Would Fox Take Donald Trump’s Side Against Rupert Murdoch? Uh … Yes.
I probably should have spent some
of my weekend watching Fox News to see how the network was handling the recently
reengaged Donald Trump-Rupert Murdoch feud, but for certain duties, there’s
just not enough battle pay. The best I could muster was to read the report
filed Friday evening by Justin Baragona of The Independent, who
reviewed some transcripts in the first 24 hours after Birthdaycardgate broke
and found that Fox had teased a segment on the story—but never did get around
to airing it.
These next few days are going to be
interesting. The open question: How will Rupert Murdoch’s Fox charges cover the
explosive story popped last week by Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, and the continuing fallout from it? Fox’s framing, and the details into
which they do or don’t delve, will have a lot to say about what kind of impact
this story has. Plus there’s the added frisson that Trump is now suing
Murdoch and the Journal for (right pinky to corner of mouth, please)
ten beellion dollars. Like a lot of Trump’s lawsuits, this one seems
designed not solely or necessarily to win damages, but to cow the Journal
into not publishing more such stories.
So which side will Fox take? One
would think it would take the side, duh, of the man who owns it. But while
Rupert may own it, he doesn’t run it. That dark duty is the province of
Lachlan Murdoch and Suzanne Scott. And the question of where their loyalties
lay might be a little more complicated than blood.
As it happens, earlier on the very
day the Journal story broke, Representative Robert Garcia, the ranking
Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, wrote Lachlan Murdoch and Scott a
letter. He charged that back during the campaign, Fox & Friends
had selectively edited an interview Trump did with the show about Epstein. The
original segment had Trump being asked if he would release the Epstein files as
president and replying, “Yeah, yeah, I would.” The fuller answer, which Fox
aired later after pressure, had Trump adding a caveat or two. Garcia told the
two execs that he wanted any information on whether the Trump campaign “put
pressure on Fox News to edit” the interview to “mislead the public.”
