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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones. This is 7am.

We now have the clearest insight into the inner-workings of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.

The mogul was forced, under oath, to answer questions about Fox News in a $1.6 billion dollar lawsuit against the company.

What’s been revealed is that Murdoch — and some of his most famous hosts — knew they were putting lies to air, and allowed it anyway.

Today, author of ‘The Successor’ Paddy Manning, on the culture at Fox News that put profits before the truth.

It’s Wednesday, March 8.

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RUBY:

So, Paddy, in recent days, we've heard Rupert Murdoch openly admitting, in a court deposition, that that hosts at his Fox News Network had endorsed things on air, things that he knew to be false. So let's start with what it is that Murdoch has actually admitted. What has he said?

PADDY:

Yeah. Ruby this is just the most extraordinary evidence that's emerged from the lawsuit filed by an electronic voting machine manufacturer in the United States, Dominion Voting Systems, which has sued Fox for defamation.

And just to step back and understand the big picture here. For more than six decades, Rupert has been the centre of a debate and speculation about his political influence, and his editorial interventions. And the public never gets to see behind the curtain, so to speak, how does Rupert actually run his empire. And the court evidence that we've seen in this case shows us Rupert is still pulling the strings and calling the shots.

Now, bearing in mind that some of it is redacted, so you don't want to go jumping to conclusions on the basis of redacted court filings. But what we see here is Rupert's own private communications, and own evidence under oath which, prove that even though he knew and his son Lachlan knew, and the CEO of Fox News, Suzanne Scott knew, and his primetime hosts like Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Tucker Carlson, all knew that their claims of a stolen election were baseless. Rupert was allowing his Fox hosts to to countenance — and even endorse — the big lie that was being propagated by the Trump campaign, even though he knew Rupert himself, as he emailed admitting that it was, quote, “really crazy stuff.”

RUBY:

And this really goes back to a single night, doesn't it, Paddy? The night of the 2020 U.S. election. And on that evening, the world was watching to see if Donald Trump would be able to get another term as president, or if Joe Biden would be able to win. And thinking back to that moment, it was very uncertain, wasn't it? No one wanted to put much stock into opinion polls, and it did feel like the vote could go either way. So what do we know now about the way that that evening was actually unfolding at Fox News?

PADDY:

Fox News went into the night knowing the election was going to be decided in some crucial states, in particular swing states — or purple states — of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Arizona.

We also went into that election knowing that the Trump campaign had a plan to declare victory early. And everybody knew that Republican voters were more likely to vote in person, and Democratic voters were more likely to vote by mail. And what that meant was, that if the Trump campaign could declare victory early, there would be a red mirage in the early stages of the count. And the Trump campaign planned to declare victory early and call for the counting to stop.

Archival tape – Fox News Elections Night:

“And it is seven o’clock on the East Coast, which means polls have just closed in half a dozen states”

PADDY:

On the night Fox News… It has a thing called the decision desk.

Archival tape – Fox News Elections Night:

“The Fox News Decision Desk can now project that Trump will easily win the state of Alabama.”

Archival tape – Fox News Elections Night:

“The president will also beat Joe Biden in Oklahoma, according to our Decision Desk.”

Archival tape – Fox News Elections Night:

“Fox News Decision Desk projecting that he, the president, will win Indiana.”

PADDY:

And it predicted that Arizona was going to be won by Joe Biden.

Archival tape – Fox News Elections Night:

“But what is this happening here? Why is Arizona blue? Did we just call it? Did we make a call in Arizona?”

PADDY:

And it predicted it before the other networks.

Archival tape – Fox News Elections Night:

“This is a big development. The Fox News Decision Desk is calling Arizona for Joe Biden.”

PADDY:

When the Decision Desk flipped Arizona into the Biden column. The Trump campaign went ballistic because it snuffed out their chances of declaring victory early on the night.

But amongst the Trump voting Fox audience, calling Arizona was seen as a betrayal, and complaints and protests started both on the night, and for days and weeks to come.

RUBY:

So to be clear, I mean, it's usually a good thing for a news network to be the first to break something, to tell its audience election results. But in this case, because that call wasn't in Trump's favour, it actually damaged the network in the eyes of their audience. And they were aware of that.

PADDY:

Absolutely, for Fox, it was a catastrophe. Suddenly Trump supporters were abandoning Fox and going straight to Newsmax and OAN. More conservative channels, to the right of Fox News. And we have evidence in the filings from Dominion that Rupert Murdoch himself was writing to Suzanne Scott, saying, we're getting creamed by CNN in the ratings. This was a moment of crisis for Fox News. This is when, according to their own PR spokesperson, Irena Briganti, in one of these filings, she said they hit the panic button.

RUBY:

Right, and when you say panic button, it was around this time that Fox started to allow more fringe ideas on air — conspiracy theories really — presumably because they were worried about losing their audience to smaller, newer media organisations, like Newsmax. So tell me about the sorts of things that started to air on Fox around this time?

PADDY:

Yeah, increasingly, the Fox News Channel — especially in the primetime opinion slots — gave airtime to people like Rudy Giuliani, President’s Trump’s legal advisor.

Archival tape – Fox News:

“President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who claims there is strong evidence of election fraud in several states, Mr Giuliani thanks for being with us.

Archival tape – Rudy Giuliani:

“How are you?”

Archival tape – Fox News:

“We’re doing great.”

PADDY:

Who held a series of press conferences claiming there was an election fraud, without presenting any evidence.

Archival tape – Rudy Giuliani:

“Why did it happen that 15,000 times, that people in Pittsburgh walked in to vote and they had already voted according to the democrat election machine…did they forget?”

PADDY:

When Rupert Murdoch was asked whether he could have told Fox News chief executive and its stars to stop giving airtime to Rudy Giuliani, Murdoch said, “I could have, but I didn't.”

Archival tape – Sean Hannity:

“But first tonight, many Americans do not believe that this election was fair.”

PADDY:

You have Sean Hannity.

Archival tape – Sean Hannity:

“Every American has a right to feel that way, I feel that way. It’s a corrupt and embarrassing disgrace.”

PADDY:

Within days of the election, on air saying, quote.

Archival tape – Sean Hannity:

“It will be impossible to ever know the true, fair, accurate, election results. That’s a fact”

PADDY:

“That's a fact”, unquote.

Archival tape – Fox News Host:

“Where is the Department of Justice? Where is A.G. Bill Barr?”

PADDY:

And Fox allowed more guests on who spread lies about the election, the most egregious of those being Sidney Powell, another legal adviser to President Trump.

Archival tape – Sidney Powell:

“Dominion and its minions and other state officials everywhere are apparently out there trying to destroy everything they can get to before we can seize it.”

PADDY:

And as she was appearing on the network, the hosts who had her on, behind the scenes, were texting and emailing each other, showing that they knew that was spreading misleading claims.

Tucker Carlson says in one text message to his producer, “Sidney Powell is lying”, quote unquote. Laura Ingraham says in a message to Carlson, “Sydney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy.”

RUBY:

And there were other texts that came out, weren’t there, Paddy. Texts sent by these Fox hosts that indicated that while privately these hosts might not have thought that the ‘stolen election’ narrative was true, and that some of the guests they had on were crazy or lying, they didn’t actually want the network to admit that publicly did they?

PADDY:

Well Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson tried to get Fox News reporter, Jackie Henrique, fired for fact checking a Trump tweet about Dominion voting, which noted that there was no evidence of votes being destroyed. So Tucker texts, “Please get her fired. Seriously, what the fuck? It's measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.”
So this is Tucker Carlson and he earns millions of dollars and he wants to get a lowly junior reporter fired for doing her job.

Fox knew that what it was doing was wrong, but it was a commercial imperative for them to try and win back the MAGA base if you like.

And when the chips are down, their desire is to keep that machine making money. And it's more important than any other thing. And it's more important even than telling the truth.

RUBY:

We’ll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

Paddy, a lot has come out about what the hosts at Fox were saying and doing around the time Trump lost the election. But can we talk a bit more about Rupert Murdoch? Because people for a long time have wondered, how much say Rupert Murdoch actually has in the editorial line his media companies take. And it seems like the answer to that, based on what's come out in these depositions, is that: well that he has quite a lot of say! He seems to be active, in terms of the way he communicates with management at Fox?

PADDY:

Well, at a moment of crisis, and someone who follows the Murdochs very closely was saying to me the other day, Rupert gets involved when there's a big picture crisis and when he's involved he's heavily involved and there's no doubt who's in charge.

Here is Rupert, who is about to turn 92 on Saturday, still holding his end up in a complex legal argument with lawyers for Dominion, which shows that he is still sharp. And one of the things that strikes me, Ruby, actually reading these filings is that Rupert is much more present than Lachlan. Rupert, even though he's a non-executive chair at Fox Corporation. He's heavily involved in texting and emailing Suzanne Scott, and of course chatting to Lachlan, and dealing with the board of Fox Corporation. Lachlan seems to be more at a distance. And Rupert in one, in one point in his testimony admits, quote, “He's a journalist at heart and he loves getting involved in this kind of stuff.” So I don't think Lachlan is the kind of editor-in-chief figure that Rupert has always been throughout his career. And I think we see a bit more evidence of that in these depositions.

RUBY:

Right and so we know that Rupert is heavily involved at Fox in the sense that he’s texting and emailing his senior management. So what does that mean then in terms of the organisation's relationship with Donald Trump? Because it seems on the one hand, the network is very much aware of his popularity with their audience, but on the other, we have hosts — and even Rupert Murdoch himself — now saying they didn’t think the claims Trump’s camp were making were true?

PADDY:

Trump is outraged at the evidence, and accused Rupert Murdoch of throwing his anchors under the bus.

There's a lot of anger on the right at the evidence that is emerging because it shows that there was a deep scepticism about Trump inside Fox News.

You have to remember, back in 2016, Rupert Murdoch was initially very sceptical of Trump's candidacy and was actually urging him not to even run to seek the Republican Party nomination at the beginning of the year. But then he starts to realise that Trump has momentum and that once he wins the nomination, he throws his support behind him. And, so does Fox, of course.

This all coincided in 2016 with the dramatic ouster of Roger Ailes, who co-founded Fox News with Rupert. And there's an argument that since Roger Ailes' downfall, it's like the animals have taken over the zoo. No one has been strong enough at management level to really rein in the Tucker Carlsons and the Sean Hannitys, that they do what they want.

And there's some evidence of that in the depositions as well. Rupert admitting that he wished in hindsight that they'd gone harder against the big lie when it first emerged. Rupert asking Susanne Scott just on January 5th, the night before the insurrection, just saying, is it possible that we could have a joint statement or separate statements from Tucker, from Laura, from Sean, making the point that there are the allegations of a stolen election were were baseless. And Suzanne Scott kind of deflects, she says it would be too risky.

RUBY:

So it sounds like Rupert was expressing concern here about what hosts on Fox were saying. And he’s also admitted that they endorsed what was a lie. So when it comes to this lawsuit, Dominion is suing Fox News for $1.6 billion dollars – What do Rupert Murdochs admissions mean for that case? What he has admitted here, does that help Dominion as they’re trying to prove that they were defamed?

PADDY:

What it reveals is that if you read the transcripts of Rupert's deposition, he's concerned to make a distinction between the views of some of the prime time anchors, between their views and the views of Fox News. He was saying that some of the anchors might have endorsed the stolen election claims, but Fox News didn't.

So I don't agree with those people who are saying that this is tantamount to an admission of guilt. The bar is very high for defamation cases in the United States, and Dominion has to prove at trial that Fox News had actual malice towards them. It is not enough for them to have an admission that inaccurate information was put to air, because the First Amendment protects media organisations, the First Amendment to the US Constitution which guarantees a free press. And what Dominion has to show is actual malice towards Dominion. And I'm still not convinced that there is a smoking gun here which shows that the Murdochs, or the leadership at Fox, or the primetime anchors, had actual malice towards Dominion. The test for malice is reckless disregard for the truth of what they were putting to air. And according to the views of most legal commentators who have looked at this evidence and made comments on it in the last two weeks. These filings do damage Fox's case, but it's not a slam dunk. It's not a foregone conclusion by any means and anything could come out at trial.

RUBY:

So is that likely? That this case could go to trial?

PADDY:

Oh, absolutely. I mean, yes, it is early days still, even though we've had mountains of documentary evidence obtained through discovery and we've now got the benefit of these depositions, we still haven't gone to trial. And this is only the first of two cases, bearing in mind that there's another case to come from another voting machine manufacturer, Smartmatic.

So there is still a long way to go. But if we really do get to the point — which I never suspected would come — where both Rupert and Lachlan take the stand, in this case, in an open courtroom, that will be the most fascinating story.

I mean, Lachlan hasn't appeared in court since the collapse of One.Tel two decades ago. I had assumed all along that he would be absolutely loathe to appear again in a courtroom.

But, the suggestions are that he's quite prepared to testify. And I'm sure on the Fox side, they believe that this is an important free speech case.

I mean obviously, it could settle tomorrow as well. Maybe that still remains the most likely outcome. But everything seems to suggest with the evidence that's been given, and has now appeared in the media, everything seems to suggest that Dominion wants its day in court and they're about to get it.

RUBY:

Well it’ll be fascinating what comes out if they do. Paddy, thank you so much for your time.

PADDY:

Thank you, Ruby!

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RUBY:

Also in the news today…

The reserve bank has lifted rates yet again, by 25 basis points.

However, the governor of the RBA Philip Lowe appeared to slightly soften his language on future rate rises – saying in his monthly statement that further action was likely, but did not refer to multiple rate rises in the coming months as he had back in February.

And

Australian tech company Atlassian will cut 500 jobs, becoming the latest job cuts announced in the tech layoffs that are sweeping the global industry.

Co-chief executives Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar took responsibility for the cuts in a statement, saying quote: “we encourage you to take the time for farewells, including writing goodbye blogs and sharing any handovers.”

I’m Ruby Jones. This is 7am. See you tomorrow.

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