Fox News retracts Seth Rich story
The far right has been collectively fixated on one conspiracy theory for the past two weeks: that a Democratic National Committee staffer was murdered on the orders of Hillary Clinton (or something along those lines).
Now, even Fox News — which helped kickstart the recent revival of the conspiracy — is distancing itself from the story.
Fox News on Tuesday announced a retraction of the story it published on May 16 about the staffer. In that post, Fox News claimed that a "federal investigator" had seen evidence that Seth Rich had been a source for WikiLeaks. That fed conspiracy theorists who believed this caused Democrats/Hillary Clinton to have Rich murdered.
"On May 16, a story was posted on the Fox News website on the investigation into the 2016 murder of DNC Staffer Seth Rich. The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting. Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed," reads a post on FoxNews.com announcing the retraction. "We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted."
Since the story came out, the far right has been pushing the story online, while Sean Hannity, one of the few Fox News evening personalities still at Fox News, has also been championing the story.
Despite the retraction, Hannity still tweeted out about the theory right around the time that Fox News released its retraction.
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Rich was shot to death in Washington, D.C. in July 2016. His murder, which remains unsolved, was seized on by online conspiracy theorists who linked the death to Rich's work with the DNC.
The conspiracy theory had cooled until recently when a local Fox broadcast affiliate posted a story quoting a private investigator (who is also a Fox News contributor) as saying he was aware of evidence that Rich had been a source for WikiLeaks — a key part of the previous conspiracy theory. Fox News then followed with their own story.
Those reports have since been debunked, but that has not stopped the far right as well as Fox News from pushing the theory — despite requests from Rich's family that their son's death not be used as political fodder.
Later in the afternoon, Hannity continued to push the conspiracy theory during his radio show.
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Hannity will be on Fox News tonight hosting his usual show at 10 P.M. EST.
Jason Abbruzzese is a Business Reporter at Mashable. He covers the media and telecom industries with a particular focus on how the Internet is changing these markets and impacting consumers. Prior to working at Mashable, Jason served as Markets Reporter and Web Producer at the Financial Times. Jason holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an M.A. in International Affairs from Australian National University.
