Even Rupert Murdoch Admits It: Fox News Hosts ‘Endorsed’ a Stolen-Election Narrative They Knew Was a Lie

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor The battle for cable-news viewers is coming to March Madness. CNN intends to run a new promo during the heavily watched NCAA men’s basketball tournament that throws a sharp verbal elbow at Fox News Channel and the legal defamation case filed against it by Dominion Voting Systems. The promos will air starting this weekend on TNT, TBS, TruTV and CBS, all of which carry the games under a joint rights agreement held by the owners of those networks, Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery, which is also the parent of CNN. Fox News Channel is not mentioned in the promo script, reviewed by Variety, but the references are clear. “What should you expect of a news network?” asks the narrator. “Some bury the truth, while we fight to reveal the facts. The only side we are on is yours.” Viewers see images of CNN correspondents and anchors such as Abby Phillip and Clarissa Ward.

Fox News Channel viewers are less trusting of the cable network in the wake of publicly disclosed text messages and emails from Fox executives and on-air personalities, according to a new survey.  But only 9% of Fox News viewers say they aren’t watching the network as much as they used to, per research provided exclusively to Variety Intelligence Platform by consumer insights specialists Maru Group. (Click to an expanded subscriber version for full results.) A representative for Fox News told VIP+, “There has been no impact to advertising, with no advertisers dropping or pausing.” 

Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch for creating “monsters” like Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity, then trying to disavow their words.Those words, of course, came in the form of emails and text messages, which have been steadily released in court filings from Dominion. Quite a bit has come out, so here’s what you need to know: At the end of February, Dominion docs revealed that several Fox hosts, including Ingraham and Hannity, were privately bashing election deniers that were being brought on their shows in 2020.Among the messages: “Sidney Powell is lying,” sent from Tucker Carlson to his producer Alex Pfeiffer on Nov.

John Oliver is having fun with Fox News and its lawsuit with Dominion Voting, again.

congress might ban TikTok, using a bunch of very funny TikTok videos to illustrate his point. Then he moved on to the news that Donald Trump might be in some serious legal trouble.“It sounds like former President Donald Trump will likely face criminal charges for his hush money payments to Stormy Daniels,” Fallon continued.

Lachlan Murdoch, in his first public comments about a defamation lawsuit against Fox News that’s been grabbing headlines, said he believes the network is even handed and the “noise” is more reflective of the nation’s divided politics than anything else.

Dominion Voting Systems and Fox offered dueling views of defamation law in their latest filings, as each side seeks a summary judgment ruling that could forestall a planned trial in April.

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Someone has to handle the truth. In the 1992 legal drama, “A Few Good Men,” a senior military commander played by Jack Nicholson is asked over and over if he ordered a “code red,” or an off-the-books dictate that sent underlings scurrying to do something they probably should not have done. Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch and many of the top executives and anchors at Fox News Channel may feel like they are stuck in a reboot of that film. In a remarkable series of depositions that have been made available from much-scrutinized litigation between voting-technology company Dominion Voting Systems and Fox Corporation, top officers at Fox and its most lucrative subsidiary, Fox News Media, are grilled over whether they have direct responsibility for stories, talent and reporting that airs on Fox News Channel or Fox Business Network. In many instances, the executives say they do not.

A huge release of text messages, emails and deposition transcripts dropped today in the Dominion vs. Fox litigation sheds further light on the scramble among Fox News personalities and Fox Corp. executives to respond to the backlash in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election and then the repercussions after the attack on the Capitol on January 6th.

The New York Times examined the response of those networks to the private messages that were made public in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News. According to the NY Times findings, only four publications – Gateway Pundit, Newsmax, the Washington Examiner and the Western Journal – mentioned the suit in some way. However, none of them worked the Fox employees’ private comments into their coverage.

convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh.To kick off the episode, Mikey Day, Gardner and Bowen Yang returned as Fox News hosts Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt, and Brian Kilmeade respectively, first complaining about being in New York, a Democrat-run city. But, things quickly turned to the ongoing suit against the network, with the hosts acknowledging recent testimony from Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch, admitting that some Fox News hosts knowingly touted election lies on-air.Yang’s Kilmeade admitted he was surprised by the conflict, noting that he loves “da minions,” referring to the yellow babbling creatures from “Despicable Me.” Day’s Doocy quickly corrected him, only for Earhardt to make the bigger mixup.“This whole trial has been so unfair!” she whined.

Katie Reul editor On the heels of a close victory at Super Bowl LVII, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce is once again taking over global television screens as this week’s host of “Saturday Night Live.” The episode opened with a mock “Fox & Friends” segment, featuring Mikey Day as Steve Doocy, Heidi Gardner as Ainsley Earhardt and Bowen Yang as Brian Kilmeade. The sketch comes amid a cascade of embarrassing revelations around Fox News and its major stars in recent days as the litigation grinds on in the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems after the 2020 election. As Earhardt, Gardner says of the network’s founder Rupert Murdoch: “Rupert Murdoch would never murder anyone. They sent him away for life. Look how sad he looks.” An image of convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh then appears on the screen as Earhardt realizes her mistake.

Semafor. Fox did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday evening.Meanwhile, his main rival (as yet unofficial) candidate, Florida Governor Ron Desantis, has been on Fox regularly.

Donald Trump continued to rail against Fox Corp. chair Rupert Murdoch following the release of documents in Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against Fox News.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries seized on the latest revelations from Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against Fox News, as they called on Rupert Murdoch to curb hosts from spreading election conspiracy theories.

Donald Trump went on the attack against Fox Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch following the latest revelations from Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against the media company.

Representative Adam Schiff calls for advertisers to rethink putting their dollars behind Fox News and “stations that deliberately put out lies and deliberately undermine our elections,” tells MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, “Since there is nothing but the profit motive operating here, the only way to attack is to attack the profit.”The Democratic rep from California stopped by “The Last Word” Monday to discuss, among many things, Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against FNC for defamation and the recent release of news that Fox corporate chairman Rupert Murdoch acknowledged that top Fox News hosts “endorsed” on-air what they knew to be a false narrative.“We see the Fox executives, including the very top executive, understood that they were lying to the American people and what a destructive impact it was having on our elections, on the confidence of our elections, and they did nothing to stop it and,” Schiff said. “Indeed, they affirmatively allowed it to go on because they were worried about losing ratings.”Schiff called Fox News and all those that work there “shameful” for their behavior.

Rupert Murdoch said in a recent deposition that he “would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing” Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 presidential election, conspiracy theories that the Fox Corp. executive chairman at once called “bulls— and damaging.”

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Fox Corp. sought to tamp down furor around a series of implicating quotes and texts culled from corporate executives and Fox News anchors, in the newest filing, part of a closely watched defamation lawsuit from voting-technology firm Dominion Voting Systems. Fox Corp. and Fox News Channel made the case in two filings in the Superior Court in Delaware that many of the colorful utterances from Fox News stars such as Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity and even some from Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch were beyond the scope of Dominion’s case, and urged the court to reject the company’s call for a summary judgement, or a ruling in Dominon’s favor that would negate the need for a trial. Dominion is suing Fox for $1.6 billion in damages it alleges it is owed after Fox News made false claims about the Dominion’s actions and influence on the 2020 election. It is the second legal proceeding made against Fox News for its coverage of the aftermath of the 2020 race for the White House. Smartmatic, a voting technology company, has filed a massive $2.7 billion suit against Fox News. At issue in the suits, are allegations that Fox News falsely claimed the companies had rigged the election, repeated items about the matter and refused to engage in efforts to set the record straight. The 2020 election was not fixed and its results were certified by multiple legal processes.