Former Fox Exec Decries Rupert Murdoch for Pushing Lies on ‘Bile-Filled Network’

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A former executive at Fox Broadcasting Company who worked for Rupert Murdoch blasted Fox News and its founder for spreading lies in a new op-ed.

“He owes himself a better legacy than a news channel that no reasonable person would believe,” Preston Padden, the former president of network distribution at Fox, wrote in an op-ed for the Daily Beast.

“I worked closely with Rupert and I found him to be brilliant, courageous, optimistic, and a gentleman,” he wrote, praising the Australian media mogul for his success with Fox News.

Padden worked for Murdoch for seven years, leaving to join ABC in 1997. He worked at Disney for the next two decades.

The former Fox executive mapped out the cable news network’s ascent, noting, “by 2005 [Murdoch] had built the most watched broadcast television network in America. Amazing!”

But then, Padden argued, Fox went from being a “truthful center-right news network” to a “bile-filled network.”

Padden went on to argue that not even Murdoch believes the news peddled by the network, including Trump’s “wild and false claims” that the 2020 election was stolen.

“I don’t believe that most of the falsehoods on Fox News reflect Rupert Murdoch’s own views,” Padden wrote. “I believe that he thought that it was important to protect his own health by wearing a mask during the pandemic and he encouraged me to do the same.”

Padden even claimed Murdoch “thinks that former President Trump is an egomaniac who lost the election by turning off voters, especially suburban women, with his behavior.”

To simplify things, Padden even added a list of things he believes the network, “especially the leading prime-time opinion programming,” is either substantially or directly responsible for, including “the unnecessary deaths of many Americans” and “the Jan. 6, 2021, violent assault on the U.S. Capitol.”