Lachlan Murdoch, the incoming chair of Fox Corporation and News Corp., is touting Fox News’s coverage of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas over the past several weeks.
“We are living through tumultuous times and at the outset, I want to acknowledge the work our journalists are doing covering the horrific Oct. 7 terrorist attack and the subsequent ongoing war in the Middle East,” Murdoch said, according to a transcript of his remarks during an investor call Thursday morning.
Murdoch called out several Fox News journalists by name, all of whom he said are “fulfilling its mission to find, report and analyze the news of the day without fear or favor.”
“News reporting is hard and war reporting is perhaps the hardest,” he said. “And while the horror central to this news cycle, can wear heavily on those we ask to expose them, their exposure is necessary.”
Since Hamas’s attack on Israel earlier this month, dozens of news organizations have sent scores of reporters, producers and camera people to the region, where fighting is expected to continue for months.
Dozens of journalists working in the region have been killed while others have spent time running from shelling, coming face-to-face with protesters and struggling to describe the brutality of the fighting in both Israel and neighboring Gaza.
Fox correspondent Trey Yingst, during one recent broadcast, broke down in tears while reporting on civilians, including children, who have been “slaughtered,” as part of the war.
Lachlan’s father, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, 92, announced late last month he would retire as chair of Fox Corporation and News Corp. and hand control of the multibillion-dollar media companies to his eldest son.