Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch authorized a plan for Fox News to embrace Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud in 2020 in an attempt to win back viewers angry with the network, a lawyer for the voting technology company Smartmatic argued on Tuesday.
“The conservative viewers, their bread and butter, abandoned them,” J Erik Connolly told the New York state supreme court judge David B Cohen. “So what do they do? They return back to what they know best: they return back to disinformation, pro-Trump propaganda and xenophobia. The election story and the election fraud claims was the perfect vehicle for them to get back on to their core messaging.”
