Fox News tells staff to refuse to call Biden president-elect

Fox News appears to be bowing to pressure from the White House

Fox News has sent a memo to staff telling them not to refer to Joe Biden as president-elect if he is declared the winner, CNN is reporting.

Brian Stelter, CNN’s media commentator, said that the memo was sent to all employees.

Kathryn Murdoch, daughter-in-law of Fox’s owner Rupert Murdoch, said she believed that Fox News had a duty to tell viewers that the president was wrong, and there was no widespread electoral fraud.

"The Murdochs and the people at Fox have an obligation to put their country above their profits. It is very important that people make it very clear - that there is no credible evidence of widespread fraud," said CNN’s Jake Tapper.

“I agree with this,” she said.

Her husband James, 47, resigned from News Corp, Fox’s parent company, in July following what he said “disagreements over certain editorial content published by the Company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions.”

It comes as the Trump campaign is seething over Fox’s decision to call Arizona for Mr Biden on Tuesday evening at 10:30pm - the first outlet to do so. AP soon followed suit, but CNN, NBC and the New York Times are still yet to call Arizona.

The Trump campaign accused Fox of voter suppression, and said they were waging war on the White House.

Vanity Fair reported that the president was so furious at the call he picked up the phone to Rupert Murdoch and “screamed” at the 80-year-old to order his team to rescind the decision. Mr Murdoch refused.

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On the morning of Election Day, Mr Trump rang Fox and Friends and complained about how “mean” the last four years had been, saying he felt Fox had been unfair to him and had given more air time to Democrats than Republicans.

Fox News’ internal memo regarding Mr Biden’s title, should he win, puts staff in the awkward position of disagreeing with their own electoral team.

Fox takes great pride in its Decision Desk - an independent group of election analysts, removed from the newsroom, who are widely expected for their impartiality and accuracy.

If the on-air staff and news reporters do not describe Mr Biden as president-elect, if indeed the election is called for him, they will be effectively ignoring their own internal experts.