Good Riddance, Rupert

Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as chairman of his massive media empire, News Corp. Some of the corporation’s properties are The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Sun (UK), The Times (UK), The Sunday Times (UK), and of course, Fox News. Murdoch has been a stain on journalism in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia where he’s from. It’s unfortunate that when he was a baby, there weren’t any dingos nearby.

Don’t celebrate too soon because Rupert is leaving his son, Lachlan Murdoch, in control of the empire. Lachlan was named in the lawsuits against Fox News by Dominion and Smartmatic, both claiming that it was under Lachlan’s direction that Fox News intentionally gave a platform to guests that Fox News’ hosts knew were making false and defamatory statements, that Dominion and Smartmatic voting machines rigged the election for Biden, and stole the election from Donald Trump.

Rupert Murdoch is not a journalist and never wanted to advance journalism or information. He has used his “news” outlets to promote conservatism and has pushed lies for decades. Fox News has used anger to motivate its viewers. President Obama once said that if he watched Fox News, he would hate him too.

Fox News is the number one “news” network which is a disgusting thing about this nation. Fox News viewers know they’re being lied to. They have to. Yet, they would rather watch this network that’s shouting at them rather than actual news outlets that are informative. Fox News is also the number one “news” outlet for racists.

During a deposition, Rupert agreed with the statement that multiple hosts at Fox News “endorsed at times this false notion of a stolen election.” When Trump started howling that the election was stolen, Murdoch sent an email to Fox News executives stating, “We don’t want to antagonize Trump further.”

When asked about the “antagonize” email in the deposition, Murdoch said that Trump “had a very large following, and they were probably mostly viewers of Fox, so it would have been stupid.” A news outlet piss off a politician? Heavens to Betsy. That’s part of the territory. When you deliver the news, you are always at risk of angering viewers and readers. So in order not to anger his viewers, Rupert allowed his network to lie to them.

Murdoch never saw Fox News as a legitimate news outlet, but rather as an extension of the Republican Party, the Trump Campaign, and the Trump White House (sic). Murdoch helped the Trump Campaign strategize in 2016. While other news outlets would fire a host for coordinating with campaigns and elected officials (Chris Cuomo), Rupert allowed Fox News hosts to be featured speakers at Trump rallies. During the Trump presidency (sic) Sean Hannity had private phone conversations with Trump nearly nightly.

Shortly after the 2020 election and facing two Senate runoffs in Georgia, Rupert said, “Trump will concede eventually and we should concentrate on Georgia, helping any way we can.” It’s not a news outlet’s job to assist political campaigns and “help any way we can.” That’s not a news outlet, that’s propaganda.

Rupert and Fox News settled with Dominion for $787.5 million which makes part of his goodbye statement to Fox News employees truly bizarre.

Rupert, whose personal net worth is over $17 billion, wrote, “Elites have open contempt for those who are not members of their rarefied class,. Most of the media is in cahoots with those elites, peddling political narratives rather than pursuing the truth.”

I guess it wouldn’t be Rupert’s style to go out the door without lying his ass off.

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