July 3, 2023: Former Fox Exec files in support of petition
Preston Padden, who helped Rupert Murdoch launch the Fox network, submits a declaration accompanying and supporting MAD's petition.
Submitted along with MAD’s July 3 petition to the FCC was a statement by former Fox executive Preston Padden supporting the call to rescind Fox’s ownership of WTXF’s broadcast license.
Padden joined Fox as a Senior Vice President in 1990 and helped owner Rupert Murdoch get the FCC waivers that allowed the company to launch the nation’s fourth broadcast-TV network alongside ABC, CBS and NBC.
“During my years at Fox, I admired Mr. Murdoch,” Padden writes. “His vision and tenacity enabled my colleagues and I to do our good work creating new television competition for the benefit of viewers and advertisers.” Across Fox’s large media business, Murdoch’s role was always as ultimate decision-making authority for every aspect of the operation, he reports.
Despite Padden’s pride in his own past work at Fox and his long friendship with Murdoch, however, during the 2020 election cycle he grew alarmed by the many false reports about the presidential election he saw on Fox News. In 2020 and 2021, he wrote repeatedly to Murdoch to express “concerns over the content being presented on Fox.”
Having a major news source such as Fox repeatedly lie about a presidential election “has undermined our democracy and has radicalized a segment of our population by presenting knowingly false narratives,” Padden wrote the FCC. “In my opinion, this type of reporting was a significant contributing factor to the riots in the Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
Moreover, “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. Revenue considerations were put far ahead of the public interest by Fox’s ownership. For this reason, “I support [MAD’s] petition to deny the application of Fox Television Stations, LLC, to renew the broadcast license of Station WTXF-TV,: Padden wrote.
Padden’s declaration can be found here (Exhibit 2, page 152).