Three former Fox executives have expressed regret for helping Rupert Murdoch build his U.S. broadcasting business, describing Fox News as a "disinformation machine."
The men—Preston Padden, Ken Solomon and Bill Reyner—all worked for Murdoch and Fox Broadcasting Company in the 1990s. Padden was lead Washington lobbyist for the business, Solomon was executive vice president of network distribution and Reyner was lead outside counsel.
Fox News did not yet exist and was not "on the horizon at the time," the three wrote in a blog post published on Wednesday.
But their work for Fox, the upstart fourth TV network competing with ABC, CBS and NBC, paved the way for the launch of the news channel, they said.
The blog post states that the three "wish to express their deep disappointment for helping to give birth to Fox Broadcasting Company and Fox Television that came to include Fox News.
The channel, they said, "prominently includes news that, in the words of Sidney Powell's counsel, 'no reasonable person would believe.'"
Newsweek has contacted Fox News for comment by email.
In the 1990s, the men said, they all had greatly admired Murdoch and believed in what he was trying to create.
"We genuinely believed that the creation of a fourth competitive force in broadcast television was in the public interest. We never envisioned, and would not knowingly have enabled, the disinformation machine that, in our opinion, Fox has become."
The news channel, which was launched in 1996, "has had many negative impacts on our society," they added.
"Arguably the worst has been Fox's role in promoting Trump's 'Big Lie' about alleged widespread fraud in the 2020 election and, in our opinion, Fox's role in contributing to the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol that undermined our democracy," they wrote.
They pointed to claims that protesters who stormed the Capitol had been suffering from "Foxitis." This expression was used by the attorney for Anthony Antonio, who was charged with five federal crimes for his actions on January 6. The lawyer described him as a "dumb*** [who] believed what he heard on Fox News."
The three executives also wrote that Padden had "months long email exchanges in 2020 and 2021" with Murdoch. In these messages, "Murdoch made it very clear to Preston that he understood that the 2020 election had not been stolen."
However, Fox News continued to air the conspiracy theory, they wrote.
In April, Fox News paid $787.5 million to settle a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems, which accused the channel of spreading falsehoods about its voting machines being used to rig the election.
Dominion's lawsuit had been seeking $1.6 billion in damages. The settlement did not require Fox News to apologize for reporting and magnifying Donald Trump's false claims that the election had been stolen.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Giulia Carbonaro is a Newsweek Reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on U.S. and European politics, global affairs ... Read more
