A petition has been filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) urging the regulator not to renew the broadcast license of a Fox-owned television station in Philadelphia over allegations that Fox knowingly broadcast “false news about the 2020 election.”
The filing from the Media and Democracy Project (MAD), dated July 3, concerns the license of FOX 29 Philadelphia, also known as WTXF-TV. “This license renewal application for a FOX station offers an opportunity for petitioners, in the public interest, to seek to hold FOX accountable,” the petition reads.
In a news release Wednesday—exactly 30 months on from the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol—MAD said WTXF-TV, as an FCC licensee, “has a basic statutory duty to conduct its operations in the public interest.” Citing Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation case against Fox, MAD said the network had sown “discord that was a contributing factor to the attack.”
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“The intentional distortion of news, authorized at the highest levels of FOX’s corporate structure, and fabricated by management and on-air personalities, represents a severe breach of the FCC’s policy on licensee character qualifications,” MAD argued. “MAD claims that FOX’s activities shock the conscience.”
In April, on the first day of a trial to establish if Fox was liable for “actual malice” in broadcasting false claims about Dominion, Fox settled the case for $787.5 million. “Paying a settlement of nearly a $1 Billion is tantamount to a guilty conviction,” MAD alleged in its filing.
The group, which describes itself as a “non-partisan all volunteer grassroots community formed in 2020,” further called on the FCC to hold an evidentiary hearing into Fox’s conduct. “The FCC has the duty to hold FOX accountable and send a strong message that intentional, knowing news distortion will not be tolerated on America’s airwaves.”
The filing included a supporting declaration from Preston Padden, a former Fox executive who left the company in 1997. “FOX has undermined our democracy and has radicalized a segment of our population by presenting knowingly false narratives about the legitimacy of the 2020 election,” Padden wrote in his declaration.
“In my opinion, this type of reporting was a significant contributing factor to the riots in the Capitol on January 6, 2021. For example, I heard Sean Hannity on Fox News Channel refer to the then upcoming January 6, 2021 ‘Stop The Steal’ rally in Washington, D.C. telling his viewers that ‘President Trump says it’s going to be wild, be there.’” A Fox News spokesperson said Sean Hannity never said anything of the sort on the network.
Padden went on to say that he spent months writing to network owner Rupert Murdoch in 2020 and 2021 about his “concerns over the content being presented on FOX.” He said those exchanges “were produced by Fox in discovery in the Dominion litigation” without his knowledge.
“In my opinion, Mr. Murdoch was worried about repercussions from Trump, loss of audience and stock value, if he accurately reported the news,” Padden wrote.
“On November 12, 2020, he wrote me: ‘Apparently he’s [Trump] told friends that Lachlan and I have betrayed him. Stock down 5 or 6% today. Real bargain!’ In another email on the same day Mr. Murdoch wrote me: ‘He can only be so hostile as he looks to blame somebody for losing. So he knows he’s done.”
MAD said in its release about the filing that the “landmark” petition aims to uphold the public’s trust in “accurate and responsible news reporting.” “By holding FOX accountable for its deliberate dissemination of false narratives about the 2020 election, the petitioners aim to protect the foundation of our democratic society,” the statement added.
“The Media and Democracy Project petition to deny the license renewal of WTXF-TV is frivolous, completely without merit and asks the FCC to upend the First Amendment and long-standing FCC precedent,” Fox Television Stations said in a statement. “WTXF-TV / FOX 29 News Philadelphia is one of the finest local news stations in the country, broadcasting over 60 hours of local news and locally produced programming every week.”
