing viewers, whenPaul Ryan, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, contacted Murdoch to rebuke him for broadcasting lies about the election.
Fox News told 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 tell the truth and make the audience happy.
We have talked before about the politics of rich people. They don’t really believe anything and will say whatever will make them richer. 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 watch the trial coverage while the witnesses report and the jury makes their decision.
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.”
The legal spat revolves around Murdoch’s roles at Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corporation. When questioned by the judge directly, lawyers for Fox consistently said he didn’t have a title at Fox News. But last week, Fox disclosed that he is also an executive officer at Fox News.