‘LACK OF AUTHENTICATION’

Fox News Reportedly Turned Down Hunter Biden Laptop Story First

Rudy Giuliani reportedly went to Fox News first to peddle his sketchy laptop story but the news division refused to run with it due to concerns over credibility.

Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani apparently first approached Fox News with the trove of emails he claims came from Hunter Biden’s laptop, but the network passed on the story over credibility concerns, per a report by Mediaite. According to Mediaite’s sources, “the lack of authentication of Hunter Biden’s alleged laptop, combined with established concerns about Giuliani as a reliable source and his desire for unvetted publication, led the network’s news division to pass.” The network’s so-called Brain Room, for its part, has warned Fox News hosts that Giuliani has a reputation for “amplifying disinformation.”

Giuliani eventually went to Fox News’ sister publication the New York Post to run a story on the largely unverified emails and Giuliani’s assertion that they were pulled from a laptop that Hunter Biden left at a Delaware computer repair shop. The shop owner, meanwhile, has given conflicting accounts on how the laptop supposedly came into his possession.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that the Post had a hard time convincing reporters to add their bylines to the email story, with the reporter who did the bulk of the writing outright refusing to be attached to the story. One of the bylines on the report, who was barely involved in the story, only found out her name was added after publication. While Fox News may have initially passed on the story, the network’s opinion hosts have devoted hours of coverage to promoting and disseminating the Post’s reporting, even as some of the channel’s “hard news” anchors label the story “sketchy” and “completely unverified.”