Murdoch chose not to stop the lies

The Fox News lawsuit against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden: An end to the Fox News narrative? A Delaware Superior Court Judge rules that Dominion should have the rights to the cable broadcasts

Trump was enraged that Fox News was the first network to call the critical swing state of Arizona for now-president Joe Biden. And he couldn’t stand that the network, rightfully, declared Biden as the winner of the presidential contest.

The internal messages reveal that the three prime-time hosts, as well as others at Fox, privately made fun of, and were at times appalled by, the election-fraud claims of Donald Trump advisers like Sidney Powell and Rudolph Giuliani. They kept their skepticism hidden from the viewers. Fox News’s leaders were afraid to stop after getting the Fox audience aroused by claims of election fraud. Why? They feared they would lose viewers and ad revenue to even crazier networks — Newsmax and OAN.

In a ruling yesterday, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis affirmed that Dominion should receive the contracts – the point of contention in Tuesday’s hearing.

Fox lawyers said in a brief that a viewer would understand that hosts weren’t saying the President’s allegations themselves, but were giving a forum to the architects of the legal challenges.

In his exchanges with the judge, Keller drew a line distinguishing between a host or producer “who are sometimes pre-scripting material for the show, that is going to be tethered to a specific channel’s telecast” and a network executive.

Rupert Murdoch, the Fox Corporation chairman, emailed Suzanne Scott, the Fox News chief executive, telling her that Newsmax needed to be “watched.” Murdoch said that he didn’t “want to antagonize Trump further” and stressed to her, “everything at stake here.”

Nelson pointed to a document obtained from Fox that said that “almost all of these executives that we’re looking at right now” were in the daily editorial meeting.

“Dominion’s lawsuit has always been more about what will generate headlines than what can withstand legal and factual scrutiny,” according to a statement released by a spokeswoman on behalf of Fox Corp. and Fox News.

Lawyers for Fox argued in court that its broadcasts after the election did not amount to defamation because they were protected by the First Amendment. In court filings, Fox has defended its commentary and reporting as the kind of work that any journalistic outfit would do by covering events and newsmakers that are indisputably newsworthy.

No one at Fox would directly comment on Baker and Glasser’s assertions, other than Baier, who released a statement taking some issue with how his objections were framed. A person with direct knowledge of the election coverage at Fox toldNPR that a technical glitch in the control room caused the delay in calling the full White House win for Biden.

In hosting Fox’s first post-election interview with Trump that November, Bartiromo echoed Trump’s disproven allegations of electoral fraud, saying, “This is disgusting, and we cannot allow America’s election to be corrupted.” She told viewers in mid-December that “an intel source” told her that Trump had won the election. Bartiromo, officially designated as a news anchor, never returned to explain on what grounds the source made that statement. (Fox no longer publicly characterizes her as an anchor, which had rooted her in the news side of Fox, as opposed to an opinion host.)

In December 2020, Dobbs contended on the air that Trump’s opponents within the government had committed “treason,” and later suggested any action by a Republican officeholder to uphold Biden’s victory might have been “criminal.” His exit from the network came a day after a company called Smartmatic filed a defamation lawsuit against Fox, claiming that it had made false accusations of fraud. The case is not far along at this point.

Dominion’s legal team asked the court to compel additional testimony from Pirro late last month, arguing that after Fox invoked a reporter’s privilege to shield her from some questions during her deposition. The decision on whether or not to question Pirro has not been made public.

CNN’s Stephen Collinson puts it perfectly: “Fox News is the latest example of opinion formers on the right exposed for being held hostage to the fury they helped to incite. … The new details underscored how key players on the right feel they have no choice but to appease, satisfy and further inflame the voters and viewers on whom their profits or hopes of political power depend.”

Speaking under oath, Murdoch confirmed the suggestion by a Dominion lawyer that Fox was “trying to straddle the line between spewing conspiracy theories on one hand, yet calling out the fact that they are actually false on the other.”

Murdoch is accusing a smaller media outlet of defamation. He has forced the site to pay out for highly critical commentary several times previously; Crikey says it intends to use the suit as a test case for recent changes in libel law in that country. Media outlets have less legal cover in Australia than they do here in the U.S.

The messages underscore that Fox News didn’t live up to the basic journalistic principle that news organizations are supposed to deliver news to viewers in a balanced manner without fear or favor. Instead, the right-wing talk channel engineered its coverage to appeal to its audience which was actively being lied to by Trump and his campaign surrogates.

The network’s executives and talk hosts were shown to privately trash the lies pushed by the campaign of former president Donald Trump and his supporters in a legal filing on Thursday.

Executives and hosts of the network were terrified that telling the truth would cause them to tune out, and that’s why the lies took hold of the air.

A week after the election had been called, Sean Hannity told Carlson and Ingraham, “In one week and one debate they destroyed a brand that took 25 years to build and the damage is incalculable.”

The hosts were so alarmed by Newsmax’s rise, they were enraged when their colleague, White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich, tweeted a mere fact check of Trump’s election lies.

“Please get her fired,” Carlson texted to fellow Fox News anchor Sean Hannity. What the f**k? I’m actually shocked … It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company.”

Murdoch asked Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott to have Sean Hannity say something supportive about Lindsey Graham. Murdoch explained, “We cannot lose the Senate if at all possible.” In other words, Murdoch was directing the head of his talk network to help the GOP. Again, this type of directive from an executive would be a major scandal at an actual news network.

Behind the scenes, however, Fox News chief executive Scott had been wooing Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder, major advertiser and pro-Trump conspiracy theorist, according to Dominion’s filing. Scott sent Lindell a personal note and a gift while encouraging Fox shows to book him as a guest to “get ratings.”

A Story about Haley, the First U.N. Ambassador and the Daughter of Indians: Fox News vs. Dominion and the Murdoch Family

“There will be a lot of noise and confusion generated by Dominion and their opportunistic private equity owners, but the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution and protected by New York Times v. Sullivan,” the network said.

The core engine of America’s democracy – our ability to peacefully and safely transfer power – was discredited by the Murdoch family, but they were OK with it because it would boost their stock.

I’ve never met Haley, but from afar it seemed that she had a reasonably good story to tell — a successful South Carolina governor from 2011 to 2017, Trump’s first U.N. ambassador and the daughter of Indian immigrants. Her mother moved to South Carolina after studying law at the University of New Delhi and then earning a master’s degree in education. Her father taught biology at Voorhees College for 29 years after obtaining a doctorate from the University of British Columbia. On the side, they even opened a clothing boutique.

In his deposition, Mr. Dinh, when asked if Fox executives had an obligation to stop hosts of shows from broadcasting lies, said: “Yes, to prevent and correct known falsehoods.”

A version of the article was published in theReliable Sources newsletter. Receive the daily digest about the evolving media landscape here.

Fox News’ Rupert Murdoch Laughs: When Paul Ryan told Murdoch to Stop Spying on Election Lythmia

The Murdoch’s were warned repeatedly by Paul Ryan to stop allowing the spread of election lies. The former House speaker thinks that Fox News should stop spouting election lies in favor of moving on from Donald Trump. Ryan told the Murdochs that many of those who thought the election had been stolen did so “because they got a diet of information telling them the election was stolen from what they believe were credible sources.” He was correct.

Murdoch gave a preview of Biden’s ads before they were public in 2020 to Donald Trump’s son-in-law, according to a filing.

The documents show the channel’s business model is not based on telling the audience what’s going on but on feeding them content which keeps them happy and watching.

Asked whether he could have told Fox News’ chief executive and its stars to stop giving airtime to Rudy Giuliani — a key Trump campaign attorney peddling election lies — Murdoch assented. “I could have,” Murdoch said. “But I didn’t.”

To counter that defense, Dominion’s legal filings summon the words of seemingly authoritative figures: Fox Corp. founder Rupert Murdoch and his top corporate advisers.

Murdoch tried to differentiate between them in his sworn remarks. When asked whether Fox News embraced the idea of election fraud, he pointed instead to his own stars: “No. Some of our commentators were in favor of it.

Emails and other communications show deep involvement by Murdochs and other senior Fox figures in the network’s editorial path.

She said that Murdoch spoke to Scott roughly a dozen times a day. (While Lachlan Murdoch confirmed his daily chat with Scott, Rupert Murdoch said it was only once or twice a week.)

“I’ve been working as a journalist my whole life,” Murdoch, who is just two weeks shy of his 92nd birthday, said in his deposition. “I like to be involved in these things.”

He had been resolute about defending Fox News’ call of the key state of Arizona for Joe Biden on election night — Nov. 3, 2020. Murdoch testified that he could hear Trump shouting in the background as he was told the situation was bad.

Scott forwarded his recommendation to the top executive over prime-time programming, Meade Cooper. Along with another executive, she canceled Pirro’s show that weekend over fears that the “guests are all going to say the election is being stolen and if she pushes back at all it will be just a token,” according to the filings.

By Nov. 13, Raj Shah, a senior vice president at Fox Corp., was advising Lachlan Murdoch, Scott and Dinh of the “strong conservative and viewer backlash to Fox that we are working to track and mitigate.” He said that positive impressions among Fox News viewers “dropped precipitously after Election Day to the lowest levels we’ve ever seen.”

Murdoch warned Scott that the anchor’s coverage of the rally was “mug and obnoxious” and that she had to remedy it. (Anchor Leland Vittert’s final appearance on Fox was in January 2021; he is now an anchor for the fledgling cable news outlet NewsNation.)

Ryan was interviewed by a conservative commentator last week regarding his decision to remain on the board of directors.

“Just let her know,” he told Lachlan. Fox News has called the election correctly. We have to lead our viewers which is [] not as easy as it might seem.”

On Jan. 26, Tucker Carlson had Lindell on his show. Rupert Murdoch told Dominion’s attorneys he could stop taking money for MyPillow ads, “[B]ut I’m not about to.”

Fox News News: A Tale of Two Pseudosecula, Two Tears, and Two Faces of the Same

The painful truth about email and text messages, which every TV anchor and media executive should learn, is that you never know which message will be publicly released when your company is sued.

It’s especially painful if, as is the case for Fox News anchors and executives, the messages appear to show you are knowingly allowing false information on the air.

“Because there isn’t a bigger platform than this in America,” Ryan said. “So I think the conservative movement is going through a lot of churn and a lot of turmoil and I don’t like where it is right now.”

During the George W. Bush administration, Fox would have been a major backer of military aid for Ukraine if Russia had invaded as it did a year ago. That perspective is still evident on the network, where many guests talk about the importance of Ukraine aid.

Carlson is questioning if the US should object to Russia being involved in Ukraine, a question similar to Trump.

CNN notes that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has changed his policies as they look ahead to the presidential race in four years.

Potential Republican presidential candidates will be able to see Donald Trump at the Conservative Political Action Conference this weekend. Haley, who was the other major announced candidate, will also attend.

A soft launching a campaign is what DeSantis is doing as he prepares to promote his new book. He will go on a private retreat to the anti-tax Club for Growth in Palm Beach, Florida, where he can rub shoulders with donors.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/01/politics/fox-news-republicans-what-matters/index.html

A Conversation with Murdoch: Putting the Fight Towards Elimination of the Fox News Scenario for the Future of the Media Industry

CNN gave interviews to two dozen or so lawmakers that they said were hardcore Trump supporters and the Freedom Caucus, people who were essentially his most trusted allies during his four years in office.

The Republicans were concerned about Trump’s viability as a candidate. They are worried that he could give Biden another four years in the presidency after he did not perform well in the last three elections.

The Freedom Caucus members went to Florida to talk to the governor, instead of having a meeting with Trump. They were impressed.

The Murdochs “are certainly setting Suzanne Scott up to take the fall for this,” Ben Smith, the Semafor editor-in-chief who writes a Sunday night media column, said Wednesday.

Regardless, it’s worth noting that Murdoch himself has signaled that firings could be coming. When asked in his deposition whether Fox News executives who knowingly allowed “lies to be broadcast” should face consequences, Murdoch responded in the affirmative: “They should be reprimanded,” he said. “They should be reprimanded, maybe got rid of.”

Murdoch made the decision to part ways with top personnel. The source that once worked at Murdoch-world said his pattern has been to give a head or two in the process to make it go away. It would be easier for Murdoch to get out of Scott than it would be for him to stay at one of the world’s largest media empires.

“Looking back to previous scandals, Murdoch and the companies have tended to try to pay early and quietly to make things go away, or they ignore them thinking they’re so big they can ride things out,” Folkenflik said. “And then when things really come to a head, they try to cauterize the wound at the lowest level possible.”

Folkenflik said that Scott would only do it if he threw him over. “That’s his record. That is what he does. It is possible that it will be editors. It can be executives. It can be something. He isn’t throwing himself over the side.

“Murdoch has a history of sacrificing loyal lieutenants, but he does it only in the most extreme circumstances,” Rutenberg said. He hates doing it, and we know that. We know that he tends to try to fight for his loyalists, even for Ailes, certainly for O’Reilly. He will do it when he has to overcome a real threat to his business.

We’ll see what Scott’s fate ultimately looks like. For now, Fox is not offering any public statement of support for her. When I reached out to Fox spokespeople on Wednesday asking for comment, the company declined.

That’s the main slogan of Fox News. But a deposition and private messages made public in recent weeks has exposed that even Rupert Murdoch doesn’t treat Fox News like an actual news organization.

The media team led by Ailes helped put Richard Nixon in the White House in 1968, and they saw that it could be used to amplify a conservative viewpoint. It was about propaganda from the beginning. It was created as a counterbalance to what Ailes saw as a liberal bias in network TV, public radio and the top newspapers in the country. He cleverly referred to the channel as news, but it was always about politics and ideology first.

Now, it’s all about right-wing politics (the hotter and nastier, the better) and money. Murdoch stated in his description why he allowed the CEO of MyPillow to be on Fox, that “not necessarily in that order.”

But it’s become so much deeper culturally. Fox News is a world view, a lifestyle, a way of seeing the world, a 24/7 warm bath of false nostalgia and aggrievement primarily for older adults – some of whom are likely feeling left behind or threatened by the changes in American life. Fox tells them that if they are struggling, it is not their fault. The Democrats in Washington are giving the country to immigrants and minorities, and the money is coming from the viewers in their pockets as illogical and false.

If you look at the potential effect of Murdoch admitting, you might think that some audience members would tune out the channel.

As shocking and even disgusting as some of us in the mainstream media find Murdoch’s deposition, my relatives won’t be changing their viewing habits because of it. I believe most other viewers won’t be watching Fox News as far into their lives.

► Murdoch told Scott to focus on Georgia when the state held a high-stakes special election that would determine the balance of power in the US Senate.

► When Trump appealed for help defeating Republican West Virginia Senate candidate Don Blankenship, Murdoch told Scott and Fox News president Jay Wallace, “Anything during day helpful Even though Sean and Laura were dumping on him he might still save the day.

“There’s not one thing that surprised me or struck me,” says former Fox commentator and guest host Julie Roginsky. “And I’ve read everything in those filings.”

Despite all that, Ailes enforced an intense discipline at Fox that disappeared as Trump headed to the White House. Several journalists left Fox during the Trump years, including Shepard Smith.

“There was a time when the journalists had some control,” Cameron says now. “And that clearly has eroded. And exactly when that started … really doesn’t matter. What it ended up with, is the organization has a serious legal problem. “

The 2016 departure of Fox News chief Roger Ailes has been pointed out by each of them.

When Fox News Became a Fear-Driven Machine: How Chris Stirewal and Bill Sammon Resigned from the Newsroom

“The people who stayed — by the very nature of being allowed to stay — had to accept the notion that they were going to be led by the mob and the mob was being led by Donald Trump,” Roginsky says.

Stirewalt and Washington Managing Editor Bill Sammon argued that the network needed to level with their viewers. The private exchanges that emerged from the lawsuit show many of Fox’s opinion leaders decided to broadcast claims of fraud knowing they were baseless in an effort to woo back the Trump voters it had lost.

The people in those papers lost their heads because of ratings. “And one of the emails that was released was from Bill to me, where he talked about how weak ratings make good journalists do bad things. That’s a fact.

“It was particularly sad for an organization that had used to call itself ‘the most powerful name in news’ that it was such a fear-driven, such an anxious thing.” Stirewalt says. He cites “the unwillingness to suffer the short-term cost for the long-term good, and, if I can be especially corny, the good of the Republic.”

Stirewal and Sammon were forced out of the newsroom by Fox before Biden took office. A top Fox News PR executive stated that Chris Stirewal’s quest for relevancy knows no bounds. He is now the political director for the new cable station News Nation.)

Executives turned over popular time slots that used to be reserved for news coverage to opinion shows at 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. In late 2021, Fox political commentators Stephen Hayes and Jonah Goldberg and Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace all left the network. Tucker Carlson’s programs promoted conspiracy theories about the January 2020 siege of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.