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In recent weeks, Fox News has come under increased scrutiny concerning its coverage of the 2020 election because some of its hosts questioned the integrity of the voting process. In fact, under deposition, Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch said he wished his network had been "stronger in denouncing" many of the theories floated by Fox News commentators in the days after the election.
Although I understand Murdoch's concerns, his network did a superb job documenting the shady side of one of the most controversial elections in modern history.
In the fall of 2020, under the guise of the pandemic, several governors (of primarily blue states) unilaterally decided that in-person voting was too risky. So, they altered the voting process and greenlighted the sending of millions of ballots through the mail based on outdated, error-ridden voter rolls.
Many of Fox News' most prominent personalities took issue with this, explaining that the mass mailing of ballots could likely lead to voter fraud. They also highlighted how many states, including Nevada, abandoned signature verification and other processes meant to ensure that vote tallying was as legitimate as possible.
This was not peddling conspiracy theories or falsehoods; it was simply pointing out that mass mail-in voting on the scale perpetuated in the 2020 election was abnormal and could have resulted in voter fraud.
Another so-called conspiracy theory Fox News commentators supposedly disseminated was the questioning of Dominion voting machines, which is why Murdoch was recently deposed in a defamation lawsuit Dominion is pressing. Yet, media personalities constantly question the status quo; that is their modus operandi. If opinion purveyors are now held liable for asking questions, you can kiss goodbye any semblance of journalism that still exists.
