Pandemic seclusion led Rupert Murdoch to conduct business through emails more than he usually did.Credit…Drew Angerer || Getty Images
Court filings give a peek into how Rupert Murdoch shapes coverage at his news organizations.
By Jeremy W. Peters || The New York Times
In late 2020, Rupert Murdoch was holed up in the English countryside with his now ex-wife, far from Fox News headquarters in Midtown Manhattan. The pandemic seclusion left him “bored,” he recently said in a deposition, with little to do “but write stupid emails.”
Those “stupid emails” now make up an extraordinary paper trail that has exposed the inner workings of Mr. Murdoch’s Fox media empire, revealing how he shapes coverage at his newspapers and cable networks and interacts with some of the most powerful figures in the Republican Party.
People who have worked with Mr. Murdoch said he never did much of his most important business over email. He preferred whenever possible to convey his wishes in person. But the pandemic changed that, leaving a trove of emails that lawyers for Dominion Voting Systems have used to build their $1.6 billion defamation case against Fox News.
Fox News declined to comment for this article.
