Fox Faces FCC License Threat Over False Election Claims & Jan. 6 Attack
Fox may have forked over $787 million to avoid going to trial in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit over false 2020 election claims, but the Rupert Murdoch-owned company is far from free of the fallout.
Full of excerpts of personal emails from Murdoch himself, a petition has been filed with the Federal Communications Commission to deny the broadcast license renewal of Fox Corp-owned Philadelphia TV station FOX 29 over its parent company’s “misdeeds.” Led in part by former Fox Broadcasting Company executive Preston Padden, the petition from The Media and Democracy Project cites the bracing revelations out of the Dominion case and Fox News’ trumpeting of Trump’s Stop the Steal efforts as perpetuating “false news about the 2020 election.”
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“Based on extensive record evidence including internal emails and texts, a court has held that the senior management of Fox Television Stations repeatedly disseminated false news,” the July 3 dated filing states (read it here). “To the best of Petitioners’ knowledge, never before has the Commission been confronted with such a judicial finding against an applicant for renewal of a license to broadcast over the public airwaves,” it goes on to say.
After months of a torrent of damning documents tainting the likes of the elder Murdoch, his execs, and the likes of past and present hosts Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Maria Bartiromo, Fox Corp settled with Dominion for millions and with a tightly parsed statement just as the trial was starting on April 18. Viewing the payment as an admission unto itself and referencing email that the elder Murdoch sent to Padden himself fin late 2020, the Media and Democracy Project petition believes the company’s conduct “warranting Commission denial of FOX’s renewal application, revocation of its broadcast licenses, and a determination that FOX lacks the character qualifications required of licensees.”
“Owning a broadcast station is more than a business – it is a public trust,” the 20-page petition adds. “It is crucial to our democracy that broadcasting remain a trusted source of news. A company that knowingly and repeatedly presents false news just to placate its core viewers undermines that sense of trust. The false news presented by Fox has done grievous damage to our country and its citizens.”
With long time Murdoch confidant Padden offering a Fox insider POV, the non-partisan advocacy group want the FCC to hold an evidentiary hearing into the company using the WTXF-TV license renewal as a wedge. A spokesperson for the FCC today told Deadline: “We have received and are reviewing the petition.”
Plainly aware that the FCC almost always issue license renewals, Fox Corp don’t seem to be breaking much of a sweat over the petition, at least not outwardly.
“The Media and Democracy Project petition to deny the license renewal of WTXF-TV is frivolous, completely without merit and asks the FCC to upend the First Amendment and long-standing FCC precedent,” a Fox spokesperson told Deadline Thursday. “WTXF-TV / FOX 29 News Philadelphia is one of the finest local news stations in the country, broadcasting over 60 hours of local news and locally produced programming every week.”
Perhaps, but in an accompanying July 1 date exhibit, ex-Fox SVP Padden lays out to the FCC why the City of Brotherly Love-set station and more of the over two dozen Fox-owned local stations should be put under the microscope when their respective licenses come up for renewal.
Despite having exited Fox over 25 years ago for Disney and elsewhere, Padden appears to have some solid up-close insights into the way things once and still work over there:
I write this declaration because, in my opinion, FOX has undermined our democracy and has radicalized a segment of our population by presenting knowingly false narratives about the legitimacy of the 2020 election. In my opinion, this type of reporting was a significant contributing factor to the riots in the Capitol on January 6, 2021. For example, I heard Sean Hannity on Fox News Channel refer to the then upcoming January 6, 2021 “Stop The Steal” rally in Washington, D.C. telling his viewers that “President Trump says it’s going to be wild, be there.”
“Fox News Sunday,” a weekly show broadcast on television station WTXF-TV and other FOX-affiliated television stations, is produced by Fox News Channel, has been hosted by Fox News Channel stars and essentially is a broadcast extension of Fox News Channel. Fox News Channel also provides national and international news “feeds” to Fox-affiliated television stations, including WTXF-TV for inclusion in their locally produced newscasts. These local newscasts repeated some of the false narratives broadcast on the Fox News Channel.
In my opinion, as a result of FOX’s knowingly false narrative, large numbers of that radicalized population ransacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, causing injury, property damage and attacking the very foundation of our democracy. In my opinion, FOX contributed to that tragedy.
During my 7 years at FOX, ultimate decision-making authority for the operation of every part of the company – every division, every business unit, every subsidiary -rested with Rupert Murdoch. It was his “candy store.” I get the impression that more recently he has begun to share power with his son, Lachlan Murdoch. But I can state without fear of contradiction that Rupert and Lachlan retain ultimate decision-making authority for every part of the company, including FOX News Channel and FOX Television Stations.
For several months in 2020 and 2021, I engaged in an extended exchange of emails with Mr. Murdoch about my concerns over the content being presented on FOX. Without my knowledge, some or all of those email exchanges were produced by Fox in discovery in the Dominion litigation. As was set forth in detail in the opinion of Judge Eric M. Davis in Dominion v FOX, Mr. Murdoch and FOX News knew that then President Trump had lost his bid for reelection. However, as revealed by texts and emails in the record of the Dominion litigation, the top management at FOX, worried about losing ratings and revenues, spun a narrative suggesting that the election was rigged, and that electoral victory had been stolen from Donald Trump. It was obvious to me that Mr. Murdoch knew that Trump had lost the election and that there was no basis for claiming election fraud. For example, on November 6, 2020, Mr. Murdoch wrote me, “Seems Trump listening to terrible advice from Giuliani versus Trump family wanting to wave white flag! Not sure of this but sounds likely. Melania very levelheaded. Ivanka too but would never go public.”
In my opinion, Mr. Murdoch was worried about repercussions from Trump, loss of audience and stock value, if he accurately reported the news. On November 12, 2020, he wrote me: “Apparently he’s [Trump] told friends that Lachlan and I have betrayed him. Stock down 5 or 6% today. Real bargain!” In another email on the same day Mr. Murdoch wrote me: “He can only be so hostile as he looks to blame somebody for losing. So he knows he’s done.”
Beyond doubt, Mr. Murdoch knew that Trump had lost the election, nonetheless, FOX continued to promote news stories and guests who claimed, without any basis, that the election was rigged. In my opinion, these actions on the part of Mr. Murdoch, his son and top FOX management significantly contributed to the upheaval that occurred at the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021.
In my opinion, the false narrative FOX knowingly and repeatedly broadcast about alleged fraud in the 2020 election has created a terrible division among the American people. Those falsehoods have caused millions of Americans to believe that the 2020 election was stolen despite the voluminous evidence, including more than 60 Court decisions, to the contrary. There has been no remorse from FOX in response to the judicial finding of falsity.
Of course, FCC license renewal hearings or not, Fox is still facing a $2.7 billion defamation suit from that other voting machine company Smartmatic over false 2020 election claims – though it could be long after the 2024 election before that case ever goes to trial
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