The Daily Fuckup

Court filings released Feb. 27 pulled Rupert Murdoch back into the center of Fox’s 2020-election mess. In excerpts from a deposition in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation case, Murdoch acknowledged that some Fox hosts endorsed false claims that Donald Trump had actually won the election. He also said he did not intervene to stop them. ([apnews.com](https://apnews.com/article/24d6322f99281fdfb46c272e3ac6bacf?utm_source=openai))

That is not a finding of liability by itself. It is evidence, sworn under oath, in a case that accuses Fox of helping spread falsehoods about Dominion and the 2020 vote. The distinction matters. Murdoch’s testimony does not resolve the lawsuit, but it does add to the paper trail showing that senior Fox figures were aware that parts of the network were giving airtime to claims the company now says were false. ([apnews.com](https://apnews.com/article/24d6322f99281fdfb46c272e3ac6bacf?utm_source=openai))

The excerpts also sharpen the basic political fact pattern. After the election, Trump and his allies leaned hard on a stolen-election narrative to explain the loss and keep supporters engaged. Fox was not the only outlet that amplified that story, but the filings show that some of the network’s most prominent voices repeated it anyway, even as internal conversations reflected doubts about the fraud claims. ([apnews.com](https://apnews.com/article/b52914ec21a97dec8b5d878a908d566f?utm_source=openai))

For Fox, the damage is reputational and potentially legal. Dominion’s case alleged that the network’s coverage harmed its business by repeating false accusations about its voting systems. Murdoch’s deposition excerpts do not decide that question, but they are the kind of record Dominion can use to argue that false claims were not just aired accidentally or at the edges of the network. They were known, repeated and, according to the testimony, not stopped by the man at the top. ([apnews.com](https://apnews.com/article/24d6322f99281fdfb46c272e3ac6bacf?utm_source=openai))

The larger picture is simpler than the rhetoric around it: a false election story kept moving through Republican politics and conservative media long after the vote was certified, and the court record now shows that Fox’s leadership was not blind to what was happening on air. Murdoch’s testimony does not end the story. It just makes the record harder to clean up later. ([apnews.com](https://apnews.com/article/24d6322f99281fdfb46c272e3ac6bacf?utm_source=openai))