Fox News or Fox Biden? Fox News, Dominion, and the First Amendment: Why Do we care about the public after the Arizona election?

After Fox’s correct projection of Arizona for Joe Biden, network leaders schemed to woo back Trump supporters. Suzanne Scott, chief executive of Fox News, sent a text to Lachlan Murdoch. [call] was damaging but we will highlight our stars and plant flags letting the viewers know we hear them and respect them.”

The Fox statement characterized the voting-tech company’s position as a blatant violation of the First Amendment that would prevent journalists from reporting on the issues.

Judge Eric M. Davis ruled yesterday that the contracts should be given to Dominion, a point of contention on Tuesday’s hearing.

On the air, Dobbs was among the most muscular proponents of Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud. He was forced out of Fox the day after Smartmatic filed its own $2.7 billion defamation case against the network.

Keller told the judge he was differentiating between a host and a producer who were tethered to a specific channel’s telecast and a network executive.

Murdoch told the Fox News CEO 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, the Dominion attorney, retorted by citing a document obtained from Fox that “talks about the daily editorial meeting that occurs, including almost all of these executives that we’re looking at right now.”

The argument that Fox executives knowingly allowed false propaganda to be aired on their programs to increase their audience after the Arizona election is disputed by the network.

The 1964 U.S. Supreme Court decision in The New York Times case stated that the high legal bar for actual malice was if Fox acted with disregard of the truth or knowledge it was false.

The fear that Fox News’ audience would abandon it for good also appeared to drive programming decisions. In the days following the election, Alex Pfeiffer, a Carlson producer, told the host, “Many viewers were upset tonight that we didn’t cover election fraud …. It is all our viewers care about at the moment.

Asked by a Dominion attorney whether “Fox endorsed at times this false notion of a stolen election,” Murdoch demurred, saying, “Not Fox, no. Not Fox. But maybe Lou Dobbs, maybe Maria [Bartiromo] as commentators.”

In December 2020, Dobbs said on air that Trump’s opponents within the government had committed treason and suggested any action by a Republican office holder to uphold Biden’s victory could have been criminal. His departure from the network was hastily announced the day after another election software company, Smartmatic, filed its own $2.7 billion lawsuit against Fox for defamation surrounding similarly false accusations of fraud. That case is not as far along in the process.

In recent weeks, they have argued that Fox host Jeanine Pirro is at the center of their case. A producer at Fox News begged her colleagues to keep her show off the air due to her lies about election fraud on the internet.

“There will be a lot of noise and confusion generated by Dominion and their opportunistic private equity owners,” Fox News said in a statement today. The New York Times v. Sullivan case protects some of the fundamental rights to free speech and the press that are afforded by the Constitution.

Instead, Murdoch, the network’s controlling owner, followed the lead of the network’s senior executives in sidestepping the truth for a pro-Trump audience angered when confronted by the facts.

Murdoch is accusing a much 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. Australian media outlets have less legal cover than their US counterparts.

The Fox News Insider’s Insider Report on the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election: Correspondence Between the CEO, Executives and Hosts

Jason Koerner/Getty Images; Jason Koerner/Getty Images; Carolyn Kaster/AP; Alex Brandon/AP; Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images; Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images

The network’s stars, producers and executives were not happy with the way the conspiracy was being played out.

The network’s top stars – like Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity – sent threatening messages to each other in group chats, but also denounced their colleagues for pointing that out.

The Trump campaign attorney is a bit nuts, according to Ingraham. Carlson, who famously demanded evidence from Powell on the air, privately used a vulgar epithet for women to describe her. A top network programming executive wrote privately that he did not believe the shows of Carlson, Hannity and Jeanine Pirro were credible sources of news.

A number of newly-released text messages and emails show how the media giant operated with little regard for fact following the 2020 presidential election. The correspondence reveals that the network’s senior-most executives and highest-profile hosts chose not to disclose what they believed to be the truth of the election out of fear that that the facts would alienate Fox News’ audience and throw the highly profitable business into ruin.

Behind the scenes, Fox News executives and hosts were in panic. Jay Wallace, the Fox News president, described Newsmax’s surge as “troubling” and said the network needed to be “on war footing.”

Fox News host Neil Cavuto was attacked by colleagues for pulling his show away from a presentation by then White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany in which she made unfounded claims of fraud once more. (McEnany is now a host on Fox News.)

There was no illusions that there was heft to the allegations of election fraud even among the Fox figures who endorsed the Trump campaign, as the material presented shows.

A team led by then-Fox Corp senior vice president Raj Shah, formerly a White House aide to Trump, warned other top corporate leaders of a “Brand Threat” after Cavuto’s refusal to air McEnany’s White House press briefing on baseless claims of voter fraud.

In a separate filing, also released to the public on Thursday, the cable network’s attorneys say Dominion’s ten-figure request for damages is designed to “generate headlines” and to enrich the company’s controlling owner, the private equity fund Staple Street Capital Partners.

Why did Bret Baier Leave Fox News? Messages to the Fox News Co-Chair, Scott Murdoch, on Dec. 5, 2020

On Nov. 5, 2020, just days after the election, Bret Baier, the network’s chief political anchor texted a friend: “[T]here is NO evidence of fraud. None. Allegations – stories. Twitter. Bulls—.”

His departure two months later was termed a retirement by Fox News; through an intermediary, Sammon has declined to comment on that, citing the terms of his departure.

As part of a $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox News, the messages were made public Thursday, showing executives and talk host trashing false claims made about the 2020 election by the campaign of President Donald Trump.

The network allowed the lies to take hold of its air because it was afraid that the truth wouldn’t be taken seriously by its large audience.

The hosts were so worried about Newsmax growing that they were furious when their colleague, White House correspondent, asked for a fact check on Trump.

“Please get her fired,” Carlson told Hannity. What the hell is that? I am actually shocked. It has to cease immediately, like tonight. It is hurting the company. The stock price is down. It was not a joke.

Hannity said he had already spoken to Scott about the matter. He continued to criticize his fellow Fox News colleagues, who were critical of Trump, Neil Cavuto and Chris Wallace.

Scott wrote to Murdoch saying Fox needed to retain their audience who loves and trusts them. [W]e need to make sure they know we aren[‘]t abandoning them.” She wrote to Murdoch that the network would highlight our stars and plant flags to let viewers know we hear them and respect them.

Investigating the Murdoch Family’s Defamation Case against the Fox News News Network and its Associated News Executives: The Indian-American State Sensitive Haley Murdoch

The network said there would be a lot of noise but that the core of the case is about the right to the press and free speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution.

Yup, Fox hosts and the Murdoch family were OK with discrediting the core engine of America’s democracy — our ability to peacefully and legitimately transfer power — if it would hold their audience and 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. She is a native of India and her mother studied law at the University of New Delhi and became a public-school teacher in South Carolina. Her father, a PhD holder from the University of British Columbia, taught biology at Voorhees College for 29 years. On the side, they even opened a clothing boutique.

The lawsuit shows how Fox employees laughed at Trump’s election fraud claims, even as they were amplified by the network to appease viewers.

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. Murdoch said he could have. “But I didn’t.”

Murdoch and his top corporate advisers are mentioned in the legal filing as authoritative figures.

Lawyers for the company used emails to build their defamation case, which gives a look at how Murdoch shapes coverage of his news organizations.

In his first public remarks since the recent revelations on Fox News, Mr. Murdoch’s son Lachlan, the chief executive of the Fox Corporation, issued a full-throated show of support for Suzanne Scott , who is at the helm of Fox News Media.

“I’m a journalist at heart,” the elder Murdoch, who is just two weeks shy of his 92nd birthday, said in his deposition. I enjoy being involved in these things.

Rupert Murdoch and Suzanne Scott: Why do the Murdochs want to take away the Fox News monopoly on pro-Trump ads?

Scott forwarded his recommendation to the top executive. 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.

The next day, Lachlan Murdoch warned Scott that a Fox News anchor’s coverage of a pro-Trump rally was “[s]mug and obnoxious”; Scott responded that she was “calling now” to remedy. (Anchor Leland Vittert’s final appearance on Fox was in January 2021; he is now an anchor for the fledgling cable news outlet NewsNation.)

Murdoch believes that Fox News is more like an extension of the GOP than a news organization with a mission of informed viewers andallowing them to make their own decisions.

Just tell her, that’s what Rupert advised. Fox News is making a lot of changes as quickly as possible. It is not easy to lead our viewers.

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

Ben Smith, the Editor-in-chief of the Sunday night media column, said Wednesday that the Murdochs were putting Suzanne Scott up to take the fall for this.

Why does Murdoch choose to leave Fox News? The psychological and emotional needs of the public, anthropologist Caughey’s insights

I believe that some of our most important relationships with media are not rational. They are visceral and often rooted in profound psychological and emotional needs, as anthropologist John L. Caughey chronicled in his groundbreaking book, “Imaginary Social Worlds: A Cultural Approach.”

Taken in isolation, any one of these actions would be considered a major scandal at an actual news organization. There would be investigations, as well as likely disciplined measures. But at Fox News, that’s not the case. It is almost certain that the leadership does not view the channel the same as it is marketed to viewers and advertisers.

In each case, Murdoch made the decision to sever ties with top personnel. One source who worked in Murdoch-world said that he has often thrown money towards the cause to make it go away. Murdoch could potentially be forced to give up control of one of the world’s biggest media empires if he decides to cut ties with Scott.

“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, because he wanted to make sure the wound wouldn’t go higher. “That’s his record. That is what he does. It can be editors. It’s possible to be executives. It can be stars. He is not throwing himself on the side.

Murdoch sacrificed loyal lieutenants in the past, but only in the most extreme circumstances. “We know that he hates doing it. We know that he tends to try to fight for his loyalists, even for Ailes, certainly for O’Reilly. He will do it when it is necessary to overcome a real threat to his business.

We are going to see what Scott’s fate will be. Fox will not be making a public statement of support for her. Fox refused to speak to me when I asked for comment on Wednesday.

Is Ailes lying about the election? Why I am afraid Fox News will be viewed ill-equipped by Donald Trump and his family

Ailes was a key member of the media team that put Richard Nixon in the White House and he believed that it could be use to amplify a conservative viewpoint. From day one, it was about propaganda – not information. 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 suggested in his description of why he allowed the CEO of My Pillow to speak on Fox about election conspiracy theories that it’s not necessarily in that order.

Today, Fox is further away from the news part of its name than ever. It still presents itself as a news channel in name using the tropes of anchor desks, correspondents and panels of guests.

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 they are not to blame if they are struggling. The Democrats in Washington are giving immigrants and minorities the country, and money from the viewers is coming out of their pockets as illogical and false.

If you look rationally at the potential effect of Murdoch’s admission, you might think some audience members would be so angry they might tune out the channel forever.

It is shocking but not disgusting, and my relatives will not be changing their viewing habits due to it. I am pretty sure most viewers who have watched Fox News will not be as well.

► Murdoch gave Jared Kushner “confidential information” about then-candidate Joe Biden’s ads “along with debate strategy” in 2020, a filing said, offering Donald Trump’s son-in-law “a preview of Biden’s ads before they were public.”

► Murdoch told Scott to help any way she could in order to ensure that Georgia stayed in control of the US Senate during the high-stakes special election.

Murdoch told Scott and Jay Wallace that anything during day hours would be helpful in defeating Blankenship. It could save the day if Sean and Laura dumped on him hard.

► When then-New York Post editor Col Allan told Murdoch that Biden’s only hope for winning the election was “to stay in his basement and not face serious questions,” Murdoch responded, “Just made sure Fox banging on about these issues. If the audience talks the theme will spread.”

Former Fox News journalists are suggesting that the public knows what they saw from the inside.

Former Fox commentator and guest host Julie Roginsky says there aren’t many things that surprised her. “I’ve read the whole thing in the filings.”

After 21 years at the network, he left Fox about seven months into the Trump administration. He claimed that right wing hosts drowned out straight journalism at the channel.

“During a time in history when the journalists had some control, and I’m sure that’s still true today.” “And that clearly has eroded. And exactly when that started … really doesn’t matter. The organization has a serious legal problem. “

They all point to the 2016 departure of the late Roger Ailes, the celebrated, reviled and eventually disgraced former Fox News chief.

The Newsroom “The Most Powerful Name in News” During Biden’s Presidency: Fox News’ Chris Stirewalt

People who stayed were told that they were going to be led by the mob and was being led by Donald Trump.

It was sad that the organization that used to call itself ‘the most powerful name in news’ had become such a fearful thing. “Stirewalt said that.” If I can be especially corny, I would point out that the Republic is good if it’s willing to sacrifice short-term costs for long-term good.

A group of journalists from the newsroom were forced out by Fox before Biden took office. A top Fox News PR executive commented on Chris Stirewalt’s quest for relevancy. He is a political director at News Nation, a new cable station.

Fox News was doing well on Election Day. An internal memo written by the executive in charge of advertising for the network explains the sales records the channel just set.

Are We Seeing Too Much of the Mayor Pete’s and Coons? – The Newsmax Cable News Hour Problem in the 21st Century

-audiences don’t want to see too much of the Mayor Pete’s and Coons etc in the news hours. Booking in news hours need to be wary over the next 2 months.

A week after the election, a consensus quickly hardened inside the network: It could not continue to lose viewers to a much smaller right-wing cable news rival, Newsmax.

Alex Pfeiffer: You told me to tell you if we are getting attacked on Twitter so I will. Many viewers were upset tonight that we didn’t cover election fraud.

Pfeiffer: did you see this? [Texts a tweet with an excerpt of a Washington Post article that quotes an anonymous Republican official who says Mr. Trump will eventually get tired of claiming he was cheated and leave office.]