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Rupert Murdoch (2017)
Photo: Julio Cortez / dpa
Hardly any media entrepreneur has as much influence on political fortunes in the USA as Rupert Murdoch.
The billionaire chairs the Fox Corporation, which also owns the Fox News channel.
This is currently in legal dispute with the company Dominion Voting Systems, a manufacturer of electronic voting machines and software.
It's about a lot of money - specifically around 1.6 billion US dollars.
Dominion is demanding damages because Fox News happily spread the lies from Donald Trump's camp about alleged manipulation at Dominion in the 2020 presidential election.
In the course of this procedure, there is now also a statement by Murdoch, which is reported by the US broadcaster CNN, among others.
In it, Murdoch under oath rejects the general accusation that the broadcaster as a whole spread the lies of manipulation.
However, he admits that certain moderators have done so.
Specifically, the names Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Maria Bartiromo and Lou Dobbs are mentioned.
The latter no longer works for the station.
"Some of our commentators spread that," Murdoch said, according to CNN, referring to the untruths about alleged election fraud.
"In retrospect, I would have wished that we had taken a stronger stance against it," Murdoch continued.
The entrepreneur describes some of Trump's claims as "nonsense and damaging".
To this day, Trump and his camp maintain that Joe Biden's victory in the November 2020 election was only possible through manipulation.
Reliable evidence is not available.
In its reporting, Murdoch's broadcaster accused several voting software companies of being in cahoots with billionaire George Soros and wanting to overthrow Trump.
Among other things, the Canadian manufacturer Dominion was accused – and this is now defending itself with a lawsuit worth billions.
Fox News has already had to admit the spread of misinformation and broadcast fact checks in its program, now it's about the substantial claims for damages.
Fox News invokes freedom of the press, Dominion accuses the station of intent.
Internally, people gossip about Trump
Documents presented in court during the course of the proceedings had already become public in mid-February.
These had shown: Internally, the Fox bosses were well aware of the lies, and they spread malice about Trump.
The revelation involved messages between Tucker Carlson and fellow Fox star journalists including Hannity and Laura Ingraham and Murdoch.
The most recent news shows that Fox News spread Trump's false claims even though they knew they were lies.
Among other things, after the 2020 election, Murdoch expressed the idea of having Carlson, Hannity and Ingraham appear together in prime time to declare Joe Biden the legitimate election winner.
Such an act, Murdoch said, "would go a long way in stopping the Trump myth that the election was stolen."
Moderator Tucker Carlson also accused the Trump administration of lying.
According to the court record, he texted his colleague Ingraham and said that Sidney Powell, an attorney representing the Trump campaign, was "lying" and that he "caught" her.
Ingraham replied, 'Sidney is a complete idiot.
Nobody will work with her.
The same goes for Rudy.” He was referring to Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Fox journalist Hannity also called Giuliani "a crazy person" in a message.
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