Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch has been summoned for questioning under oath in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation case against Fox News over its coverage of fraud claims in the 2020 presidential election.
The 91-year-old media tycoon will be deposed next week as part of the election technology company’s $1.6bn defamation suit against his network. Mr Murdoch - head of Fox News’ mammoth parent company News Corp - will become the most high-profile name to be questioned in the case so far.
According to a filing in Delaware’s Superior Court, first reported by The Washington Post, Mr Murdoch’s deposition will take place remotely via videoconference on 13 and 14 December.
The network is alleged to have purposely aired false claims about Dominion’s role in the 2020 presidential election to boost ratings.
The channel has been accused of airing baseless conspiracy theories that the voting machine company rigged the election. While most of these claims were made by guests, some were reportedly agreed to by the anchors.
Dominion said it has proof the channel was in possession of information that the theories aired by them are baseless, but decided to continue to air them.
Fox News has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, saying the reports they aired were public interest and simply a part of their job as a news channel. They also called the lawsuit an affront to the principles of press freedom and said the amount of money being demanded is “outrageous”.
“There are very few events in the last 50 years in this country that I think are more newsworthy than our president alleging that our entire Democratic system was put on its head by a voting machine company stealing votes,” veteran trial lawyer Dan Webb, who is representing Fox, told the Post in August, stressing that the news channel was just doing its job.
A Dominion spokesperson, however, told the newspaper: “Instead of acting responsibly and showing remorse, Fox instead has doubled down.”
“We’re focused on holding Fox accountable and are confident the truth will ultimately prevail.”
Earlier on Monday, Mr Murdoch’s eldest son, Lachlan Murdoch, who is considered to be the likely successor to his media titan father, sat for an in-person deposition at a law firm office in Los Angeles.
Prominent Fox hosts Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson have also been deposed by the lawyers of Dominion.
