James Murdoch criticizes ‘media owners’ who ‘unleashed insidious forces’ with allegations of electoral denial

James Murdoch criticizes ‘media owners’ who ‘unleashed insidious forces’ with allegations of electoral denial

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Murdoch did not explicitly mention Fox News, which is controlled by his father and brother Lachlan Murdoch. But it was clear that, even though he had other channels in mind, his focus was on the right cable network when he made those comments in an interview with the Financial Times published on Friday. Since Joe Biden’s election was called, some Fox News personalities have amplified President Trump’s false allegations of electoral fraud and sowed distrust in the voting system.

“The damage is profound,” said Murdoch, referring to the electoral misinformation that circulated in the United States. “Capitol looting is positive proof that what we thought was dangerous is really, really dangerous. These channels that spread lies to your audience have unleashed insidious and uncontrollable forces that will be with us for years.”

“I hope those people who didn’t think it was so dangerous now understand and stop,” added Murdoch.

After the interview, he released a joint statement to the Financial Times with his wife, Kathryn Murdoch.

“Spreading disinformation – whether about elections, public health or climate change – has consequences in the real world,” said the two. “Many media owners have as much responsibility for this as elected officials who know the truth, but prefer to propagate lies. We hope that the terrible scenes we have all seen will finally convince these facilitators to repudiate the toxic policy they have promoted once and forever. “

A spokesman for Murdoch did not respond to a request for comment.

Young Murdoch broke up dramatically with his family in August 2020, resigning from the board of directors of News Corp, his family’s editorial empire. Murdoch said at the time that he was leaving the company because of “disagreements over certain published editorial content” by his news outlets and “certain other strategic decisions”.

It would not be the first time that James Murdoch spoke publicly about the coverage provided by the media in his father’s media empire. A spokesman for James and his wife Kathryn told the Daily Beast that the couple were frustrated “with part of the coverage from News Corp and Fox” about climate change as the fires ravaged Australia last year. In an interview with The New Yorker in 2019, he said, “There are views that I really disagree with on Fox.”

Murdoch showed other signs of disagreeing with Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch’s conservative political views. He has already made a donation to Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg and has been angered by the denial of climate change.

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