Fox News retracts Seth Rich conspiracy story as Hannity vows to press on

Christopher Wilson 4 hours ago .

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Fox News retracts Seth Rich conspiracy story as Hannity vows to press on

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A controversial Fox News report about the death of a Democratic National Committ
ee employee last summer a story that had fueled a conspiracy theory that rockete
d across right-wing media, but reportedly embarrassed some of the network s staffe
rs was retracted by the network Tuesday afternoon.
The report attempted to tie the death of data analyst Seth Rich who was shot in
what Washington police believe was a botched robbery attempt to the leak of DNC
emails to WikiLeaks, which began publishing them two weeks later. The implicatio
n, spelled out most directly by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, was that Ric
h had provided the emails and was assassinated in retaliation or as part of a co
verup. The theory was taken up by right-wing sites like Breitbart and Infowars,
and pushed by Fox s Sean Hannity both on the air and on Twitter.
Hannity continued to push the story on Twitter even as Fox News was publishing i
ts retraction.
On May 16, a story was posted on the Fox News website on the investigation into t
he 2016 murder of DNC Staffer Seth Rich, read the statement. The article was not i
nitially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all o
ur reporting. Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those s
tandards and has since been removed.
We will continue to investigate this story and will provide updates as warranted,
the statement concluded, leaving an opening for future reporting.
Rich s family thanked Fox News for the retraction:

Gingrich connected the conspiratorial dots on Fox News Sunday, asserting that if
Rich had indeed given emails to WikiLeaks, it would clear Russia of any charges
of hacking or colluding with Donald Trump s campaign.