Schumer calls out Fox over racist theory

WASHINGTON: United States Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called on Fox News and its owner Rupert Murdoch yesterday to stop what he said was ‘‘reckless amplification’’ of a conspiracy theory believed to have been espoused by a man accused of killing 10 people in a racially motivated shooting in New York.

Payton Gendron (18), who is white, is accused of opening fire with a semiautomatic rifle in a predominantly AfricanAmerican neighbourhood of Buffalo on Sunday. Investigators are looking into his online postings, which include a 180page manifesto he is believed to have authored that outlines the ‘‘Great Replacement’’ conspiracy theory that white people were being replaced by minorities in the United States and elsewhere.

‘‘This pernicious theory, which has no basis in fact, has been injected into the mainstream thanks in large part to a dangerous level of amplification by your network and its anchors,’’ Schumer wrote in a letter to Murdoch and other Fox executives. — Reuters