Plenty of people have tagged News Corp’s sibling, Fox News, as the propaganda arm of the political right. Suddenly, with new legal documents out of the US, we’ve discovered plenty of people inside Fox see it that way too.
While journalism ethics codes (like Australia’s own) urge “respect for truth and the public’s right to know”, it looks like Fox had its own internal lodestar: “Respect for the audience”. Translation: “Truth be damned! Let’s tell the rubes what will keep them coming back!”
That’s the insight from last week’s release of legal filings in the high-profile $2.3 billion defamation case brought against Fox by election technology provider Dominion Voting Systems, which, as The New York Times delicately put it last week, “poses considerable financial and reputational risk for the country’s most-watched cable news network”.
At heart, it’s a fight about journalistic practice: what should a news organisation do with unproven (and strongly denied) claims made by inherently unreliable bad-faith actors?
According to Fox, “The very fact of those allegations was newsworthy.” Fox News was, its lawyers say, “reporting on one of the biggest stories of the day — allegations by the sitting president of the United States and his surrogates that the 2020 election was affected by fraud”.
Trouble is, says Dominion, Fox and its senior news decision-makers knew the claims were bullshit.
“I did not believe it for one second,” star talk show host Sean Hannity said in a deposition. “[Trump lawyer] Sidney Powell is lying,” fellow television presenter Tucker Carlson is quoted as saying at the time. “Really crazy stuff!” Rupert Murdoch texted Fox managers about a Rudy Giuliani press conference in November 2020.
But internal memos also show Fox management considered the network was on a “war-footing” with ever further right-wing cable news and digital media company Newsmax.
“It’s remarkable how weak ratings make good journalists do bad things,” as Fox’s Washington bureau managing editor Bill Sammon said in evidence. (Sammon would be retired the following January.)
The “bad things”, says Dominion, was dressed up as “respect” for Fox’s fraud-believing audience.
Carlson rhetorically texted his producer in the days after the election: “Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we’ve lost with our audience?” as a result of the Fox Decision Desk’s election-night call to predict a Biden win in Arizona.
The following Monday, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott and Fox Corporation CEO and executive chairman Lachlan Murdoch exchanged texts:
Scott: Viewers going through the 5 stages of grief. It’s a question of trust — the AZ [call] was damaging but we will highlight our stars and plant flags letting the viewers know we hear them and respect them.
Murdoch: Yes. But needs constant rebuilding without any missteps.
Scott: Yes, today is day one and it’s a process.
Down the line, “respecting” viewers seemed to have meant pulling punches on fact-checking. When, on the same day, Fox presenter Neil Cavuto pulled away from a White House press briefing that was repeating fraud claims with a “Whoa, whoa” and “unless she has more details to back that up, I can’t in good countenance continue to show you this”, Fox managers fretted about the “brand damage” being done.
Dominion says that from about November 8, it became the villain in the false fraud narrative, due to its contracts with election officials in four swing states won by Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020: Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan.
It’s suing over 20 separate broadcasts it says repeated or amplified one or more of four linked lies: that it committed election fraud by rigging the 2020 US presidential election (the fraud lie); that its software and algorithms manipulated vote counts (the algorithm lie); that it was owned by a Venezuelan company linked to Hugo Chavez (the Venezuela lie); and that it paid kickbacks to government officials who used its machines (the kickbacks lie).
The case is due to go before a jury in April, to be decided on the nuances of American defamation law and its interaction with the First Amendment on freedom of the press. So, who knows?
But the evidence that the network’s management and stars knew the allegations were false even as they amplified them has shaken the US mainstream media. Brian Stelter, a former CNN presenter and author of Hoax, headlined his Atlantic piece with “I never truly understood Fox News until now”. In The Washington Post, Erik Wemple headlined his: “Fox News is worse than you thought.”
It’s all about the brand: forced to choose between MAGA and news, Fox opted for MAGA. What do you call that sort of choice again?
These revelations have brought into sharp focus what was already fairly obvious. Fox is solely concerned with audience numbers. When it had an irreconcilable conflict between facts (which its audience loathes) and putting out dangerous lies that destabilised the country (which its audience likes), Fox quickly threw out the facts, expressed humble contrition for its error of deviating into truth, and for good measure sacked some reporters who had an excessive tendency to fact-checking. In the malign Alice-In-Wonderland world of Fox News the practice of poisoning their viewers’ minds with crazed propaganda is called ‘respecting’ the audience. Those running Fox were fully aware of what they were doing; in criminal law it would be described as mens rea.
Bear in mind that every American apparently has the God-given right to be batshit crazy…………………
“Bear in mind that every American apparently has the God-given responsibility to be batshit crazy…………………”
There – fixed it.
They didn’t believe it but they ran with it because that’s what the Old Man pays them for. And, his pot stirers here in Autralia are no different. They deliver the simplistic answers demanded by the great unwashed.
News Corpse, where the truth went to die.
This is going to be one of the most crucial court cases in history. If Dominion win, the Right media will be on notice. If they lose, it will be a free-for-all catastrophe that will basically banish any sense of truth and responsibility forever. America is by our standard, not a well-educated country, nor one giving to impartiality. To have Fox and its self-serving ilk given free reign over what is broadcast or printed is to return to the dying days of the Weimar Republic when any piece of propaganda was allowed. Look at the results of that.
I agree it’s an extremely important law suit. Those involved have deep enough pockets to take it all the way to the Supreme Court, where we can be sure the issues will be considered by a distinguished panel of independent and fair-minded justices with the highest possible competence and respect for legal principles, all untainted by any partisan political beliefs or ideology. Nah, just joking. Forget it Jake, it’s
ChinatownSCOTUS. Ha! Ha! Ha! Anyway, if the Republicans regain power in 2024 it will all be moot because they will find ways to make sure it goes away and Dominion will be taught a lesson it will not forget.If Fox wins the case, the Republicans stand a much better chance of taking the 2024 election. I don’t think New York Times readers comprise a large chunk of the voting population, sadly. If Fox loses, even some of the rural rusted-ons will have to question if what they’re hearing from their favourite coiffured talking heads might be… well… bullsh*t. One thing is for sure; there’s going to be tons of money thrown at this one, even from Fox’s competitors.
You are strangely optimistic if you imagine that Fox losing the case could change anyone’s views. All the MAGA crowd will see is another plot by the Deep State to silence their heroes. Evil activist judges in league with dark forces against good patriotic Merkins! Wake up sheeple! The most that a Dominion victory will secure is a heavy financial penalty against Fox that might persuade it to dial down the crazy a bit. That’s a help, but not enough. Much more important for 2024 is that the Republicans have learnt from the way their coup in 2020 fizzled. Next time the preparations will be much more thorough, such as making sure they have their creatures in place both in the courts and in the administration of the elections (the federal election is run by each state separately under its own rules). When they challenge any results in 2024 they will be pushing an open door.
If Dominion get up, their payday could actually destroy Fox…………
………one can only hope.
My greatest fear is that the GOP come up with a Trump-lookalike but with half a brain.
America is ripe for the plucking………………
It would be satisfying see Fox destroyed, but if the final bill is beyond its means and some friendly billionaire does not bail it out (it appears to be axiomatic that any American billionaire is insanely hostile to America’s ‘democracy’), Fox’s bankrupcy would only send its big names out to seek their fortunes at Newsmax or somewhere similar, replete with stories of their martyrdom and how evil forces conspired to bring down their noble media company.
DeSantis appears to fit the specification of Trump-lookalike who is unlikely to make the same sort of self-defeating blunders. It is arguable that Trump standing for the Republicans in 2024 is the best hope for the Democrats. For now it seems quite a few Republicans suspect this, have had enough of Trump and are prepared to choose someone else. Could be Trump’s best chance for selection is that several not-Trumps emerge to split the not-Trump vote so badly that Trump comes out ahead anyway as Republican candidate.
I’m sure that if Dominion get up, Newsmax and the other cesspits will be straight in the firing line……………
………..Fox was first cab off the rank because they have deep pockets.
The other nutjobs are only popped up recently so probably haven’t had long enough to fleece their audience.
But they were just as deprecating of Dpminion and Smartmatic as Fox.
DeSantis may be smarter than Trump (there again, so is my wallpaper) but is almost unknown outside of Florida.
Doesn’t need to look like Trump – they already have de Santis
A “Trump look-alike but with half a brain”? Wasn’t that the original?
Duh, I’m a bit slow this evening. You mean the look-alike with half a brain, will have half a brain more than the original. (facepalm)
America is already plucked. Why do you think the loyal spawn of the family’s patriarch is residing here and sending his kids to Australian schools?
It’s funny, back in 2003, all the old-man’s newspapers regularly damned anyone who criticised George W Bush and his criminal enterprise in Iraq as ‘anti-American’. But that man and his partners-in-crime have done more to pluck America than even those sovereign states actively conspiring to bring it down.
And next time they will have someone intelligent, not just street smart, heading up the Coup.
If that does occur and they pull it off, the USA is doomed.
“The very fact of those allegations was newsworthy.”
But apparently the fact that they were demonstrable lies was NOT newsworthy.
Rather kicks a hole in the “Free speech” argument…………..
……….unless He Who Must Not Be Named only considers the Constitutional right applies to his own prejudices.
C’mon Dominion!
Extraordinary! A media organisation masquerading as a publisher of news, knowingly peddling lies because that its what its dumb audience demand. You couldn’t make this stuff up only a few years ago. But, like ‘reality TV’, ‘news’ has become a deliberate fiction to entertain stupid rednecks. Hannity and Carlson need to be locked up for the benefit of society. Then we can start on the nutcases at Sky After Dark.
There’s always a job for these people in pro-wrestling.
I just love the Fox description of itself……………
“Purveyor of opinion-based News”
DAWP???