Judge talks to attorneys about dual roles for Murdoch
Dominion Voting Machines Aren’t Manipulable: The Case of Rupert Murdoch at Fox News as Confronted with Fox
In the tape of Giuliani, he admits he had no hard evidence to back up his claim that Dominion voting machine software could be manipulated. The judge may appoint a special master to investigate Fox’s handling of documents. It was only made clear yesterday that in addition to being the chair of Fox Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch is also an executive at Fox News. Had Murdoch’s role at Fox News been disclosed, Dominion would have had access to more of Murdoch’s documents as part of the discovery process. The judge said that if there was additional depositions or redos, Fox would have to do everything they can to make the person available, and it will be a cost to them.
The statement was one of a flurry of eye-opening exchanges between Davis and attorneys at the Tuesday hearing, during which the court set rules for what is certain to be a landmark defamation trial, scheduled for later this month.
A new show called “Gross Happiness.” I believe you mentioned it, but some First Amendment lawyers always defend the media against defamation, and they are siding with Fox. What are their concerns in this case?
The Maria Bartiromo instance that you just played is one of the defining moments in the case. It is the first time on Fox News where these conspiracy theories about Dominion machines get an airing. It’s the first time the audience starts hearing about them. And inside Fox News, what we now know from the discovery in this case is that segment between Sidney and Maria Bartiromo rated so well. In fact, some executives and producers talking about it are just giddy after the fact, saying, did you see the ratings? This stuff is worth a lot. It is significant because it allows them to claim that Fox acted with malice because it knew that the ratings would go up if Sidney Powell was on the air. They did that after November 8. So we’re sitting here talking today about the fact that Murdoch is going to have to write a check in excess of $1 billion.
Nelson’s comments appeared to have prompted Davis to question the credibility of Fox attorneys. He said that he didn’t know why it was difficult, pointing out that there was apparent confusion over the identities of Fox News’ officers.
In response, one Fox attorney called Murdoch’s position with the network “honorific,” and said the role had been disclosed during a previous deposition. But Davis was not pacified. An officer of a company cannot escape responsibility by saying that they don’t have anything to do.
Davis made clear his opinion that the cable network could be held liable for the billion-dollar claim even though its hosts were often not those who uttered the defamatory statements.
The key question is whether Fox, as a company, published the information willfully, according to Davis.
Pets are not included. Their concern is that the push from the right to revisit defamation law in New York Times v. Sullivan will lead to a very high legal bar. To be successful in a defamation case against Fox News, you have to prove that they knew what they were saying was false or acted recklessly. And because that’s such a high bar. Conservatives say that the Supreme Court should reexamine whether or not the bar should be lowered. And if Dominion wins this case, it in a sense will show that defamation law is working, at least that’s how some of these First Amendment scholars will see it. I imagine some conservatives and certainly Fox News will see it differently. This effort could be short handed because it is from the right to reopen defamation law.
On Tuesday, Judge Davis dealt a blow to the company, ruling that they couldn’t refer to the Capitol insurrection because it could prejudice the jury. At that hearing, he also limited how much Dominion’s legal team could tell jurors about death threats that the company’s employees had received, saying there should be no mention of the specific content of the threats.
In response, Dominion attorney Megan Meier argued that it was Fox broadcasts that directly motivated individuals to make threats against employees at the voting machine company.
She said Fox yelled fire when he was in a crowded theater, but he doesn’t want to hear about the crush that followed.
Davis in response again suggested a question that Dominion could ask in its place. He said Dominion could inquire why Fox executives chose to pull back support from Trump. If their answer brought up Jan. 6, Dominion could pursue the topic, the judge said.
Davis stressed the need for a balancing act between giving attorneys a chance and making sure jurors would decide only on the claims in the case.
In an 11th-hour twist, the judge decided to assign an outside attorney to look into whether Fox lied to the court and hid evidence from the court.
Murdoch’s roles in Fox’s public financial filings were properly disclosed. Fox attorney Dan Webb said Wednesday that “nobody intentionally withheld information” from Dominion.
Fox News is facing a $1.6 billion defamation trial in which it is accused of promoting false conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.
The jurors will be asked about their news habits, including whether they watch Fox News. But Judge Eric Davis has narrowed the scope of the questioning — he doesn’t want jurors to be asked if they believe the 2020 election was legitimate, or if they had any connection to the January 6 insurrection.
Pets are Pets: So one thing that’s always been true about Fox News is that after a Republican loses the White House, its ratings dip. This happened after Obama won the election. It happened in 2012 after he won reelection. But every time that happened, the ratings would tick back up a few weeks or months later because Fox could firmly establish itself as the voice of the opposition to the Democratic president in the White House. And of course, Obama was a very effective and profitable foil for Fox News and their negative coverage of him. The endorsement of certain conspiracy theories about his background and his religion was very important to the audience, because it allowed them to learn more about the conspiracy theories he would later float regarding Obama.
We have an unprecedented ability to search out the one that tells us what we want to hear thanks to the vast resources of cable television and the internet. We shouldn’t believe in the truth. We can pick it up from the store.
Dominion Defamation vs. Fox News and the Politics of the Future: A Pretrial Observation of Judge David Davis’s Decision
A series of recent pretrial rulings has provided more clarity on how Judge Davis operates, and shows he has taken steps to reassure both parties that he had not predetermined the outcomes.
“The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that is CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true,” Judge Davis wrote in a 130-page decision.
It’s called grOSS. Well, let’s take another break here. If you’re just joining us, my guest is Jeremy Peters, who’s covering the Dominion defamation lawsuit against Fox News for The New York Times. Peters covers media and its intersection with politics, law and culture for the Times. We will be back after a short break. This is not a rerun.
JEREMY PETERS: Few people have been held accountable for the lies that took place around the presidential election. No player as significant as Fox News in our political system has been forced to answer for those lies. So you have the first opportunity, I think, for a judgment against the people who spread rampant disinformation and sowed real doubts about the integrity of our electoral system. And then there’s the fact that you rarely get a defamation case that proceeds this far along against a media company. Usually, media companies will quietly resolve these cases, and you won’t hear about them again. It is remarkable that Fox face a jury and be forced to answer questions about its conduct. It just doesn’t happen.
An Example of How Dominion Voting Machines Have Endangered Electorate Integrals and Aliens’ Interests: Maria Bartiromo
GROSS: Well, just recently, Shasta County, Calif., which is a very conservative county, decided to stop using Dominion voting machines, and it seems like that was influenced by the conspiracy theories. There is a recent instance of a company losing clients because of false conspiracy theories.
GROSS: Let’s hear an example of what people were saying on the Fox airwaves. This is an interview with Maria Bartiromo. The conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell was behind the theory that the election of Trump was part of a plan to steal it. Powell was a legal adviser to Trump. She was a guest on at least a couple of occasions. And here’s an example of what she said while they were talking about Dominion, and Bartiromo speaks first.
PETERS: It’s ludicrous, Terry. And I think what they’re talking about were instances in which some municipalities just stopped counting because it was late, and the vote counters tabulators needed to go home. It was widely misrepresented and distorted in right-wing media when an elections official made a mistake and accidentally recorded Biden’s totals as those of Trump. They realized that it was a human error. It had nothing to do with the machines. But this became fodder for conspiracy theorists saying, see? These machines can flip votes, and they may have taken votes away from President Trump.
BARTIROMO: In the middle of an election, I have never seen voting machines stop and go down to assess the situation. I also see reports that Nancy Pelosi’s longtime chief of staff is a key executive at that company. The husband of Senator Feinstein is a significant shareholder of the company. What can you tell us about the interest on the other side of this Dominion software?
POWELL: They invested in it for their own reasons, and now they are using it to steal votes. They should be angry that they’ve stolen from other Democrats in their own party. Bernie Sanders might very well have been the Democratic candidate, but they’ve stolen against whoever they wanted to steal it from.
GROSS: On November 8, 2020, Sidney Powell was on Maria Bartiromo’s show. The election happened on November 3, so that’s just a few days after. Can you tell me what she was talking about when she said voting machines were stopped in the middle of the election to assess the situation? What are they talking about?
GROSS: Before we move on from that clip, I just want to fact-check another thing that Sidney Powell said, and this was about Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein. The Associated Press, the AP, did a fact-check on that and said it’s all false. A former aide to Pelosi has represented Dominion as a lobbyist, but so have lobbyists who have worked for Republicans, and claims that Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum, holds a stake in Dominion are baseless. I would like to get that on the record. So there’s something really interesting about who the source was for some of Sidney…
Grossest: Yes, for some of Sidney Powell’s claims. There were signs of her being mentally unstable. Tell us about this source, Marlene Bourne, who claimed to be a tech analyst.
People named Péters. This is another significant part of the case because it proves that they acted recklessly. A jury could conclude after seeing this email from this source that no one reading it would think that this person is credible, and so therefore they shouldn’t be relying on it for any of their coverage. And I’ll tell you what was in that email. It’s truly bonkers. Sidney Powell had been talking to a woman by the name of Marlysday’s. And in this email, she describes to Sidney Powell how she talks to ghosts and listens to the wind, and that she has been “internally decapitated” – that’s a direct quote. I’m not sure what that means.
Peters: “I think I’ve said it before.” It’s clear that a person like that is unreliable and mentally unstable. I think if I had forwarded that email to your producers saying that this was a source for my story, I would never be appearing on FRESH AIR. There is a reason.
The show was called “GroOSS.” She said she sees what others don’t see and hears what others don’t hear and that it appears that she was shot in the back after giving the FBI a tip.
PETERS: Yeah. It’s just crazy. That’s the type of language that people at Fox used to describe Sidney Powell. They said she was crazy. They called her nuts. I will not repeat the things they called her. And that, again, points to the doubts that they had about her and shows that, you know, they knew that this was all reckless nonsense.
In another sense, it’s interesting that Maria Bartiromo wants to believe that it’s true. She talks to people like Steve Bannon and we can read her texts, and they’re talking about voter fraud and how President Donald Trump’s lawyers will never prove it. Maria Bartiromo had an email from a woman who talks to ghosts. She had seen it. And in her deposition, she recalls reading it at the time. That is evidence that Dominion can present to the jury to say Maria Bartiromo was one of the people at Fox News who acted with reckless disregard for the truth because she could see that Sidney Powell was relying on someone who wasn’t reliable at all, but she allowed Sidney Powell to go on the air anyway. And it’s very compelling evidence in Dominion’s favor.
GROSS: Well, we need to take a break here. If you’re just joining us, my guest is Jeremy Peters. He’s covering the Dominion defamation suit against Fox News. He covers the media and its intersection with politics, law and culture for The New York Times. We’ll be right back after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/13/1169677158/will-fox-news-pay-for-spreading-lies-about-voter-fraud
The Gross Commandments: When Fox News ceased to Talk about a Corrupt ‘Conspiracy to Stop the Election from Happening’
Now, of course, that never happened. And, you know, a jury could buy that. The case is so strong that I don’t want to make it sound like it’s a slam dunk. Depending on who’s on the jury. And really, it only takes one, two, you know, very, you know, Trump-leaning jurors to throw a whole wrench in this for Dominion.
It’s a show called “Gross Commandments.” One of the cases that Fox wanted to make was that we were just covering the news. The stories were covered in the news. We were looking after them. But the judge already knocked down that argument.
PETERS: Yes, that’s part of their First Amendment defense. They have tried to say that, look, you know, what Tucker Carlson was saying is protected commentary. What Sean Hannity was saying – you know, same thing. The hosts are allowed to offer their opinions on the news. We’ll see how that goes over with the jury because we have evidence that people like Tucker Carlson don’t believe in what Sidney Powell said. That’s – same thing that Sean Hannity has acknowledged in his deposition. A direct quote – he says, “I didn’t believe it for one second,” referring to what Sidney Powell was saying. Yet he allows her – gives her a platform on his radio show, then later that night on his Fox News show, where she continues to spread lies about Dominion machines.
GROSS: A reporter for Fox reported on a press conference held by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, two of Trump’s legal advisers, and they were talking about a conspiracy to stop the election from happening. She reported on the press conference and fact-checked it and showed that the conspiracy theories being floated were factually wrong. What are her consequences for that report?
There are people who are called PETERS. Her name is Kristin. She no longer works for Fox. She left the network in large part because of this incident. After she fact-checked that press conference on the air, she received an angry phone call from her boss, who said, you need to do a better job of respecting our audience. And this is a sentiment that had been conveyed to her boss by the chief executive of Fox News, who, at this point in November of 2020, was looking at the ratings decline Fox had been suffering and the ratings gains that competitors like Newsmax had been enjoying because they were more overtly pro-Trump. Suzanne Scott panicked. Murdoch panicked. And they basically shut down an honest discussion of what really happened in the 2020 presidential election. And the way they do that is by telling their correspondents, effectively, only tell our audience what they want to hear, and they don’t want to hear that President Trump has lost.
Let’s begin with Tucker Carlson. He’s a big supporter of Trump. But in private messages, he called Trump a demonic force, a destroyer – this was in a text with his producer – and he privately called Powell a nut. He said, I tried to make the White House disavow her, which they obviously should have done long before. The claims about a plot to steal the election were ridiculed in a text message. What did he do on the air that is counter to what he said in private?
Tucker Carlson drops the subject, and you can see text messages before and after this Sidney Powell incident, in which his producers say voters want to hear about voter fraud and they are not covering it. They are concerned about the idea that the election was not clean. They say openly, there just wasn’t enough fraud to have changed the outcome. This stuff makes me sick. The case raises a lot of big questions about our democratic system and news media and the susceptibility that people have to disinformation and the willingness of bad actors to profit from that, but it’s going to turn on small incidents.
GROSS: These are the rioters who broke into the Capitol. How does anybody square that? I don’t know that that’s relevant to the actual, to the defamation lawsuit. But what does it say about Tucker Carlson and Fox?
So I just want to get to one more thing about Sidney Powell. Lou Dobbs was a big supporter of the conspiracy theory. He hosted his own show on Fox Business News. The producer of CNN’s show said that he thought Sidney Powell, one of Trump’s legal advisers, was doing drugs.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/13/1169677158/will-fox-news-pay-for-spreading-lies-about-voter-fraud
Rupert Murdoch’s Private Messages and the First Amendment: Why Fox News Pay for Spreading Lies About Voter Fraud?
And that’s when, as Dominion has laid out in its case, you see this moment where Suzanne Scott tells her lieutenants at the network, we need to respect our audience. And that’s basically code for we can’t tell them anything they’ll find upsetting as they’re changing the channel.
There are Peters. And it’s true. It’s something that Dominion cited in its presentation to the judge when they were arguing the summary judgment phase of the case. It’s something I expect to see when they put Murdoch on the stand.
One of the things that happened really recently is that Dominion went to the judge and said, we want access to more of Rupert Murdoch’s private messages, because when – during the period of disclosure, we didn’t realize how big a role Murdoch played in Fox News and in deciding what was going to be covered and how it was going to be covered. Tell us about this recent development.
Pets are mentioned. The questions of what that means for Trump’s base and the larger conservative media is more complicated, I don’t know how they are covered, this trial is on the right. And I don’t know that those kinds of lessons of accountability will sink in with the average conservative.
GROSS: The First Amendment lawyers who are siding with Dominion do not want to protect baseless conspiracy theories and media that promotes them.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/13/1169677158/will-fox-news-pay-for-spreading-lies-about-voter-fraud
FRESH AIR – A podcast about spreading lies about voter fraud in the era of the Sondheim musical and the late-time version of The Tonight Show
Grossest: If you’d like to catch up on FRESH AIR interviews you missed – like this week’s interview with All Things Considered host Mary Louise Kelly, whose new memoir is about juggling her career and parenting; or with Josh Groban, who’s starring in the new Broadway revival of the Sondheim musical “Sweeney Todd” – check out our podcast. You’ll find lots of FRESH AIR interviews.
FRESH AIR’s executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Therese Madden, Ann Marie Baldonado, Seth Kelley and Susan Nyakundi. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Thea Chaloner directed today’s show. I am Terry Gross.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/13/1169677158/will-fox-news-pay-for-spreading-lies-about-voter-fraud
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