Amid continuing releases of documents and text messages about how Fox News reported false claims about the 2020 presidential election, Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch praised Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott.
“Suzanne Scott has done a tremendous job,” Murdoch said, talking about Fox News’s audience and financial performance at a Morgan Stanley investor conference Thursday.
There had been speculation that Scott could take the fall for the way Fox News covered the 2020 election and handled false claims about voting irregularities, leading to a $1.6 billion lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems in Delaware and another lawsuit filed in New York by election-tech company Smartmatic.
Documents in the Dominion lawsuit appear to indicate that Fox reporters, commentators and executives, including chairman Rupert Murdoch, did not believe in those claims, but the network reported them anyway.
Asked about the Dominion suit, Lachlan Murdoch said it was expected to go to trial in April. “We’ll all be waiting for that,” he said.
“A news organization has an obligation and it is obligated to report news fulsomely and wholesomely and without fear or favor, and that is what Fox News has always done,” he said.
He added that the noise surrounding the case was “not about the law, not about journalism, but about the politics. This is unfortunately reflective of the polarized society we live in.” ■
