- James Murdoch, son of Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch, attacked the media “propagating lies” for his role in unleashing “insidious and uncontrollable forces that will be with us for years”.
- “These vehicles that spread lies to their audience have unleashed insidious and uncontrollable forces that will be with us for years,” the youngest Murdoch told the Financial Times on Friday.
- Murdoch broke with the family empire last year after reports emerged that he and his wife Kathryn were frustrated with part of News Corp’s coverage of climate change.
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James Murdoch, the youngest son of Rupert Murdoch, publicly attacked “media owners” and news outlets for his role in promoting false electoral allegations that helped lead to deadly riots on the US Capitol last week.
In an interview with the Financial Times published on Friday, Murdoch said the siege on Capitol Hill, which resulted in five deaths, is “positive proof that what we thought was dangerous is really, really, really dangerous.”
“These vehicles that spread lies to their audience have unleashed insidious and uncontrollable forces that will be with us for years,” said the younger Murdoch, according to FT. “I hope those people who didn’t think it was so dangerous now understand and stop.”
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Murdoch did not mention any media specifically, although Fox News – the company owned by his father and older brother, Lachlan – was previously criticized for selling unsubstantiated allegations of electoral fraud after the 2020 election, which was made for the first time. President Trump.
His comments are the industry’s strongest rebuke since he decided to break away from the family media empire last year.
Murdoch announced his resignation from the News Corp board of directors in July. The multinational media company owns several American newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.
In a statement at the time, Murdoch said he chose to leave “due to disagreements over certain editorial content published by the company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions.”
According to several reports, James and his wife Kathryn were frustrated “with some of the coverage from News Corp and Fox” on climate change, while fires devastated much of Australia last year.
Murdoch’s youngest son has since turned his attention to his foundation called Quadrivium, which according to his website, aims to promote initiatives related to democracy, electoral participation and climate change, among others.
In a separate statement published after the FT interview, Murdoch and his wife wrote: “Spreading disinformation – whether about election, public health or climate change – has consequences in the real world.”
“Many media owners have as much responsibility for this as elected officials who know the truth, but choose to propagate lies. We hope that the horrific scenes that we have all seen at last will convince these facilitators to repudiate the toxic policy they have promoted once and forever. “they added, according to CNN Business.