Controversial author Michael Wolff defended the reporting in his latest book on Fox News and the Murdoch media empire, responding to criticism that it’s a compendium of thinly sourced, uncorroborated gossip in an interview with Mediaite.

On this week’s episode of The Interview, hosted by myself and Mediaite editor Aidan McLaughlin, Wolff argued that everything he published is “100 percent” true.

“This book is my version of the experience that I had, of what I know, of what people have told me,” Wolff said of The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty, which is out on Tuesday. “This is the story through my eyes. There will be other stories and other accounts and other books. What I tried to deliver is not the public story, not the story for public consumption, but the private story.”

A source familiar said Wolff, who has faced intense scrutiny for his reporting methods in previous books, including his blockbuster series on the Trump White House, did not reach out to Fox News or its parent company Fox Corporation to confirm his reporting with a fact-check.

When questioned by Mediaite on this, the bestselling author confirmed he did not do so – but claimed it was to avoid having to “negotiate” with Fox’s PR arm.

“Fox has said that I didn’t call them to fact-check, and they’re absolutely right. I did not call Fox PR people to fact-check because that just means you put yourself in a position to negotiate with them,” Wolff said. “I don’t want to negotiate the truth as so many journalists actually find themselves in that position to have to talk to the Fox PR people, and be badgered and threatened by them.”

Wolff did claim, however, that he reached out to “every principal” in the book. But a source at Fox told Mediaite he did not reach out to either Sean Hannity or Laura Ingraham, two prime time hosts who have entire chapters written about them in the book.

Wolff’s book is packed with mountains of juicy gossip on the Murdoch media empire, the succession fight that may follow his death, and the inner workings of Fox News. But some of his claims read as fantastical. Indeed, as the Daily Beast noted last week, the book includes “absurd anecdotes that occasionally strain credulity.”

Mediaite asked Wolff about one of those fantastical claims, namely that Tucker Carlson was fired as a secret condition of the $787 million settlement between Fox News and Dominion. Carlson, Mediaite noted, was not a major figure in the Dominion case, and it makes little sense that Dominion would score such a major scalp from Fox without crowing about it. Both Fox News and Dominion have denied that Carlson was ousted as a condition of the settlement.

Wolff stood by his reporting, insisting to Mediaite: “For Dominion it’s like, ‘We really want this money and we really want to get more and Hannity is not enough. Okay, they’re offering Tucker okay, $787 million yes, we’ll take that.’ So, just think about it in the context of this suited everyone’s needs at that moment in time, and remember that the paramount needs here are the money.”

There is one bit of reporting from the book that has already been disputed by the subjects involved: A lunch between Tucker Carlson and Ron DeSantis, in which the Florida governor and 2024 hopeful allegedly shoved – and possibly kicked – Carlson’s dog. Both Carlson and the DeSantis campaign denied the story outright.

Yet Wolff revealed in his interview with Mediaite that Carlson himself was the source of the story.

“Maybe he exaggerated. Maybe he lied. I don’t know. Maybe he regrets saying that. I have no idea,” Wolff said when asked about Carlson’s denial.

Carlson did not respond to Mediaite’s request for comment.

The New York Times, in a review by A.O. Scott, pointed out that Wolff almost entirely avoids describing where his reporting is sourced from. “Instead, assertions of fact and judgments of character emerge through a hazy collective consciousness. Lachlan Murdoch is a ‘chucklehead’; his brother James is a ‘hothead’; Laura Ingraham is a ‘drunk’; Sean Hannity is ‘a moron.’ Who says so?”

Mediaite asked Wolff about the flimsiness of his sourcing, specifically pointing to gossip about Ingraham’s alleged drinking, as well as a scene in which a former Fox News host is described as wearing a revealing outfit to Roger Ailes’s funeral.

“I include here what I believe is incontrovertible truth,” Wolff said. “That’s on the basis of it coming from people that I trust, I’ve dealt with before, I know well. Or on the basis, speaking of revealing outfits, of what I might have personally witnessed.”

Watch the full interview above. Subscribe to The Interview on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The post Michael Wolff Defends Credibility of His Salacious Fox News Book: ‘This Is The Story Through My Eyes’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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