NOV 3, 2023: Preston Padden on Radio and TV Business podcast
TV Business Report Editor in Chief Adam Jacobson interviewed former Fox executive on why Fox should be denied local TV licenses.
Former Fox executive Preston Padden was interviewed on the InFOCUS podcast by TV Business Report Editor in Chief Adam Jacobson on why he petitioned the FCC to deny the renewal of WTXF license.
Padden noted “the Murdochs and Fox corporation, and their decision to
repeatedly present news they knew was false…to avoid losing viewers and advertising
revenues.” Those actions “are inconsistent with the character required of a broadcast licensee.”
He added that “step one is designating the station's license for a hearing so that the
FCC can appropriately investigate the facts.” He noted that MAD has asked the FCC to require Fox to produce the documents that have been disclosed in the Dominion and Smartmatic defamation cases and other lawsuits. He said Fox is “trying to avoid a hearing because they're afraid of what might happen in a hearing, and they're desperately trying to avoid producing the documents that we have requested [that] they have produced.”
Jacobson asked if this was a Left wing witch hunt he noted that “This is as
far as you could get from any a political crusade.” and that “The petitioners include very conservative Republican former chairman of the FCC, a very conservative Republican editor of Murdoch's own magazine. I was a staunch Republican for fifty years.” But that when he and others saw “the damage that, in our opinion, Fox News Channel is doing to America, dividing Americans against each other and causing
millions of people to believe a ridiculous falsehood that the twenty twenty election was stolen from Donald Trump they felt compelled to act.