Lachlan Murdoch, the executive chairman and CEO of the parent company of Fox News does not appear concerned about the far right-wing network’s embrace of white nationalism, saying the growing criticism just “comes with the territory.”
“I think when you’re in the news business, and you’re number one,” said Murdoch in an interview with Axios, “you get a lot of heat and it just comes with the territory.”
“I think the world is more divided and on edge than it has been, you know, for a very long time,” Murdoch, son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, added. “I think on the noise around it, so much of it is politicized … And so, you’ve got to be tough about it.”
The 50-year-old Murdoch took no responsibility for the world being more divided, on edge, and politicized.
Axios points out that a “broad array of Democratic officials and progressive groups have criticized Fox News, saying its hosts have referenced the ‘great replacement theory,’ a racist conspiracy theory that reportedly inspired the Buffalo shooter.”
Like his father, Lachlan Murdoch shares citizenship with Australia and the United States (but also with the U.K.)
Last week, former GOP strategist Steve Schmidt called on the United States government to revoke Rupert Murdoch’s U.S. citizenship. He said the 91-year-old Australian-born media titan is “the most venomous and dangerous foreigner to ever arrive on American soil.”
Schmidt added:
Meanwhile, Media Matters senior fellow Matthew Gertz noted, “Lachlan Murdoch has apparently given up on his obvious lie that Tucker Carlson doesn’t promote ‘replacement theory,’ he is making it quite clear that Fox prioritizes white supremacist content.”
The Washington Post’s Philip Bump says Lachlan Murdoch is blaming “complaints about white nationalist rhetoric on jealousy.”
“Presented with Tucker Carlson combining anti-left and anti-immigrant rhetoric into an indefensible the elites are out to get regular Americans narrative — a common racist trope — the CEO of Fox responds: Haters gonna hate. Never mind that nearly half of Republicans now think that this theory accurately reflects reality; people are just jealous of Fox News.