Can Fox News, media tycoon Rupert Murdoch's influential conservative outlet, overcome its legal travails and revelations of behind-the-scenes intrigue?
A steady torrent of private messages, texts and emails from top network figures continue to surface as part of a defamation lawsuit, with each revelation enthralling US media and Democratic critics of the 24-hour news behemoth.
Brought by an electronic voting machine manufacturer, Dominion Voting Systems, the billion-dollar suit alleges that Fox News promoted former president Donald Trump's false claims that its equipment was used to rig the 2020 election.
By releasing batches of company communications, Dominion's lawyers have yanked the curtain back on what commentators and executives really felt about Trump, who counted on Fox News for steady support.
"We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights... I truly can't wait," Fox News star Tucker Carlson wrote to his team on January 4, 2021, two days before Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a bid to overturn the election.
"I hate him passionately."
The internal Fox News documents and communications reveal that after the November 2020 election few people at the network, including Murdoch, believed Trump's contention that the election was "stolen" by Democrats, especially through electronic voting.
But they kept their beliefs to themselves while letting conspiracists appear nightly on the prime-time shows of Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson.
These contradictions are at the heart of Dominion's lawsuit, which seeks $1.6 billion in damages in a civil trial slated for mid-April in the state of Delaware.
The Dominion lawsuit, Fox News tells AFP, is "nothing more than another flagrant attack on the First Amendment... (and) would have grave consequences for journalism across this country."
The network adds that it was legitimate to give the Trump camp the floor when it challenged the vote and "essential for the search for the truth" to let all sides speak. It accuses Dominion of "cherry-picking and taking quotes out of context."
But Dominion is giving Fox News a pounding.
"They have badly bloodied Fox," said Mark Feldstein, a journalism professor at the University of Maryland. "For a long time, we were like people at a theater watching a play. And you could see from watching Fox that it was full of lies.
"What we didn't know before this, is just how deliberate and intentional and orchestrated that was."
But Feldstein is cautious about what fallout the lawsuit might have on viewership. Fox News last year was the most watched cable news channel for a seventh year in a row, well ahead of competitors like MSNBC and CNN.
Facing rising competition from smaller, more full-throated right-wing outlets, some Fox hosts openly fretted about losing viewers if they backed off from conspiracy theories.
"They were promoting these lies, in large part, because their audience wanted to hear them," Feldstein said.
Launched in 1996, the network has overcome several crises in past years, such as the sexual harassment scandals involving its iconic boss Roger Ailes, who died in 2017, and one of its iconic anchors, Bill O'Reilly, who was fired the same year.
There's little doubt that if Dominion wins damages topping $1 billion, it would deal a blow to parent company, the Fox Corporation Group, which had revenues of $14 billion in its last full fiscal year. And Fox News is being sued in a similar case by another company, Smartmatic.
For now, the network is staying the course. This past week, Tucker Carlson devoted his show to seeking to downplay the violence of Trump's supporters during the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, with footage presented as exclusive.
"Beyond the court case, the likeliest consequences, if Fox faces any, will come from advertisers who deem the brand too untrustworthy to be associated with and from the viewers who decide to finally leave," said Kyle Pope, editor of the Columbia Journalism Review.
© 2023 AFP
46 Comments
Moonraker
And they will still want to hear them even though they now know they are lies. Cognitive dissonance never really troubles a conservative and especially not a Trump backer.
wallace
Murdoch and Fox News lied about election fraud. They are the pits. Gullible audience.
bass4funk
The network will be fine, compare that to the uncountable disinformation from the other two trailing networks FNC will weather out this incident.
wallace
Fox News really is Faux News.
Desert Tortoise
Who are those other two? OAN and Newsmax?
Desert Tortoise
Just curious Bass, are you saying that the reporters at Fox News didn't knowingly and deliberately lie in their comments to the public? Simple answer, yes or no. No deflections or whataboutisms. Did they knowingly lie or didn't they?
bass4funk
If that were the case they would have been long gone from the air, so if more than half of the country supports the network, they will be fine regardless of how the left screams Faux.
Just ask Anita Dunn.
bass4funk
Why would I speculate? I have no idea what they thought, knew, or didn't know. If the left wants to speculate let them do so, this is why they always get in trouble, they jump ahead of themselves.
Sorry, you don't get to dictate how I should answer a question. But yes, I answered your question.
FtGuy2017
The security video cameras revealed on the show are showing everything that happened on Jan 6th and it is different from the narrative, not downplaying but...exposing lies.
bass4funk
Yes, also it's amazing that the Dems would oppose the release of the full video, usually, Dems are for full transparency and now they're not? This is why half of the country doesn't trust these people and this administration, especially the DOJ.
Jimizo
Fox News humiliated its watchers.
Humiliating the vulnerable and less intelligent who believed Trump’s claims after election is disgraceful.
I despise people preying on the vulnerable. Amoral.
bass4funk
If that were true then their ratings would be in CNN and MSNBC Territory.
Well, with what we now know a lot of things didn't seem to add up, a lot.
I feel the same and half of the nation is starting to feel it and realize it as well.
Jimizo
Con artists without an honest bone in their bodies. They were exposed and still some defend them.
I remember in ‘The Sting’ film part of the scam was that the scammed couldn’t know it was a scam even after it was over
Fox hosts are looking at their audience after scamming them. Yes, we scammed you. Keep watching us.
The amoral cheek of it is astonishing. These people have no capacity for shame.
dagon
These posts could comprise a master class on logical fallacies, thanks for the incoherent flailings.
Specifically cum hoc ergo propter hoc, correlation does not imply causation.
You could equally argue that Fox News watchers just love being humiliated and endorse comforting falsehoods.
Which would seem to be borne out by the dynamics of the case and the politics of the Fox viewer base.
wallace
Fox News and Disney TV are both fantasy channels.
Make believe.
Jimizo
Just to be clear here, my idea of humiliated was in the eyes of the more balanced and intelligent people, including intelligent and balanced conservatives.
Your idea of them enjoying being humiliated is an interesting one, though.
bass4funk
The liberal media? Well, yes.
Ok, with what we know now of the last 2 months, things are just not what we were led to believe.
The left keeps saying this, have no idea how many times it was debunked.
Gosh, if only the MSM would have this kind of concern, particularly being the dominant media source in the country.
bass4funk
Different, FNC is owned by a conservative, and Disney is owned by woke libs.
Men can be women just by thinking about it. Yeah.....
wallace
Why would anyone defend a TV News channel let alone Faux News.
bass4funk
Millions.
wallace
bass4funk
who no longer supports Trump and won't be voting for him again.
dagon
*FNC is owned by an elderly Australian oligarch, and Disney owned by is the descendants of Roy and Walt, and two companies – Berkshire Hathaway elderly white capitalist Warren Buffet and Cadbury. *
Fixed it for you.
wallace
Faux News isn't in Japan. No demand. Dsianey is very popular though.
bass4funk
They don’t need to, no one cares, but Trump will still be covered by the network, he still appears and he still has a lot of pundits that support him, so he’s good.
bass4funk
Yes, there is, there’s an international app you can download, thanks Apple and Google.
lincolnman
Amazing...the far-right must have an addiction to humiliation...
Trump lies and scams their money to "Defend the Election" - then calls them the "great unwashed" and uses their money to pay his dodgy lawyers and Melania's fashion coordinator...
Bannon hustles them for money for his bogus "Build the Wall" fraud that paid for his European vacation...
Carlson, Hannity, Ingraham, et al, openly lie to them - saying on air how much they believe Trump's rigged election claims when in reality they think they are “mind-blowingly nuts”, “totally off the rails” and “completely BS”...
Yet as we see here, the far-rightists defend the liars and scoundrels...as they make them look like suckers and fools...
Just like when their hero Trump calls their hero DeSantis a "Groomer", they retreat to their alt-reality world where Trump didn't say that, some "Lib" did - here they purposely ignore Carlson saying he "hates Trump passionately"...then lying to their face as he fawns over Trump each night...
Humiliation - thy name is MAGA-world...
Paustovsky
It's not even close to being a news channel. It's an entertainment channel. Think of it like WWE Network. Its audience subscribes to a preordained narrative that fulfils their prejudices and worldview.
As an entertainment channel it is not required to adhere to any concepts of journalistic integrity or balanced coverage. Its talking heads can argue that they are entertainers so can say anything they want under freedom of speech laws.
You will find more truth on the WWE Network.
Redtail Swift
It gives me great joy to see FOX News exposed.
Schadenfreude!!!
Nobody is buying the gaslighting anymore.
The other media networks are far more trustworthy.
You see @Bass4Funk, you can spam the chat with over 50% of the comments here, but the truth always comes out.
RKL
Fox News saved America and made the world a safer place with its refusal to regurgitate a woke platform and instead brought the talents of Donald Trump to light.
It's difficult for non-US citizens to fully grasp the effect of Fox, and to understand the demographics of its viewers.
Hint--CNN coverage promotes the same experience one would have riding a Buzz lightyear ride at Disney.
It's fantasy.
bass4funk
How??
So why are the viewers increasing?
So why are they losing in the ratings? What are you talking about? Lol
Yes, ratings do matter.
dagon
It is easy to grasp for non-US citizens as well as we Yanks.
It is rightist billionaire corporate funded propaganda to have lower-middle class voters vote against their own best economic interests and align with a neo-liberal corporatist agenda.
And the demographic is mainly elderly Caucasian boomers.
bass4funk
https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/here-are-fox-news-msnbc-and-cnn-ratings-for-february-2023/524861/
Here we go with another debunked fallacy.
RKL
dagonToday 01:10 pm JST
It is easy to grasp for non-US citizens as well as we Yanks.
It is rightist billionaire corporate funded propaganda to have lower-middle class voters vote against their own best economic interests and align with a neo-liberal corporatist agenda.
Good learning material for understanding woke mentality.
lincolnman
While in private they were saying;
Carlson "passionately” hates Trump: In a number of private text messages, Carlson was harshly critical of Trump. In one November 2020 exchange, Carlson said Trump’s decision to snub Joe Biden’s inauguration was “so destructive.” Carlson added that Trump’s post-election behavior was “disgusting” and that he was “trying to look away.” In another text message conversation, two days before the January 6 attack, Carlson said, “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait.” Carlson added of Trump, “I hate him passionately.” The Fox host said of the Trump presidency, “That’s the last four years. We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest. But come on. There isn’t really an upside to Trump.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/08/media/fox-news-dominion-filings-reliable-sources/index.html
Not really - its very similar to state-controlled media in Russia and China...and we know what Fox thinks of its viewers - they're too weak to handle the truth...so they lie to them...
Based on what he said above, a ride on the nightly Tucker Carlson delusion show is a real buzz....ROFL...
Far-right, alt-reality fantasy - where their far-right media hero who called their far-right former President "destructive", "disgusting". and who's reign was a "disaster"...can never be acknowledged...or their brain breaks...
bass4funk
Well, they can think whatever they want, that’s the beauty about America. Wonder what they say about Joe privately?
More emotional liberal debunked babble?.
His ratings say otherwise.
What?
Jimizo
Given how utterly dishonest they are, it wouldn’t surprise me if they voted for Biden.
Tucker Carlson in particular is on record despising Trump.
bass4funk
Naw, with the exception of Juan Williams and that brainchild Tarlov they’re waaaay too conservative and have too much pride to do that to themselves.
Ok, and?
dagon
Here is a prime example of why the conservative media complex has a illogical, pre-rational cult-like base that is immune from self-improvement and reflection.
The main spokesperson for the network which you are defending and promoting in the thread attached to this article, whom is often quoted and cited by you and yours, has been documented as cynically contradicting the opinions which he promulgated to his audience.
You need not demand total infallibility from such sources but at least some authenticity?
But in the end it is beyond rationality, and even emotion which you somehow attribute to the "libs" and just a slavish devotion.
Ok, and?
bass4funk
Democrats??
He owns the network, he doesn’t have any news journalist status or say.
Such as?
No, just going by history
lincolnman
So they can tell you Trump is a hero on air, but in reality say Trump is a "disaster" and "disgusting" in private....
You know, lying to you and playing you for a fool... OK, it's your self-respect...
It's in official court records - Hannity, Carlson, and Ingraham lied to you because they thought you couldn't handle the truth...so they gave you lies... Even Rupert admitted it...
Thank you - if you're bragging about his ratings you're just admitting the majority of MAGA viewers are being humiliated and conned...
Thanks again - you just proved you can't admit it...
wallace
It’s not difficult for anyone to understand since Murdoch confessed and admitted he and the presenters of Faux News are serial liars just as Trump is also.
bass4funk
They can tell you his accomplishments and not like the guy. At least they’re not spoon feeding you to like any politician. You can complement a person without having to like the person.
The way the liberal media does? That’d what you actually meant.
And we got so much more from the Twitter files Schollenberger and Taibbi, so now we know this administration and Dems lied.
A bit more in depth actually.
No, I just proved the is full of stagnant crap.
bass4funk
As If Murdoch knows, he just owns News Corp, he doesn’t run it. Try again. More leftist manufacturer outrage.
wallace
bass4funk
previously you praised Murdoch but now you don’t give him credit because of his confession. Murdoch ran the entire empire for decades. His son is now the CEO of Fox Corp.
In the heat of the moment, right after Election Day 2020, media magnate Rupert Murdoch knew that the hosts on his prized Fox News Channel were endorsing lies from then-President Donald Trump about election fraud.
And he did nothing to intervene to stop it.
https://www.npr.org/2023/02/28/1159819849/fox-news-dominion-voting-rupert-murdoch-2020-election-fraud
bass4funk
I like the guy, but no, I don’t care for his opinion, I’m independent in my thinking.
No, he didn’t. It was Roger Ailes
Neither did the Dems for 3 months of rioting, nor did they ever hold Lois Lerner accountable.
Jimizo
I don’t know. They’ve proved themselves utterly dishonest in what they say in public. You can’t trust these people as far as you can throw them.
As the old saying goes, I’d trust a thief over a liar.
My money would be probably be on Tucker Carlson in particular voting Biden in 2020.