Behind the scenes of Fox News: How downplaying coronavirus "failed its viewers and the broader public in ways both revealing and potentially lethal"

The New York Times

Rupert Murdoch put his son, Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch, in charge of Fox News. But instead of putting a halt to Fox News' disinformation about coronavirus during two critical weeks in late February and early March, Lachlan devoted his time buying streaming company Tubi for $440 million, reports Ben Smith. "Fox failed its viewers and the broader public in ways both revealing and potentially lethal," says Smith. "In particular, Lachlan Murdoch failed to pry its most important voices away from their embrace of the president’s early line: that the virus was not a big threat in the United States." Smith reports that "people close to Lachlan Murdoch describe him as a laid-back executive who doesn’t spend his days watching Fox and is sometimes surprised to learn of a controversy it has generated." Meanwhile, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott "reacted swiftly to the threat of the coronavirus in late February: She ordered the bright, open new offices disinfected, installed hand sanitizer stations around the office and boldly canceled the company’s major ad sales event," reports Smith. "But her influence doesn’t extend to the most important part of Fox News: its programming in prime time." Smith adds: "There are a lot of theories about what went wrong at Fox: that the network’s dug-in hostility toward climate science spilled over to medicine, or that its executives cared about ratings above all else. But interviews with 20 current and former Fox staff members and Murdoch family associates in recent days paint a different picture: The network is in thrall to the president and largely beyond the control of the family that owns it."