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In crafting a landscape rife with danger and lawlessness, Rupert Murdoch–owned outlets drew upon a spike in hate crimes—specifically anti-Asian and antisemitic hate crimes—without taking responsibility for the xenophobia they’ve consistently peddled when it benefited their political agendas.
Fox News (1/27/22) in January reported that the Asian-American victim of a 2019 attack was suing San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin for mishandling his case, just one day before the San Francisco police department announced that hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) were up 567% in the city in 2021 compared to the previous year. The story also mentioned a 60% increase in anti-Jewish hate crimes from 2020.
Early last month, Fox (2/2/22) reported on the arrest of a man suspected of spray painting swastikas on several Jewish schools and synagogues throughout Chicago. “The incidents came days after Holocaust Remembrance Day and as antisemitism is on the rise across the country,” the piece says.
Another Fox headline (2/7/22) declared, “NYC Antisemitic Crimes Up Nearly 300% in January”; the story noted that “there were 15 hate crimes committed against Jewish people in January—a 275% increase compared to the four hate crimes recorded in January 2021.
” Meanwhile, Murdoch’s New York Post (1/21/22) published “NYC Hate-Crime Complaints Skyrocket, With Anti-Asian Attacks Up 343%.” Citing NYPD data, the article also noted that the largest portion of hate-crime complaints in the city in 2021 was for anti-Jewish incidents.
The Wall Street Journal (1/26/22), another Murdoch property, reported on an incident at a virtual meeting of National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum when a “Zoom bomber” hacked the group and projected anti-Asian images and audio onto the screen. “Major cities have reported an increase in hate crimes directed at Asian-Americans,” the article said, also citing the San Francisco and New York police department numbers.
Murdoch’s own outlets, however, often spread anti-Asian and antisemitic tropes, while taking no responsibility for the xenophobia that fuels these hate crimes in the first place. Read more.
