James Murdoch, the younger son of right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch, has unleashed a wave of criticism at American news media outlets.
James, who resigned from the board of the global media company News Corp in July last year, hit out at the media forces which he said were partly responsible for the 6 January Capitol riots in Washington.
“Many media property owners have as much responsibility for this as the elected officials who know the truth but choose instead to propagate lies. We hope the awful scenes we have all been seeing will finally convince those enablers to repudiate the toxic politics they have promoted once and forever,” he told the Financial Times in an interview.
“The damage is profound. The sacking of the Capitol is proof positive that what we thought was dangerous is indeed very, very much so. Those outlets that propagate lies to their audience have unleashed insidious and uncontrollable forces that will be with us for years,” he added.
James’ comments came as he was asked about the influence of Fox News, a network owned by his father Rupert and run by his brother Lachlan Murdoch.
He did not specifically mention Fox News or any other media outlet in his answer.
James has been known to be critical of his father’s conservative views, but has mostly shied away from public criticism since leaving the family company.
He and his wife Kathryn Hufschmid were big donors to the campaign of President-elect Joe Biden and have been advocates backing organisations fighting climate change and fake news.
In Australia criticism of the Murdoch media empire have been lead recently by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, whose petition for a Royal Commission into media ownership in Australia received over half a million signatures, the largest of any petition ever presented to parliament.
