By now you’ve heard that Rupert Murdoch’s deposition in the Dominion Voting Machine lawsuit has become public.
There’s a lot to say here: Murdoch admits that the Fox News anchors knew they were creating falsehoods about Donald Trump’s “stolen election.” None of them believed it, or believed Trump’s lawyers, Rudy Guiliani and Sydney Powell. Murdoch basically admits that Fox News anchors lie to their viewers.
And what’s it all about? Ratings. Everyone in these series of depositions now included in the summary judgement admits to fear of falling ratings. Rupert Murdoch’s son, Lachlan, testified “that the drop in Fox’s ratings would keep me awake at night.”
The lying, the ingenuousness of the on air personalities, is not new to me. The fact is, during the decade I worked at Fox News, most of the anchors talked openly about being Democrats and putting on an act so they could keep their cushy jobs and high salaries. Everyone had kids in school and mortgages to pay off. Almost no one believed what they were saying on air.
The Murdoch deposition material is riveting because for some reason he just owns up to everything. In the course of his soul-baring, Murdoch also manages to throw his anchors under the bus, in addition to Fox News chief Suzanne Scott. The lawyer for Dominion goes through all the Fox News personalities one by one, and Rupert does nothing defend them. In a couple of cases- – Maria Bartiromo, Sean Hannity especially — Murdoch just crumbles. If I were either of them I’d be calling my lawyer and packing my bags soon. He also dumps on Lou Dobbs, who eventually was fired by Fox.
The New York Times offered up a link to Dominion’s just filed demand for a jury trial and request of summary judgement. The 200 page document should be read aloud somewhere over weekend. It’s brilliant. I can’t say what 91 year old Murdoch was thinking, but we assume he does not have dementia. Still, if Brian Cox were playing him, we’d all be on the verge of tears.
Let’s cut to the chase. Murdoch is asked the key questions by Dominion lawyer:
And then comes the good stuff:
The motion then states: “There you have it. FC Chairman Rupert Murdoch admitted under oath, as he had to once he finally faced the evidence , that the hosts of the accused Fox shows. He did far more than just host these guests and give them a platform that would be enough for Fox to be liable (publisher liable for republishing false and defamatory statement while knowing or recklessly
disregarding the truth ) . He admitted that each of the Fox hosts (other than Tucker Carlson) endorsed the stolen election lies. .. As for Carlson , Rupert admitted that it was wrong to host Mike Lindell on January 26 , 2021 to repeat those allegations against Dominion if Carlson didn’t contest it. And Carlson admitted he did not contest it. For those and numerous other reasons , Fox has no viable neutral reportage defense…”
More to come…
