Of COURSE they "struggled" to make it happen, they are lying, Republi-KUNT scum, must be genetics...
Fox Leaders Wanted to Break From Trump but Struggled to Make It Happen
Wed, March 1, 2023 at 4:56 AM PST·6 min read
Five days after a pro-Trump mob attacked the U.S. Capitol, a board member of the Fox Corp., Anne Dias, reached out to Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch with an urgent plea.
“Considering how important Fox News has been as a megaphone for Donald Trump,” she said, it was time “to take a stance.” Dias, who sounded shaken by the riot, said she thought Fox News and the nation faced “an existential moment.”
As quickly as the two Murdochs began discussing how to respond, their bind became evident.
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“Just tell her we have been talking internally and intensely,” Rupert Murdoch, whose family controls the company, wrote in an email. Fox News, he told his son, “is pivoting as fast as possible.” But he sounded a note of caution: “We have to lead our viewers, which is not as easy as it might seem.”
Ever since Donald Trump announced his presidential campaign in 2015, Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News Channel have struggled with how to handle the man and the movement they helped create.
“Navigating” the delicate balance between truth and “crazy” was how Murdoch described his challenge in emails made public this week as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, which is expected to go to trial in April.
For the most part, Murdoch has been wildly successful at striking the balance. Fox converted Trump’s mass following into loyal viewers who deliver Murdoch and his shareholders huge profits.
But the emails among the Murdochs and the senior leadership of their companies, along with depositions of both men as part of the case, revealed just how Fox and its leaders strained to push back against Trump when he began spreading unfounded claims about widespread election fraud.
The leadership of Fox and its star hosts are often viewed from the outside as power brokers in Republican politics — with much justification. But in the wake of the election, they appeared fearful of alienating Trump’s supporters, almost to the point of powerlessness, court filings containing internal communications and depositions show.
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