On May 16, the day after The Washington Post reported that President Donald Trump had divulged intelligence secrets to two Russian officials in the Oval Office, Sean Hannity devoted much of his show to the murder of 27-year-old Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich. Using a report from Fox 5, a Fox News affiliate in Washington, D.C., Hannity relayed the allegation that Rich had been in contact with WikiLeaks prior to his death—the suggestion being that Rich was the source of the hacked DNC emails in the 2016 election, not Russian hackers. Hannity would continue to talk about Rich’s murder for the next week. Breitbart and the Drudge Report also led with the Rich story, not the story about Trump.

Then it all fell apart. It took Fox News over a week to retract this baseless story, during which it devoted a significant portion of its primetime hours to disseminating it. The final nail in the coffin of the Seth Rich-WikiLeaks story was driven home earlier this week. NPR’s David Folkenflik reported that private investigator Rod Wheeler—who was prominently quoted in the story–was suing Fox News, Fox News investigative journalist Malia Zimmerman, and GOP financier Ed Butowsky (who hired Wheeler, supposedly on behalf of the Rich family). Wheeler’s lawsuit alleged that Zimmerman and Butowsky had invented his quotes and that, shockingly, Butowsky had discussed the story with White House officials, including Trump, before it was published.

The White House’s involvement is scandalous, but beyond that the Seth Rich story provides a window into how Fox News spreads explosive but flimsy stories. Malia Zimmerman, the reporter accused of fabricating the quotes, has a history of publishing questionable stories for Fox News, which uses them for hours of rabid programming.



Fox News

Before joining Fox News in 2015, Zimmerman spent two very controversial decades as a conservative-leaning investigative reporter in Hawaii. Zimmerman was well-known for her close relationships with Republican donors and politicians, her selective use of sourcing and documents, and for her pursuit of conspiracy theories. Her relationship with Republican state Senator Sam Slom was particularly problematic. “She would report on him favorably by praising his pro-business conservative stance,” Ian Lind, an investigative reporter based in Hawaii, told me. According to Lind, he would then praise her reporting, and his organization, Small Business Hawaii, would give her awards. “Meanwhile, they were sharing a home and lived together for about a decade,” Lind said.

Since Zimmerman joined Fox News in 2015, Fox News has repeatedly picked up her reporting and used it to legitimize the larger counter-narratives that form Fox News’s fevered worldview. These stories touched on alleged issues like voter fraud, gun confiscation, the Benghazi terrorist attack, the unmasking of Trump transition officials in confidential documents, and the murder of Seth Rich.