As of: 02/28/2023 8:27 a.m
Ex-President Trump claims to this day that the 2020 US election was manipulated. The US broadcaster Fox News spread some of these false claims – as its boss Murdoch now admitted in a statement under oath.
Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch has acknowledged the spread of false claims after the 2020 presidential election by some commentators on the network.
“Some of our moderators have spread false allegations about an allegedly rigged presidential election,” the influential media executive said in a statement under oath. This emerges from excerpts from a court document distributed by US media.
Murdoch: Not all channels support statements
The false news that President Donald Trump, who was still in office at the time, was deprived of his re-election by fraud was supported by some commentators – but not by the entire broadcaster, Murdoch is quoted as saying. “I would have liked us to denounce that more in retrospect.”
Murdoch was questioned in early February by the Delaware state court hearing voting machine maker Dominion’s compensation lawsuit. Dominion has sued Fox News for $1.6 billion in damages for damage to its reputation.
Trump claims wrong counting
Part of the conspiracy theory propagated by Republican Trump and his supporters is that Dominion’s voting machines did not correctly count the votes cast. Fox News has spread reports of this alleged manipulation.
The TV station’s management invokes freedom of the press and insists that it legitimately treated and reproduced Trump’s and his lawyers’ version as news.
To this day, Trump untruthfully claims that he was deprived of his election victory through fraud. In the trial in a federal court in Delaware, Dominion wants to prove that Fox News intentionally broadcast false news.
Media mogul Murdoch: FOX star presenters spread Trump’s election lie
Sebastian Hesse, ARD Washington, February 28, 2023 8:31 a.m