Dominion and Fox News: The 2020 Election was Fictitiously Presented by Trump and his Allies, and How Fox News Has Done It
Fox News and Fox Corporation — its parent company, which was also a defendant — say they never defamed Dominion, and say the case is a meritless assault on press freedoms. They denied Dominion’s claim that they promoted these election conspiracies to save their falling ratings after the 2020 election.
Fox has fabricated allegations that voting technology company’s machines threw votes for President Donald Trump and vice president Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential elections. It’s alleged that Fox tried to win back Trump voters that were turned off by Fox’s projection that Biden would win Arizona. One way the network appealed to Trump loyalists was to broadcast the lies of election fraud promoted by Trump and his allies. The network said it was reporting on allegations from the nation’s top elected official and his allies.
This means that the closely watched case will not proceed to trial after the last-minute deal. By settling with Dominion, influential Fox News executives and prominent on-air personalities will be spared from testifying about their 2020 election coverage, which was filled with lies about voter fraud.
The drama expected to play out in a Delaware courtroom represents an extraordinary moment in modern American history because it could show how truth has been tarnished as a political currency and highlight a right-wing business model that depends on spinning an alternative reality. And yet, it remains unclear whether Trump – the primary author of the corrosive conspiracies that the 2020 election was fraudulent – will end up paying a significant personal or political price.
Dominion started this case because Fox’s statements had damaged its reputation. “Dominion has gone a long way in restoring its good name by mostly trying its case in the court of public opinion.” In the process, of course, Fox’s own reputation has been seriously undermined.”
Murdoch’s Theoretical Breaking of the First Amendment and the Rule of Law: A Running Story of Trump’s 2024 Campaign for a Free and Corrupt Presidential Election
Though he vigorously denies breaking any laws, the former president appears to face the possibility of indictment in probes into his attempt to overturn President Joe Biden’s election victory by a district attorney in Georgia and by special counsel Jack Smith into his conduct in the lead-up to the US Capitol insurrection. Interviews and public testimony taken by the House select committee when Democrats controlled the chamber last year catalogued the many layers of Trump’s democracy- damaging behavior.
But the falsehood of a corrupt election still forms the bedrock of Trump’s 2024 campaign to win back the White House. Millions of Trump’s supporters have bought into the idea that he was illegally ejected from office on the premise that he really won in 2020.
It is questionable how much viewers of conservative media will hear about the trial, and how much information can be obtained to persuade them to change their minds.
Some party leaders feel bad about how many of them in the GOP are unwilling to challenge Donald Trump because he is spreading lies that they think will win the election.
Georgia GOP Gov Brian Kemp told CNN that the ex-president was forcing their party to look to the future, instead of looking at the future as they should.
The court proceeding against Fox shows that the instruments of accountability in the country are not in danger despite Trump doing his part to undermine them.
But the run-up to the trial has been a catalog of embarrassments and reversals for both the network and the broader premise that there is anything to Trump’s false claims.
“To go up there and say, ‘What Fox did was protected by the First Amendment,’ it’s half the story. It’s protected by the First Amendment if you can’t demonstrate actual malice,” he said.
Fox founder Rupert Murdoch — who, under oath, called himself a newsman at heart — advocated going slow in confronting Fox’s pro-Trump viewers with unwelcome news in order to protect the franchise.
In the beginning of his presidency, Trump made clear that he would create an alternative vision of reality that his supporters could embrace and subvert the rules and convention of the presidency. The crazy comments by the first press secretary for Trump, Sean Spicer, in January of last year that his boss had drawn the biggest inauguration crowd in history seemed weird at the time. But in retrospect, they were the first sign of a daily effort to destroy truth for Trump’s political benefit, which eventually morphed into lies about a stolen election that convinced many of the ex-president’s supporters. The culmination of all this was the mob attack by his supporters on Congress on January 6, 2021, during the certification of Biden’s victory.
This is, perhaps, not surprising. When Trump was in office, he told the world how he operated, even though he hadn’t been in office long.
We need you to stay with us. He told his supporters at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City that they should not believe the news from these people. What you are seeing and reading isn’t what is happening.
We won the 2016 race. We won by much more in 2020 but it was rigged,” Trump said in the first big rally of his campaign in Waco, Texas, at the end of March.
The Future of the GOP: Reply to Sununu’s Defamation of Fox News at the Reheating Retreat in Tennessee
“If you look in the rearview mirror too long while you’re driving, you’re going to look up, and you’re going to be running into somebody, and that’s not going to be good.”
Yet the fact that Trump, according to many polls, remains the front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2024 and is still wildly popular with conservative grassroots voters suggests that it will take far more than a courtroom display to restore the truth about 2020.
At the Republican National Committee’s spring retreat in Tennessee over the weekend, a swing-state GOP governor told major donors the party’s future political success depended in part on Fox News.
Despite his criticisms of Fox, Sununu does not appear to disdain the network. He appeared on its news program, “America’s Newsroom” Monday morning, less than 48 hours after his pointed remarks in Nashville.
Sununu’s remarks echo a consistent theme found unvarnished in the private communications of Fox’s stars and executives by Dominion Voting Systems in its $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the network: That Fox is an integral player in Republican politics and the conservative movement.
Sununu told Republican donors that they should start thinking about the long game. We get ourselves tied up in issues. I am not saying that they are useless, but that they aren’t making the team bigger.
The party has an appealing “product” for voters, including younger voters, with a focus on low government regulation, lower taxes and local governmental control.
Gop Governor: Hes-urged-Fox-News-to-break-out-of-its-echo-chamber
“I was on with [Fox News business anchor and senior vice president Neil] Cavuto this morning, and I talk to the leadership at Fox all the time,” Sununu said.
“I go, ‘Look guys, I saw a panel discussion with four panelists on Fox and they all were literally agreeing with each other… They’re in an echo chamber talking. What are you doing to grow the team?'”
NPR obtained an audio recording of an excerpt of the talk from Lauren Windsor, a liberal activist and consultant, who acquired them from an attendee. The governor’s comments were confirmed by vihstadt.
Sununu’s comments come at a delicate time for Fox. Its lawyers are simultaneously girding for a six-week trial, set to begin Tuesday morning after a one-day delay, and negotiating over a possible settlement with Dominion’s legal team.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/17/1170513194/gop-governor-says-hes-urged-fox-news-to-break-out-of-its-echo-chamber
Murdoch, Hannity, and the Fox News Story: How Donald Trump and Hillary Wannawiniak Influenced the Mid-term 2024 White House
Murdoch has sought to influence elections in Australia, the U.K., and the USA, both in his news programs and behind the scenes. House Speaker Paul Ryan is a board member of Fox Corp. the network’s corporate parent. He argued against Fox’s embrace of election conspiracy theories.
There are appointments to Trump’s administration that were made from a roster of Fox personalities. He was told off the air by a number of Fox stars. (Dobbs would be forced out a day after another election tech company, Smartmatic, sued Fox in a $2.7 billion defamation claim.)
In response to a request for comment, a Fox spokesperson noted that surveys suggest its audiences – which are far larger than its peers – include the most Democrats and independents watching.
Back in November 2020, NPR reported that Hannity invited RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on his show on the night before Biden would be projected to win the presidency.
An internal GOP memo to prepare McDaniel reflected full knowledge of what would be asked, setting out the specifics of the show’s lengthy opening segment — including its guests and subjects — and Hannity’s main points. They were focused on suspicions of voter fraud.
Murdoch told Trump’s son-in-law that the Biden campaign ads were better. The next day, a media magnate reached out with an email, following up on the reconciliation between his wife and son-in-law.
“Your adv at 1.0 pm this Sunday an improvement, but Biden in same football The game is very good. Or I think so! Murdoch said in an email that he would send it.
The star host of Fox News, Maria Bartiromo, was so depressed after the projected win of Biden that she sent former Trump political adviser Steve Bannon a text. I can’t take this”
Bannon had no plans to stand still. He laid out a multi-point plan that included delegitimizing Biden as president, Republicans’ winning both U.S. Senate seats in Georgia, and getting Bartiromo elected to the U.S. Senate in New York – all while prepping Trump for a 2024 White House bid.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/17/1170513194/gop-governor-says-hes-urged-fox-news-to-break-out-of-its-echo-chamber
Fox News Can’t Cover a Pro-Trump Rally, but It Does: A Case Study Against Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems
Murdoch warned Scott about the way in which Fox covered a pro-Trump rally.
“News guys have to be careful how they cover this rally,” Lachlan Murdoch wrote. “So far some of the side comments are slightly anti, and they shouldn’t be. The narrative should be this is a huge celebration of the president.”
On November 16, Murdoch sent an email to Scott, saying that he wanted to help the Republican drive to win the Senate and that Trump would concede eventually.
Fox News was sued by Dominion, who sought $1.6 billion in damages. The right-wing network argued vociferously that this number was inflated and didn’t capture the potential losses that could have been suffered by Dominion from Fox’s 2020 broadcasts.
The private text messages and emails that were released in the case revealed that executives did not believe in conspiracy theories.
According to a representative from the company, Fox News will not have to say on air that it told election lies.
Fox might still prevail despite these setbacks. Juries are unpredictable, and the verdict must be unanimous. Fox has a team of appellate attorneys who are interested in the Delaware Supreme Court and perhaps even the US Supreme Court.
A last-second settlement has been reached in the historic defamation case between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems, the parties announced Tuesday in court.
The Dominion Voting Systems Defamation Case: A Final Scenario for a Possible Attorney-Antenna
“Your presence here… was extremely important. Without you, the parties wouldn’t have been able to resolve their issues, the judge told the jurors.
After swearing in the jury, proceedings were paused in the court due to an unexplained hours-long delay.
Dominion Voting Systems still has pending lawsuits against right-wing networks Newsmax and OAN, as well as against Trump allies Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell.
Fox News and its parent company Fox Corp. have struck a deal averting a trial in the blockbuster defamation suit filed by the election tech company Dominion Voting Systems over spurious claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential race.
There is still lots of evidence that hasn’t been made public. Tom Wienner, a retired Michigan corporate litigator who has been following the case, said that in a trial, the documents and statements which are likely to be damning evidence against Fox – would have been revealed.
Past the ill will, past the statements that were clearly wrong in real time, past the inflammatory arguments and the soaring declarations of constitutional principle, a settlement always loomed as the logical resolution of the legal clash.
Dominion’s legal team pursued a “to the pain” strategy, intending to inflict maximum discomfort for Fox and its proprietors in order to secure as big a payout and as public an apology from Fox News as possible. It was worth the cost for Fox and its controlling owners to have the spectacle gone away.
Fox News chief executive Suzanne Scott warned her colleagues against running fact-checking segments by the network’s own reporters debunking lies about election fraud, even as it gave such bogus claims acres of prime real estate.
Primetime stars Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity privately trashed the people who lied about Dominion on their network’s airwaves and yet also trashed the reporters who sought to hold them accountable for those lies.
Murdoch said that Hannity endorsed the lies being peddled by Trump and on Fox itself, even though he didn’t believe them for a second.
Host Maria Bartiromo put on an attorney spinning pro-Trump conspiracy theories and insinuating, without evidence, fraud by Dominion on the basis of a memo whose author, a Minnesota artist, called her own allegations “pretty wackadoodle.”
The judge, known for being even-keeled and accommodating, lost his calm multiple times as the trial neared.
It was just a week before opening arguments that Davis warned the Fox team about Murdoch holding the title “executive chairman” at Fox News. Fox says the title was not of meaning for the network’s founder. Davis questioned if Fox’s lawyers had acted unethically, moving to appoint a special master to investigate the conduct of Fox’s lawyers.
Davis warned Fox attorneys not to make him look like an idiot, after they asked Murdoch not be forced to testify in person. Murdoch recently announced that he would split his time between his homes in Montana, LA, New York City and London with his new bride-to-be. Murdoch called off the wedding just after, which didn’t seem to mitigate Davis’ irritation.
So the Murdochs decided to make a lot of money to stop the bleeding. If they had not done so, he would likely have been summoned to court. Network executives had to choose between testifying that they did not know that their own reporters had disproved the Trump campaign’s false claims of election fraud or that stars had given them credibility in front of millions of viewers.
The network also paid the family of the slain Democratic party aide Seth Rich an undisclosed settlement worth millions of dollars just before Hannity and former Fox Business host Lou Dobbs were set to be questioned by the Riches’ attorneys under oath.
The executives of Disney and ABC breathed a sigh of relief after they settled a case related to the nickname “pink slime” used by ABC News. The amount Disney paid was not as large as it could have been under the South Dakota law. The story was not changed by ABC.
Defamation of Fox News and the Murdochs in the Arizona Congressional Trial: Kirtley argues that the allegations of Biden’s defeat may not be dismissed
Jane Kirtley, a former executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, says media outlets have a choice of immediate and grand settlements when it comes to defamation.
Chen notes it is hard for plaintiffs suing news organizations to surpass the legal requirement of actual malice — that is, proving the news outlet either knew what it was broadcasting was false and harmful, or had grounds to know it and acted with “willful disregard” of the truth.
The more specific concern, Kirtley says, involves a calculation: Can Fox and the Murdochs stomach a continuing parade of mortifying revelations, even if they do not affect the ultimate outcome of the trial?
On election night, Fox News predicted that Democratic presidential nominee Biden would win the state of Arizona. Trump and his advisers waged an intense effort to get the network to reverse the call. The network and the Murdochs supported it.
Anchors such as Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum complained about the blowback from Trump’s inner circle and their own viewers and asked whether such projections could take audience sentiment into account in the future.
Two senior political editors involved in the projection of Arizona — Washington Managing Editor Bill Sammon and political director Chris Stirewalt — were forced out at the urging of Rupert Murdoch. Fox called Sammon’s departure a retirement and Stirewalt’s part of a larger restructuring. Neither characterization was true.
On the day after the lawsuit was filed against Fox, Dobbs was fired by the company due to false accusations of fraud in Trump’s victory. According to company officials,Smartmatic only actively participated in the 2020 Los Angeles County elections, while its lawsuit remains pending in federal court. Fox said Dobbs’ hasty exit was part of a post-election rejiggering.
Some journalists were laid off. Two hours of evening programming had been reserved for Fox News news shows, but was handed over to Watters and Gutfeld. Pirro was named a co-host of the top-rated weekday show “The Five” – a promotion from her weekend hosting slot. The two news shows were pushed to the outer fringe slots — MacCallum’s news show to 3 p.m., Shannon Bream to midnight.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/18/1170339114/fox-news-settles-blockbuster-defamation-lawsuit-with-dominion-voting-systems
Tease Up Fox, but Don’t Give Up: How Howard Kurtz and Bruce Baier Left the Fox Network after the Jan. 6 Capitol Attack
“In these high-stakes defamation suits,” says Rutgers law professor Ronald Chen, an authority on media law, “very often litigation is not the way for either of them to get complete satisfaction.”
“By law, there’s a winner and a loser,” Chen says. “And where there’s a high risk for both the plaintiff and the defendant, settlement is very often the way both sides are both able to claim some type of victory.”
Fox’s chief media host and correspondent, Howard Kurtz, barely touched on the case. He finally told viewers he had been forbidden from covering it by his corporate bosses.
When Baier, Fox’s chief political anchor, repeatedly pitched devoting an hour-long special to debunking myths of election fraud, executives effectively ignored him: Baier did not receive a firm response.
Anchor Shepard Smith left the network in 2019 after being attacked on the air by Carlson and receiving no public backing from Fox. Wallace left Fox in late 2021 after Carlson’s lies about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Baier raised objections to Carlson’s special programs championing the insurrectionists. But Baier protested quietly, in private. And he stuck around.
The Fox News Investigation Reports on “The Possible” Transition from a Trump Administration to a Biden Administration and “What is the Request from Fox News?”
The audience did not want to hear about the possibility of a peaceful transition from a Trump Administration to a Biden Administration, so producers used pro-Trump guests like Sidney Powell to fill in the blanks.
What is the request from the company? $1.6 billion in damages are being sought by the company. They say Fox has destroyed its reputation and that its lies are causing officials to cut ties with it. CNN reported on growing distrust in voting machines in heavily Republican counties.
What are the trial logistics? The trial is expected to last between five to six weeks and will be presided over by the state judge who was appointed by the governor. A panel of 12 jurors and 12 alternates is being seated.
Cameras are not allowed in the courtroom, and there will be no video of proceedings. There will be no still photography inside the courtroom.
Who is going to testify? Murdoch and his son Lachlan will be among those expected to testify.
Both sides are also hoping to put on testimony from their handpicked experts who specialize in election statistics, the security of voting machines, journalism ethics, the impact of disinformation in public discourse, and more.