It has long been axiomatic that Fox News breeds clueless viewers who feast on lies. In recent years at least six studies – by the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes, Stanford University, American University, Kaiser Family Foundation, Ohio State, and Fairleigh Dickinson – have found Fox loyalists to be far more misinformed than other news consumers.
So those of us who dwell in the realm of reality were not shocked to learn yesterday, via newly-released court records, that Fox’s superstar hosts privately dismissed Trump’s “stolen election” mantra as total manure during the 2020 post-election chaos…even while they continued to amplify it on the air, serving it up to their credulous saps in the pursuit of boffo ratings.
That’s the gist of the latest legal filing from Dominion Voting Systems, which is doggedly suing the infauxtainment outlet for defamation, seeking $1.6 billion in damages as recompense for Fox’s relentless lies that Dominion’s ’20 ballot machines were rigged for Joe Biden. Fox knew all along that its broadcasts were bullshit, and Dominion has uncovered the texts and emails to prove it. Lying on the air was Fox’s business model, and it was determined to boost the brand.
Will these revelations matter in the end? Can Dominion actually win its lawsuit? Will Fox be brought to justice, at the very least with a financial penalty that rocks Rupert Murdoch? Your guess is as good as mine. But it’s always good to know one’s enemy. I’m content for the moment just to spread the word:
The Fox messages shine a bright light on the backstage sewer. Even while the network’s biggest names and top producers gifted generous air time to crackpots like Sidney Powell, they were exchanging messages about how these guests were (among other things) “MIND BLOWINGLY NUTS” and “F’ing lunatics” and “crazy” and “shockingly reckless.”
Tucker Carlson called Powell “dangerous as hell” and “poison.” He also texted that “there wasn’t enough fraud to change the outcome” of the election. Meanwhile, a producer for Lou Dobbs Tonight called Rudy Giuliani “so full of shit.” Laura Ingraham wrote, “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy.” Sean Hannity complained that Rudy was “acting like an insane person.” Another top Fox executive wrote that pillow-man Mike Lindell was “on the crazy train with no brakes.” Murdoch himself texted this about Powell and Giuliani: “Really crazy stuff. And damaging.”
Behind the scenes, Murdoch even broached the idea of having Carlson, Ingraham, and Hannity appear together in prime time to confirm that Biden was the rightful winner. Doing that, wrote Murdoch, “would go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election stolen.”
That show never happened. The reason is obvious. Suzanne Scott, chief executive of Fox News Media, wrote in an email that such a show would’ve risked “pissing off the viewers.”
It was much easier to keep feeding them lies, rather than risk them tuning out on the truth. One of Ingraham’s producers texted this lament to a Fox executive: “This dominion shit is going to give me a fucking aneurysm – as many times as I’ve told Laura it’s bs, she sees shit posters and trump tweeting about it -” The remainder of this text is redacted in the court filing.
And it was much easier to crack down on Fox staffers who tried to tell the truth. When Fox’s White House correspondent tried to fact-check Powell and Giuliani, she was told that her superiors were unhappy and that she needed to do a better job of “respecting our audience.”
So while the Fox leaders knew all along that Trump’s lies – most notably, about Dominion – were demonstrably nuts, they nonetheless kept repeating them on camera, allowing guests to declare without a shred of evidence that Dominion’s voting machines had previously rigged elections for Venezuelan autocrat Hugo Chavez and had done so for Biden, courtesy of an “algorithm” that switched votes. This is what Fox called “respecting” its audience.
To win its defamation lawsuit, Dominion must prove “actual malice” – that Fox either knew it was broadcasting BS, or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. Fox’s lawyers insist that the Dominion lawsuit has “no factual support” (say what?), but unless there’s a settlement down the road, a jury will need to make that call. One law professor says that Dominion has documented “a fire hose of direct evidence of knowing falsity,” which seems obvious to me. But what do I know? These days, factual reality is just one option.