Report: Fox executive instructed staff to reject election results

With latest action, the Murdochs and Fox News lay groundwork for chaos and violence

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

This morning, CNN reported that Fox News “is instructing its talent not to call Joe Biden the ‘President-elect’ when the network calls the race.”

In reaction to the report, Angelo Carusone, President of Media Matters for America, a nonprofit media watchdog, issued the following statement:

A report that Fox News has instructed its staff to refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ electoral victory is a despicable new low for the so-called news network. 

We already knew that Donald Trump would not accept the results of the election if he lost. Now we know that the Murdochs and Fox News won’t either.

Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch are actively undermining faith in our election, and this decision will further agitate some of Trump’s most conspiracy-driven supporters, who are already prone to violence. 

Procter & Gamble, General Motors, AllState, and Kraft Heinz — some of Fox News’ most consistent large advertisers through 2020 — are paying Fox News a lot of money while the network distorts our democracy and sets Americans against Americans. 

This is unacceptable. Fox is one of the most deceitful and destructive forces in our society, and now the network is lifting up baseless lies and planning to ignore the election results. If we want to prevent chaos and violence from ensuing and start healing America, we need to take a look at the problem at its source: Fox News.

Along with what advertisers pay, a typical household pays Fox News almost $2 per month—about $20 per year— via their cable or satellite provider, regardless of whether they actually watch the channel. Fox News is able to extract unusually high fees because the network actively organizes and enlists its viewers to put pressure on providers during negotiations, which, in turn, forces nearly 87 million cable subscribers to pay additional fees to the network. Media Matters’ UnFoxMyCableBox initiative aims to change that.

Media Matters’ UnFoxMyCableBox initiative provides cable and satellite subscribers with a tool to determine how much of their cable bill is used to subsidize Fox News’ dangerous peddling of bigotry, racism, and Trump-aligned misinformation.