A renowned Yale professor says Fox executives should be fired due to proven behavior exposed in the lawsuit


The Fox News Story of a Black-Hole White House: How Fox News Becomes a Broke-Storm Defender of the First Amendment

“Their summary judgment motion took an extreme, unsupported view of defamation law that would prevent journalists from basic reporting and their efforts to publicly smear Fox for covering and commenting on allegations by a sitting President of the United States should be recognized for what it is: a blatant violation of the First Amendment,” the network added.

In one email, Carlson said that Sidney Powell, an attorney who was representing the Trump campaign, was lying and that he had caught her doing so. Ingraham responded, “Sidney is a complete nut. No one is willing to work with her. Ditto with Rudy [Giuliani].”

Fox News was the first news outlet to declare Joseph R. Biden Jr. the winner of Arizona — effectively projecting that he would become the next president. Fox’s ratings fell as Mr. Trump refused to concede that he had lost. Soon, many of the most popular hosts and shows on Fox began promoting the outlandish claims that Dominion machines were an integral part of a far-reaching voter fraud conspiracy to deny Mr. Trump a second term.

Even if the jury in this case decides that Fox is guilty of defamation, there won’t be any real threat to the First Amendment. “It comes down to how the story was disseminated and how it was crafted.”

After the election, Trump attacked Fox News and encouraged people to switch to Newsmax. In the days and weeks after the election, they did that. Fox News shed some viewers, while Newsmax gained some.

“Please get her fired,” Carlson told Hannity over text message. “Seriously … what the f**k? I’m actually shocked … It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company.”

A person with direct knowledge of the matter told CNN that Heinrich was blindsided reading the details in the legal filing and was not aware of the efforts by top hosts behind the scenes to get her fired.

A team led by Raj Shah, a White House aide to Trump, warned other top corporate leaders of a “Brand Threat” after Cavuto refused to air Mcenany’s White House press briefings on voter fraud claims.

Shepard Smith attacked the Trump administration’s lies on air and, when he did so, Murdoch sent an email to Scott and Wallace calling it “Over the top!” And telling them to talk to him. In another instance, Lachlan Murdoch told Scott that then-correspondent Leland Vittert was “smug and obnoxious” when reporting from a Nov. 14 pro-Trump rally. Murdoch said the tone should be a “celebration of the president.”

The court filing also revealed that Fox News executives had criticized some of the network’s top talent behind the scenes. The North Koreans did a show that was more nuanced than that of Lou Dobbs, said Jay Wallace, the network president. The executive producer of “Justice with Judge Jeanine” referred to Jeanine as a nut.

Fox News and the President’s Allegiance to Corrigendum: An Analysis of the Corrupt Claims by M. Vlasic and M. Kaster

Slaven Vlasic is a senior editor at Enlarged Images. Carolyn Kaster is a senior editor at The Associated Press.

Off the air, the network’s stars, producers and executives expressed contempt for those same conspiracies, calling them “mind-blowingly nuts,” “totally off the rails” and “completely bs” – often in far earthier terms.

The network’s top stars, including Tucker Carlson,Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity, were contemptuous of the claims in group chats, but also denounced colleagues who pointed that out.

“What you read in those filings are people losing their heads because of ratings numbers,” Stirewalt says. Bill talked about how weak ratings make good journalists do bad things in one of the emails that was released. And that is a fact.

“According to Dominion, [Fox News] had a duty not to truthfully report the President’s allegations but to suppress them or denounce them as false,” the Fox attorneys argue. Fox asserts that the damages that the company is facing are not close to the value of the business.

Fox News host Maria Bartiromo was first to interview Powell, the Trump attorney, on Nov. 8, 2020, a few days after the election. Powell would become one of Trump’s most fervent legal advocates. Bartiromo admitted Powell’s claims did not have any proof.

Fox Business Network Sentiments to the 2020 Election: Bret Baier’s Letter to a Friend is NOT Afraid

The network said that the case had always been more about what will generate headlines rather than what can survive legal and factual scrutiny.

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. Someone on the social media website, Twitter. Bulls—.

He was among the most vocal advocates of the baseless claims of election fraud. He left Fox the day after smartmatic filed its defamation suit against the network.

Sammon did not comment on his departure from Fox News due to the terms of his departure.

The Fox Business Network president said that it would be irresponsible to put Trump on the air and could impact a lot of people in a negative way.

A source with knowledge of the House Select Committee investigation says they did not know that Trump had made the call.

The panel tried to piece together a near minute-by-minute account of Trump’s movements on that day. The committee had to deal with obstacles that led to some of the gaps in the record.

“The afternoon of January 6, after the Capitol came under attack, then-President Trump dialed into Lou Dobbs’ show attempting to get on air,” Dominion lawyers wrote in their legal brief.

“But Fox executives vetoed that decision,” Dominion’s filing continued. “Why? Not because of a lack of newsworthiness. January 6 was significant in many ways. President Trump not only was the sitting President, he was the key figure that day.”

Dobbs’ show on Fox Business – in which he routinely promoted baseless conspiracies about the 2020 election – was canceled a few weeks after the January 6 insurrection.

Murdoch said that some of his commentators were in favor of the election. He said he would have liked us to be stronger in condemning it.

Rebecca Tushnet, the Frank Stanton Professor of First Amendment Law at Harvard Law School, described Dominion’s evidence as a “very strong” filing that “clearly lays out the difference between what Fox was saying publicly and what top people at Fox were privately admitting.”

Tushnet said that in her years of practicing and teaching law, she had never seen such damning evidence collected in the pre-trial phase of a defamation suit.

The Fox News Network: How Do You Met the President? When Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson Responded to Murdoch’s Email

Using text messages and emails sent by Fox employees and prominent hosts like Mr. Hannity and Tucker Carlson in the weeks after the election, Dominion has pieced together a dramatic account from inside the network, depicting a frantic scramble to woo back viewers after ratings collapsed.

Murdoch responded to Ryan’s email by telling him that Sean Hannity was scared to lose viewers because he was disgusted with Trump. In other words, Hannity, who always claims to say the same things on camera as when he’s off camera, was not being up front with his loyal audience for fear they’d rebel against him.

A reasonable viewer would know that the hosts were not making the President out to be a liar, but that they were giving a forum for the attorneys involved in the legal challenges.

A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. You can sign up for the digest to keep up with the current media landscape.

► In the wake of the election, Murdoch wrote in an email to the New York Post’s Col Allan, describing election lies that Trump was pushing as “bulls**t and damaging.”

Murdoch gave Kushner confidential information about Biden’s ads before they were public, and also gave him a sneak peak of Biden’s ads before they were public, according to the filing. This kind of action would result in an investigation at most news organizations.

The documents expose that the business model of the channel is to feed viewers with dangerous conspiracy theories that keep them interested and happy.

The network faces two separate defamation lawsuits from voting technology companies that collectively seek $4.3 billion in damages. Fox Corporation, the right-wing news outlet’s owner, has an estimated $4 billion in cash on hand, according to its latest earnings statement.

“This is one of the most devastating depositions that I’ve ever seen,” CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen said Monday. When you go beyond reporting and your chairman admits there was endorsement, you are liable under the malice standard.

The lawsuit alleged that Grossberg was forced to testify in order to show the facts in a false light in order to shift blame away from senior Fox News executives.

Murdoch, meanwhile, conceded that Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Maria Bartiromo, and former host Lou Dobbs promoted falsehoods about the presidential contest being stolen.

A lack of action by the board could result in additional legal exposure to Fox, Sonnenfeld warned. “Murdoch ‘only’ controls 39% of the company so any of the 61% of the shareholders can sue for misconduct, failure of management oversight, and conscious inadequate diligence,” he explained.

The board should take immediate action, including the removal of high-ranking personnel, including Suzanne Scott of Fox News, according to a report by an advisor to hundreds of CEOs.

Sonnenfeld explained to CNN that the board needed to remove the officials for selling known election lies, which damaged the outlet’s reputation.

“The investigation should be completed with a report to the shareholders by May 1 indicating what disciplinary actions will be taken,” he said. Sonnenfeld also said the directors and officers insurers “should be contacted to see” if board members “are still protected.”

But Sonnenfeld said Ryan’s actions were not enough. In fact, he said Ryan’s “quiet dissent” was “cowardly, ineffective, and immoral,” and pointed out that board members have certain responsibilities under corporate governance law in Delaware, where Fox is incorporated.

Nell Minow, vice chair at ValueEdge Advisors and expert on corporate governance, told CNN she agreed with everything that Sonnenfeld said. Minow told worried board members to contact their biggest shareholders to get suggestions for new independent directors.

Fox Wins: If Fox Can’t Lose Defamation for the New York Times, Then Why Do They Happen? A Conversation with Chen

A Rutgers University law professor, Ronald Chen, asked if it was uncommon to see “smoking gun” emails that show the accusation was false and that the reason Fox reported it was for its own mercenary interests.

“We err on the side of speech because the more and more speech you have, the better chance of having people actually getting the opportunity to point out what’s right and what’s wrong,” attorney Erin Murphy, one of the senior figures on Fox’s defense team, tells NPR in an interview. That’s why we don’t stop the speech that we don’t think is right.

Top executives, including Murdoch and Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott, told one another they could not bluntly confront their viewers with the facts because that could alienate them further.

The record was set out with a lot of documentation, and Fox’s attorneys may have been accurate in predicting a loss would block the media’s freedom.

“To simply say Fox is a bunch of liars – that they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this and their wild speculations should not be reported and should not be protected – I just think that that is a slippery slope,” says Kirtley, a former executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Media outlets do not lose defamation cases in court. Under a 1964 U.S. Supreme Court decision involving the New York Times, plaintiffs have to prove the claims made about them were false and damaging to their reputation. Additionally, they have to prove that those making the statements in question either knew the assertions were untrue or had good reason to know they were untrue, and willfully ignored that information. Under the decision of the late Justice William Brennan, that is “actual malice”.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/06/1161221798/if-fox-news-loses-defamation-dominion-media

If Fox News Loses Defamation Media, How Well Do We Know It? Kagan’s Case against Murdoch and Palin

Brennan also argued Americans should have latitude to get some things wrong in talking about public officials and politics, in order to ensure free and robust debate.

Two current Supreme Court justices, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, have indicated they would be open to making it easier for plaintiffs to prevail in defamation suits. Elena Kagan, the third person to publish her musings before joining the court, argued that the protections for the press may be too strong.

The idea of “actual malice,” Murphy says, requires Dominion to prove specific people directly involved with the broadcasts knew the statements they aired were wrong. For instance, Murdoch’s sworn statements that he had dismissed the claims of election fraud as bogus, and affirmed under oath that some of his star hosts had nonetheless endorsed them publicly, carries no legal weight, she says.

Regardless of whether or not the allegations were going to be proved, the president and his lawyers were doing a lot of activity that was very significant. She invoked what journalists consider the safe ground of “neutral reporting” – just telling their audiences what others are saying.

In 2017, Rolling Stone magazine settled separate cases filed by a University of Virginia dean and a campus fraternity after a collapse of standards in reporting on what turned out to be a source’s fabricated account of campus rape.

A year ago, The New York Times prevailed against former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin after an editorial wrongly linked her advertisements from her political action committee to a mass shooting months later.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/06/1161221798/if-fox-news-loses-defamation-dominion-media

What Do The Fox News Dominion Files Tell Us About the Fox News ‘Commission’ After 20 Years? Ailes’ Supremacy Revisited

“The Dominion case is such a strange case it provides an exception to the general rule,” Goodale says. “Let us hope we don’t see such a bizarre case as this one again.”

Among those who say they aren’t shocked is a group of former Fox News journalists who suggest that the public is more knowledgeable about what they saw from inside.

“There’s nothing that surprises me or strikes me,” says former Fox commentator and guest host Julie Roginsky. I’ve read everything in those files.

After 21 years at Fox, Cameron left the network to work for the Trump administration. He later said “right wing hosts drowned out straight journalism” at the channel.

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

Each of them point in some ways to the 2016 departure of the late Roger Ailes — the celebrated, reviled and ultimately disgraced former Fox News chief.

In her lawsuits, Grossberg made some startling allegations about the workplace environment at Fox News.

Correspondence to the Fox News Investigation of Robbery at the 2020 Capitol Seiberg Summit. The Fox News News Investigatees a Democratic Political Director

“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.

Chris Stirewalt was the most direct one in the situation. He worked for Fox as a political director in 2020 and was part of a team that made a swing state call for Biden on election night. Millions of Trump supporters were angry at Fox because it did so ahead of any other network.

It was sad to see an organization that was supposed to be the most powerful in news that it was so fear-driven. Stirewalt says. He cites the willingness to suffer the short-term cost in order to maintain the good of the Republic.

The Fox News Sunday anchor and two political commentators left the network in the late 1990’s. Each cited Fox primetime star Tucker Carlson’s programs promoting groundless conspiracy theories about the January 2021 siege of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.

Fox News also on Monday filed suit against Grossberg, seeking a restraining order to prevent her from divulging privileged information that it said would cause the network to “suffer immediate irreparable harm.” A judge has not yet ruled on Fox’s request.

The full story about Grossberg’s case will now be heard by three separate courts, according to the statement from her attorney.

In its lawsuit against Grossberg, Fox’s legal team said it informed her attorney that information included in her draft complaint against the network was privileged earlier this month. On Monday, Fox said that Grossberg’s law firm shared drafts of lawsuits.

The memo Powell delivered detailed allegations of fraud without providing evidence. It was written by a woman named Marlene Bourne, who admitted her claims were “pretty wackadoodle.”

The Fox News Producer-Licensor Supremum: A First-Principles Study of the Production of Nancy Pelosi for a Black Hole

The lawsuits from Grossberg were filed in New York’s district court and in Delaware’s Superior Court.

Grossberg and her attorney did not agree with the idea that the complaints only came after a performance review.

Grossberg said that Fox does not care. “It summarizes everything perfectly. They don’t care about their employees … and they don’t care about their viewers.”

Fox News didn’t want a woman on Bartiromo’s show in order to have a male fill it, according to Grossberg.

The environment was horrible when Grossberg began work on the show. She learned from her first day that the show’s workspace had large photos of Nancy Pelosi, in a plunging bathing suit, in it.

There were jokes made about Jewish people on Carlson’s program and women were subjected to crude terms. Carlson and members of his staff were named in the lawsuit.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/21/media/fox-news-producer-lawsuit/index.html

Covering the TV: Dominion, Beyond the Small Parts… Everyday is a Day in the Life of a Newscaster

“I’ve covered many stories while I have been there,” Grossberg told CNN. “Dominion is just a small portion. And I’ve witnessed it from the very beginning until my last day of work last week.”

“It’s constant,” she added. “Ratings are very important to the shows, to the network, and to the hosts. Coverage is a business and that is what drives it.