>> Ben Smith, The New York Times
Published: 18 Jan 2021 01:04 PM BdST
Updated: 18 Jan 2021 01:04 PM BdST
The Fox News newsroom in New York, April 17, 2019. The New York Times
On Oct 12, 2020, Fox News agreed to pay millions of dollars to the family of a murdered Democratic National Committee staff member, implicitly acknowledging what saner minds knew long ago: that the network had repeatedly hyped a false claim that the young staff member, Seth Rich, was involved in leaking DNC emails during the 2016 presidential campaign. (Russian intelligence officers, in fact, had hacked and leaked the emails.)
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Fox’s decision to settle with the Rich family came just before its marquee hosts, Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity, were set to be questioned under oath in the case, a potentially embarrassing moment. And Fox paid so much that the network didn’t have to apologize for the May 2017 story on FoxNews.com.