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Listening to this now on the radio, 40 min. podcast in link for those interested. We all know that Fox is a right wing propaganda machine who is in bed with Trump, so a lot of this is not big news.
Rutenberg is a consulting producer on the new CNN documentary series, The Murdochs: Empire of Influence, which is based on a long investigative piece that he wrote with Times reporter Jonathan Mahler in 2019. He says the next few years could help determine the direction of the Fox News empire.
"Fox News is hands down the number one news network in this country, and it got even bigger under Trump," Rutenberg says. "If Trump gave Rupert anything, it was the lifeblood of his business, which was ratings, which equaled revenue."
Murdoch did not support Trump and was almost distraught about Trump's rise. ... When Trump visits him at his headquarters before he announces to say he's thinking of running and Rupert is really dismissive and actually, basically ... he says something like "prepare to be wrapped up," which I guess is Aussie for beaten up or knocked around. So he's warning him it's not going to be an easy ride, including from Fox. But ... he finally has to get behind Trump because he's always going to get behind the Republican nominee, and Trump really brings him in, and they're talking all the time and gossiping. And Rupert loves it, because as close as he's been with previous Republican administrations, he's never had this kind of access.
On Murdoch's relationship with Trump once he became president
They do really become pretty close. No one's going to control Trump or dictate what Trump does, and vice versa. Trump is not going to fully be able to tell Fox what to do, but there is this fascinating feedback loop that is allowed to happen. Everyone watched this happen in real time, but Fox News would sort of go in a certain tangent. And if that tangent was really striking a chord with the base, then Trump would repeat it. Sometimes Trump knows in his gut what's going to work, so sometimes he'd jump right on it and could see the words go from Fox News through to his Twitter feed.
On how Murdoch-owned media is helping to determine the future of democracy
I think about the way Tucker Carlson or other hosts at the network handled the alleged and largely nonexistent voting fraud issue after the Election Day of 2020. They were airing a lot of leads and theories and allegations. It just never panned out. ... And they were doing so in the name of voter integrity, but nothing erodes voter integrity like telling four million people every night that there's no integrity in the voting system without having real evidence. So that's going to have an effect on democracy now.