Even while the network continued to run several of Trump’s statements about the 2020 election being rigged, newly uncovered letters and testimony from some power players and most senior executives at Fox News showed that they privately voiced incredulity.
According to a legal document filed on Thursday by Dominion Voting Systems, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham frequently insulted and made fun of Trump advisers, such as Sidney Powell and Rudolph Giuliani.
This happened in messages with one another in the weeks following the election. In a dispute that offers significant financial and confidentiality damage for the country’s most popular news network, Dominion is charging Fox in court with slander.
Holy shit. Texts obtained from Dominion’s lawsuit against Fox News shows Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham calling the right-wing guests on their own shows “F’ing lunatics,” “totally off the rails,” and “MIND BLOWINGLY NUTS.” (@oldmcdougall) https://t.co/WkgN0BQtFY
— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) February 17, 2023
Unfounded Claims
Murdoch once said to Suzanne Scott, CEO of Fox News Media, while watching Giuliani and Powell on television, “Terrible things damaging everyone, I fear.”
The Dominion statement portrays Scott, who colleagues characterized as having a keen understanding of the sensitivities of Fox viewers, as being well cognizant that Trump’s assertions were unfounded.
When The New York Post, another Murdoch-owned publication, wrote an editorial imploring Trump to quit whining that he had been robbed, Scott extensively disseminated it among her workers.
The brief claims that Murdoch then complimented her for doing so.
The messages contained in the Dominion legal filing expose Fox News as a propaganda network like never before. pic.twitter.com/7uI5Lcd6OW
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) February 17, 2023
The document, filed in state court in Delaware, paints the clearest, most thorough picture of what happened behind the scenes at Fox News and its organizational parent.
This was in the days and weeks following the 2020 presidential election when the conservative cable network’s coverage abruptly changed.
On the night of the election, Fox News shocked the Trump campaign when it was the first news organization to announce Biden as the winner of Arizona, virtually predicting he would win the presidency.
Yet, when Fox’s ratings plummeted following the election and the president refused to accept defeat, many of the network’s most well-liked hosts and shows started endorsing baseless accusations.
These accusations were of a massive voting fraud plot employing electronic machines to deny Trump a second term.
The information made public on Thursday was only a partial overview of Dominion’s case against Fox. Several redactions in the 192-page document added new information concerning network discussions.
Almost all of the evidence against Fox has been kept under seal at Fox’s request. The validity of the redactions is being contested by the New York Times in court.
Claiming Innocence
Fox claimed in its defense, which was also submitted to the court on Thursday, that by covering Trump’s fraud allegations, the network was just doing what any media outlet would do.
The law protects journalists from legal repercussions if they expose erroneous information, but not if they actively spread it. In its petition, Dominion said not a single Fox witness had mentioned they agreed with any accusations against the company.
A Fox spokesperson said in a statement on Thursday that Dominion misrepresented the evidence, selected comments out of context, and spent a lot of time writing about things that, according to defamation law’s black-letter rules, were unimportant.
This article appeared in NewsHouse and has been published here with permission.
