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Deposition Looms For Lachlan Murdoch In Dominion Defamation Lawsuit

Lachlan Murdoch and wife Sarah

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Lachlan Murdoch, the executive chairman and CEO of Fox News‘ parent company, Fox Corporation, is set to be deposed next week in a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit. Dominion Voting Systems, which manufactures voting machines, claims the eldest Murdoch son and his father, Rupert Murdoch, bear responsibility for Fox News promoting pro-Trump false election fraud claims it says has caused its company harm.

The younger Murdoch is “scheduled to face questions from Dominion’s lawyers on Monday in Los Angeles, according to multiplereports, and will be the highest-ranking official at Fox to be deposed by Dominion,” The Hillreports.

Fox News propagandists Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson have already faced Dominion’s attorneys.

After a federal judge in June ruled the case could move forward, Law & Crime explained, “Dominion’s lawsuit contends that Rupert and his son Lachlan Murdoch personally caused Fox News to broadcast false claims about their role in the 2020 election, even though the Murdochs knew former President Donald Trump’s election fraud narrative was false.”

Rupert Murdoch reportedly spoke with Donald Trump just days after the 2020 presidential election to tell him he had lost.

Judge Eric M. Davis ruled there is “a reasonable inference that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch either knew Dominion had not manipulated the election or at least recklessly disregarded the truth when they allegedly caused Fox News to propagate its claims about Dominion.”

“Dominion has successfully brought home actual malice to the individuals at Fox Corporation who it claims to be responsible for the broadcasts,” Judge Davis added, according to Law & Crime.

A federal judge has rejected Fox News’ First Amendment defense. The case is expected to reach a jury trial early next year.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Lachlan Murdoch

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Uh-Oh: Carlson Hid Ye's Anti-Semitism -- And Now He's Exposed As A Nazi

Kanye West

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Ye, the rapper previously known as Kanye West, has spent the last several weeks ranting about Jewish people on social media and in a series of interviews. On Thursday, he took his antisemitic campaign to arch-conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ program, where he repeatedly praised Adolf Hitler and decried the purported Jewish control of media and government.

Fox News could have had the story of Ye’s recent full dive into antisemitism as a huge scoop – but the network preferred to mint him as a right-wing hero. It should be a major embarrassment for what is purportedly a news outlet, but because the network is actually a propaganda channel, no one there appears to care.

Ye made virulently antisemitic comments during an interview that aired in October with Fox star Tucker Carlson. He told the Fox host at one point, “I prefer my kids knew Hanukkah than Kwanzaa. At least it will come with some financial engineering.” Ye himself appeared to recognize he had gone too far after telling Carlson, “Think about us judging each other on how white we could talk would be like, you know, a Jewish person judging another Jewish person on how good they danced or something.”

But Carlson and his bosses apparently had no interest in exposing Ye as an antisemite. The story they wanted to tell was that Ye was being persecuted for supporting former President Donald Trump. So Ye’s explicitly anti-Jewish comments were excised when Fox aired the interview, as Motherboard subsequently revealed. And when he aired the interview on October 6 and 7, Carlson praised his guest for being willing to “speak so honestly and so movingly about what he believes” and said he is “not crazy at all” (Ye has extensively discussed his long struggle with mental health).

Carlson’s seal of approval helped fold Ye into the right-wing coalition. Fox hosts followed their colleague's lead and spent days lauding the rapper’s bravery and honesty. And some Republican politicians, who frequently take their messaging cues from the network, joined in. All the while, Carlson and everyone else at the network with knowledge of the full interview stayed silent about Ye’s antisemitism — it didn’t fit the narrative.

But that weekend, Ye accused the rapper Diddy of being controlled by Jews in an Instagram post. After that service suspended him, he tweeted that he planned to go “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” who he claimed “have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.” And that’s what he’s done over the following weeks, as he careened from interview to interview preaching anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, with a sidetrip to dine with Trump and a virulent white supremacist.

Meanwhile, after initially ignoring Ye’s antisemitic descent and continuing to tout him, Carlson has gone silent on the man he once praised as a “big thinker.”

Fox could have broken the story, if only it were interested in the news.

Does Carlson care? Does Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott? How about the Murdochs?

Apparently not. That isn’t what Fox is for.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Kanye West