In a rare rebuke of the Fox News ratings leader, the White House said Carlson is “not credible.”
In sworn questioning in January by lawyers for Dominion Voting Systems released Tuesday, Murdoch was asked, “Do you believe that the 2020 presidential election was free and fair?” “Yes,” he replied, according to a transcript. “The election was not stolen,” he said later. Dominion is suing Fox News for $1.6 billion, saying the network crippled the company’s business by broadcasting false claims from Trump’s lawyers that Dominion had changed votes in the 2020 election.
“It was not peaceful. It was an abomination,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said as the Hill’s police chief slammed the Fox News host for falsely portraying the attack.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson released the first portion of never-before-seen angles of footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters on Monday. “‘Deadly insurrection.’ Everything about that phrase is a lie,” Carlson said on his widely watched weeknight program. “Very little about Jan. 6 was organized or violent. Surveillance video from inside the Capitol shows mostly peaceful chaos.”
Exclusives
The media mogul acknowledged that he could have stopped the parade of conspiracy theorists on Fox News from amplifying false claims by former President Trump and his surrogates that the election in 2020 was stolen.
Even in today’s highly partisan media world, experts said, the lack of coverage about the private comments of Fox’s top executives and hosts stands out.
“It is ironic that Fox is relying on a landmark case that was designed to help the news media play the watchdog role in a democracy and is under attack by Gov. DeSantis, Donald Trump and other figures who have been untethered in their attacks on journalists as enemies of the people,” said Jane Hall, a communication professor at American University.
The Murdoch Empire — And Fox News — Is At A Crossroads
The former president has not made a weekday showing on the channel since appearing on Sean Hannity’s show in September.
Fox News and its parent company face serious threats to their financial and reputational health from a blockbuster defamation lawsuit tied to coverage of the 2020 election that legal experts believe has a solid chance of succeeding.
According to new reporting from Matt Drudge, contrary to recent speculation, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott should not be concerned about her immediate job security. Mediaite can confirm that Drudge’s reporting comes from a high-placed individual at the company.
It’s a risky strategy, legal experts say, but could help the network make the case that its commentators had reason to see false claims as plausible. Above: Donald Trump supporters demonstrate in Philadelphia in November 2020, claiming the presidential election was rigged against him. (John Minchillo/AP)
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) have sent a letter to Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch asking him to stop Fox News personalities from “spreading false election narratives,” warning they could lead to “further acts of political violence.”
February marked CNN’s lowest-rated month in a decade, with the network’s primetime lineup dropping 42% among viewers 25-54 — the key demographic group valued by advertisers — compared to the same month one year ago. CNN drew an average primetime audience of 122,000 viewers in the key demo, compared to Fox News Channel’s 299,000 viewers (down 33%). MSNBC was third overall with 119,000 viewers (down 15%).
First Amendment Should Protect Fox News From Defamation Lawsuit
Quin Hillyer: “In Fox News’s defense against the well-publicized defamation lawsuits by voting machine companies, Fox needs to remind a jury that there’s a large distinction between what is unethical and what is illegal. If Fox eventually needs to appeal an unfavorable jury decision, the network should freely acknowledge that many of its shows are opinion rather than news because libel law gives more protection to opinions.”
In the end, the White House and Fox News will both claim the high road.
A White House official said Friday evening that it was “inaccurate” to say the interview had been rescheduled, contradicting a Fox Corp. spokesperson who said earlier in the day that it was happening.
With just three days to go before the Kansas City Chiefs square off against the Philadelphia Eagles at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, the White House has yet to commit to the traditional interview between the President of the United States and the news division of the media company broadcasting the gridiron classic, potentially shunning a conversation that would be seen by one of TV’s biggest audiences.
Former Fox News staffer Laura Luhn has sued the network and its parent company over alleged “decades-long” sexual abuse and blackmail by late CEO Roger Ailes. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday under New York’s recently enacted Adult Survivor’s Act, names Fox News, parent company 21st Century Fox and former network executive William Shine as defendants. It alleges Ailes, who died in 2017, “used his position as the head of Fox News to trap Laura W. Luhn in a decades-long cycle of sexual abuse.”
Tech executives from Fox News, Fox Television Stations, WPVI Philadelphia and LiveU are shifting away from traditional microwave and satellite technology and finding other IP-native paths to send live and edited video, they told an audience at TVNewsCheck’s NewsTECHForum last week. Above (l-r): LiveU’s Mike Savello, Fox News’ Scott Wilder, WPVI’s Elizabeth Plyler and Fox Television Stations’ Erik Smith (Alyssa Wesley photo). Read a full report here and/or watch the video above.
According to a 2021 Pew Research Center survey, 23 percent of U.S. adults say that podcasts are how they get news, at least sometimes. FOX News’ audio network is currently number 11 in Podtrac’s list of top publishers.
The network averaged 141 weekday violent crime segments per week from Labor Day through the Friday before the election; in the week of the midterms, Fox aired 71 weekday violent crime segments — a decrease of 50% compared to the prior average.
During an appearance on “On With Kara Swisher,” CNN’s chairman and CEO Chris Licht opened about who he sees as competition for the cable news channel, and it isn’t Fox News.
For a second consecutive day, the recriminations about Republicans’ unexpectedly weak Election Day performance played a prominent role on the pages and over the airwaves of Rupert Murdoch’s media properties.
Greg Gutfeld, a punk-rock loving, former men’s magazine firebrand, knows he’s a divisive figure, and It sure seems he likes it that way. The host of Fox News’ Gutfeld! regularly is pilloried by the left and adored by the right. But it’s the millions of viewers that have been tuning in to his show, which went nightly in April 2021, that have put him in the spotlight. Between the beginning of August and the first week of October, Gutfeld! brought in an average of 2.15 million viewers, using the Live+Same Day metric, according to Nielsen Media Research.
Fox News, MSNBC, CNN hold top three positions on total day chart.
Fox News again topped the monthly ratings, as The Five topped in total viewers and Tucker Carlson Tonight won the 25-54 demo. The network saw a 4% rise in total day viewership, while it said that its late night show Gutfeld! saw its highest rated month since its April, 2021 launch, with 2.19 million viewers.
Executives from NBCUniversal, Fox Television Stations, E.W. Scripps, Gray Television and Estrella Media told a TVNewsCheck webinar last week they’ve needed to embrace a wide range of tools and tactics to grow audience and revenue for their streaming channels. Ubiquity and flexibility, they said, are key.
The book by Chris Stirewalt also makes the case that the news business, in its desire for viewer and reader engagement, has tilted too heavily toward giving the audience what it wants to hear, rather than what they need to know, having prioritized stoking emotion over their civic-minded duty.
Primaries are now well underway, and the 2022 midterm elections are a focus for news organizations already preparing for what’s certain to be a contentious 2024 presidential campaign. With that in mind, The Hollywood Reporter highlights some of the Beltway-based news personalities and executives poised to play a leading role in the months (and years) ahead.
After a New York state judge denied its motion to dismiss a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Smartmatic, Fox News filed four separate answers in the case: Fox News, Fox Corp, Maria Bartiromo and Lou Dobbs.
For the first time, Fox Corp. will hold a unified in-person upfront presentation that includes entertainment programming on the Fox broadcast network, as well as pitches for Fox Sports and Fox News, the company said Wednesday. The in-person presentation, set for May 16, will also depart from tradition (or at least pre-pandemic tradition) by leaving midtown Manhattan for lower Manhattan, holding the advertising pitch at an event space that used to be the trading floor for the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Fox News Media is getting into another rough-and-tumble world — the weather. The company is launching Fox Weather, a free streaming service and app that it expects will be used most frequently by customers on their mobile devices.
