Rupert Murdoch testifies Fox anchors ‘endorsed claims of Biden stealing 2020 polls’: What he said, significance

What has Rupert Murdoch said?

As per the court filing, when Murdoch was asked by a Dominion lawyer if some of Fox’s hosts, such as Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromom had endorsed the idea that the 2020 election was stolen, he said, “Yes. They endorsed”.

The media mogul was then asked, “It is fair to say you seriously doubted any claim of massive election fraud?”

To which he replied, “Oh, yes”.

Another question that the lawyer raised was “and you seriously doubted it (claims of election fraud) from the very beginning?” “Yes. I mean, we thought everything was on the up-and-up,” Murdoch said.

He was also asked if he could have told Fox News’ chief executive and its hosts to stop providing airtime to commentators like Rudy Giuliani, who peddled election lies. “I could have,” Murdoch said. “But I didn’t.” However, he denied that Fox News as a whole had endorsed the stolen election narrative.

Reacting to Murdoch’s testimony, Trump accused him of betraying his anchors. The former President said, “Why is Rupert Murdoch throwing his anchors under the table, which also happens to be killing his case and infuriating his viewers, who will again be leaving in droves — they already are.”

What is the case against Fox News and its parent company?

Dominion has filed a $1.6 billion dollar libel suit against Fox News and Fox Corporation, claiming that its reputation was tarnished in the months after the 2020 election after the television network “repeatedly aired false statements that it was part of a conspiracy to fraudulently elect Joe Biden,” The Washington Post reported.

Various media reports show that Fox News’ hosts accused the company’s voting machines of running a secret algorithm that could switch votes from one candidate to another. They also claimed that Dominion was founded in Venezuela in a bid to help that country’s leftist leader, Hugo Chávez, fix elections.

The voting-tech company in its court filing said although senior Fox executives and on-air hosts expressed their skepticism and even disdain regarding baseless allegations against Dominions, they didn’t do much to change the content of their shows.

The New York Times reported, “Dominion lawyers have laid out how they plan to show that senior Fox executives hatched a plan after the election to lure back viewers who had switched to rival hard-right networks, which were initially more sympathetic than Fox was to Mr. Trump’s voter-fraud claims.”

Meanwhile, Fox News has argued that the voting-tech company has provided no evidence showing that Murdoch; his son Lachlan Murdoch, who is Fox Corporation’s executive chairman; or other top executives directly ordered to air election-fraud claims on the network. It has also said that allegations by Trump and his lawyers were inherently newsworthy and Fox News’ hosts had not endorsed the falsehoods about Dominion. Most notably, the network said that its commentary and reportage on the 2020 presidential elections were protected under the First Amendment to the US Constitution — it protects freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

“Far from reporting the allegations as true, hosts informed their audiences at every turn that the allegations were just allegations that would need to be proven in court in short order if they were going to impact the outcome of the election,” Fox lawyers said in their filing, NYT reported. “And to the extent, some hosts commented on the allegations, that commentary is an independently protected opinion.”

What can be the implications of Murdoch’s admission?

Lawyers of Dominion are hoping that Murdoch’s acknowledgement will help them clear a high legal bar, known as “actual malice”, set by the US Supreme Court for defamation cases. In order to win their lawsuit against Fox News and Fox Corporation, the voting-tech company will have to prove that either the executive of the network knew the voter fraud allegations by Trump and his aides were false or that they deliberately chose to ignore information proving that the aired allegations were wrong, NYT said.

Defamation cases against media companies aren’t uncommon in the US but they usually get dismissed because of the freedom of speech protections provided by the First Amendment. However, many legal experts believe that Dominion’s libel lawsuit against Fox News is a rare case as the company has a plethora of evidences against the network. If Fox News is found guilty, it might not only severely impact its reputation and finances but also have huge implications for the First Amendment.