A Fox News View of Dominion Voting Systems During the 2020 Midterm Election: The View From the Deposition and Discovery in Delaware

Besieged by angry viewers, denounced by then-President Trump, questioned by some of its own stars, Fox News found itself in a near-impossible spot on Election Night 2020 after its election analysis team announced before any other network that Joe Biden would win the pivotal swing state of Arizona.

The deposition and discovery contained in a recentlyreleased legal filing in Delaware by Dominion Voting Systems were used by Fox News to make their public view of the testimony and text messages. It is part of the company’s lawsuit against Fox News for broadcasting what it allegedly knew were false claims that Dominion machines helped to rig the 2020 election. The cynicism they reveal is breathtaking.

Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis affirmed that Dominion should get the contracts after Tuesday’s hearing.

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 concedes Powell’s claims did not have any proof.

Keller told the judge that host or producer who are sometimes pre-scripting material for the show is going to be tethered to a specific channel’s telecast and a network executive.

He said that the person will be removed from daily operations of editorial control over the particular channel’s broadcasts. Beyond Scott, the executives whose contracts are being sought also include Jay Wallace, Fox News’ president and executive editor and Meade Cooper, the executive vice president of primetime programming, among others.

Nelson cited a document obtained from Fox that said that “almost all of these executives” were in a daily editorial meeting.

Think of how hard its primetime stars like Tucker Carlson were flogging anti-Covid-vaccine rhetoric during the pandemic, adding to the risk of death for some of the channel’s most vulnerable viewers. If you want to play fast and loose with the truth when it could be life or death for the viewers, how difficult is it to lie about the election results? The level of honesty revealed in the depositions is why people should not be shocked by it.

Lawyers for Fox, which filed its response to Dominion in court on Monday, have argued that its broadcasts after the election did not amount to defamation because they were protected under 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.

The fear that Fox News would lose its audience also appeared to lead to programming decisions. Alex Pfeiffer, a Carlson producer, told the host that many viewers were upset they didn’t cover election fraud. Our viewers care about it the most right now.

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.”

On the air on December 14, 2020, Dobbs asserted that Trump’s opponents within the government had committed treason, and then suggested that Republican officeholders could have been charged with criminal conduct if they upheld Biden’s victory. It was just days ago that another election software company, Smartmatic, filed a lawsuit against Fox for defamation after he made false accusations of fraud. That case is not as far along in the process.

In recent weeks, Dominion has argued that Fox host Jeanine Pirro – a former district attorney and New York state judge as well as a Trump confidant – sits at the heart of its case. NPR previously revealed the existence of an anguished email from a Fox News producer begging colleagues to keep Pirro off the air because she was circulating lies about election fraud from dark corners of 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 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.”

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.

In that case, 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. Media outlets have less legal cover in Australia than they do here in the U.S.

Murdoch’s media outlets got coverage of Trump, but they won’t turn against him completely. Rather, it suggests that Murdoch might use his influence to tilt the scales and push Republicans toward DeSantis if the two squared off in a 2024 Republican primary.

Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker, said on ‘Fox & Friends’ that he thought Governor Ron DeSantis was the single biggest winner of the night.

Liz Peek wrote a column for Fox News in which she claimed DeSantis was the new leader of the Republican Party. Fox News said it was a new era.

Murdoch owned The Wall Street Journal, a broadsheet, and its editorial board published a piece on the “DeSantis Florida tsunami.”

He will grab the attention of voters in other states because of his success in Florida. Donald J. Trump was not happy.

Murdoch or News Max? Murdoch isn’t the only person in leadership who thinks Fox News is a straight-shooting news organization

Murdoch isn’t the only person in leadership who doesn’t think Fox News is a straight-shooting news organization In the Dominion filings, former House Speaker turned Fox Corporation board member Paul Ryan wrote the Murdochs, “[T]he sooner we can put down the echoes of falsehoods from our side, the faster we can get onto principled loyal opposition.”

Maggie Haberman, a reporter at The New York Times and CNN political analyst, reported recently in her bestselling book that after the 2020 election Murdoch remarked of Trump, “We should throw this guy over.”

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

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 primetime stars – Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity – texted contemptuously of the claims in group chats, but also denounced colleagues pointing that out publicly or on television.

In one exchange, Carlson claimed that Sidney Powell, who was an attorney for the Trump campaign, was lying and that he had caught her doing it. Ingraham responded, “Sidney is a complete nut. She will not be worked with by anyone. Ditto with Rudy [Giuliani].”

“[Rupert Murdoch] is responsible for Fox News. Fox News has played, by far, the largest single part in the polarization of American politics, in the amplification of political hatred. I would like to challenge anyone to name the individual who has done more to undermine American democracy than Murdoch.

After the election, an incensed Trump had attacked Fox News and encouraged his followers to switch to Newsmax, a smaller right-wing talk channel that was saturating its airwaves with election denialism.

Neil Cavuto, a Fox News host, was attacked by colleagues for pulling his show from a talk by a White House spokeswoman who had made up claims of fraud once more. (McEnany is now a host on Fox News.)

Despite the right-wing show promoting lies about the presidential contest, a trove of messages and emails from the most prominent stars and highest ranking executives at Fox News showed they had ridiculed claims of election fraud in the 2020 election.

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.

The Call to Fox News in 2021: Donald Trump’s January 6 Attack on the US Capitol came under attack, and Fox News ignored his rebuttal

The network’s chief political anchor sent a text to his friend saying there was no evidence of fraud after the election. None. There are allegations and stories. There is a account on the social media platform, Twitter. Bulls—.”

Sammon’s departure was called a retirement by Fox News, but he hasn’t commented on that due to the terms of his departure.

Former President Donald Trump tried to call into Fox News after his supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, but the network refused to put him on air, according to court filings from Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation case against the company.

The House select committee that investigated the January 6 attack did not know that Trump had made this call, according to a source familiar with the panel’s work.

The panel wanted to take a close look at Trump’s movements, actions and phone calls that day. His call to Fox News shows that there are still some gaps in the record due to the difficulties the committee faced.

“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 important for many reasons. The key figure that day was President Trump.

The filing on Monday also included a deposition by Viet Dinh, Fox’s chief legal officer. After Mr. Hannity told his audience on Nov. 5, 2020, that it would be “impossible to ever know the true, fair, accurate election results,” Mr. Dinh said, he remarked to Lachlan Murdoch; the chief executive of Fox News Media, Suzanne Scott; and Fox’s top communications officer, Irena Briganti: “Hannity is getting awfully close to the line with his commentary and guests tonight.”

The legal file made public on Thursday shows executives of Fox News trashing lies perpetuated by Donald Trump and his supporters regarding the 2020 elections.

But, despite privately acknowledging the realiity of the situation, the network allowed the lies to take hold on its air, in large part because executives and hosts were terrified that telling its sizable audience the truth would prompt them to tune out.

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.

Tucker Carlson attempted to get Fox News to fire a White House correspondent for fact-checking a false statement from former President Donald Trump.

► Murdoch asked Fox News chief executive Suzanne Scott to have Sean Hannity say “something supportive” about Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham ahead of the 2020 election. Murdoch explained, “We cannot lose the Senate if at all possible.”

Emails were sent by executives at Fox News about alienating him after he criticized them on Newsmax. The filing added that Scott then sent him a handwritten note along with a gift.

What do Fox News hosts and the Murdoch family admit about freedom of speech and press? A personal story of Haley, an U.N. ambassador and a successful South Carolina governor

The network said that the core of the 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.

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. Raj, her mother studied law at the University of New Delhi and became a teacher after immigrating to South Carolina. Her father taught biology at Voorhees College for 29 years after he earned a doctorate from the University of British Columbia. They opened a clothing boutique.

Critics have long accused Fox News of being the “opposition” to Democratic officeholders and candidates. Honest observers knew for a while that that is the case. It is striking to hear Ryan talk openly about what the company is at its core.

Murdoch said that some of their commentators were in favor of the election. “I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it, in hindsight,” he added.

It clearly lays out the difference between what Fox was saying publicly and what top people at Fox were privately admitting, which is a very strong filing according to Rebecca Tushnet.

In her years of practicing and teaching law, she’d never seen such damning evidence in the pre trial stage of a defamation suit.

Fox Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch, Rudy Giuliani, and the Democratic Presidential Candidates: An Analysis of Dominion’s Deposition

Mr. Dinh stated that Fox executives had an obligation to prevent hosts of shows from broadcasting lies.

This article was first published in theReliable Sources newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.

Murdoch gave the then-candidate of the presidential race a preview of his ads prior to public release in 2020, according to a filing.

The documents lay bare that the channel’s business model is not based on informing its audience, but rather on feeding them content — even dangerous conspiracy theories — that keeps viewers happy and watching.

Murdoch was asked whether he could have told Fox News to stop giving airtime to Rudy Giuliani, a key Trump campaign attorney. “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.

Emails and other communications introduced into the case by Dominion reflect deep involvement by the Murdochs and other Fox Corp. senior figures in the network’s editorial path.

Each Murdoch speaks roughly daily to Fox News chief executive Suzanne Scott, she testified. (While Lachlan Murdoch confirmed his daily chat with Scott, Rupert Murdoch said it was only once or twice a week.)

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

When Fox News Fails: The Case for a Stable Pre-Oligarchical Movement in the Confrontation With Fox News and Meade Cooper

Scott forwarded his recommendation to the top executive over prime-time programming, Meade Cooper. She and another executive canceled the show because they thought the guests were going to say that the election was being stolen and that it would be a token.

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.)

In the interview posted Tuesday on The Bulwark Podcast, Ryan said he believed Fox News is “gonna have to be a part of the solution if we’re going to solve the problem in the conservative movement.”

“Just tell her,” he said. Fox News, which called the election correctly, is pivoting as fast as possible. We have to lead our viewers which is [] not as easy as it might seem.”

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

Who is he? Murdoch is a media magnate and the owner of the Fox News Channel, and one of the inspiration for the character in Succession.

Fox News, Reports Jake Ryan: What do Fox News executives think about what they saw and when they saw it, and why they didn’t

Every media executive should learn that email and text messages are confidential, even if they are being 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.

He said he was with the company. The Fox leaders and top talent were focused on the company, not the country. Democracy was at stake, but the larger concern at Fox News appears to be that rival Newsmax was gaining traction after Trump lashed out at Fox News for his 2020 election loss.

Did viewers question the election because of what they saw on Fox, or do they watch the network because of its fear of them?

Darcy notes that Ryan was grilled by a conservative commentator last week over his decision to remain on the board of directors of Fox News’ parent company.

Ryan said there isn’t a bigger platform than this in America. “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.”

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

CNN Meets Ron DeSantis, a Florida Governor’s Companion to the Conserved Assets of Democracy: Trump and the Freedom Caucus

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. On the network, many people talk about the importance of Ukraine aid.

Carlson is questioning if the US should be opposed to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine because he is mimicking Trump.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was a congressman before he became governor and wanted to send weapons to Ukraine, according to CNN.

A big stop for potential Republican presidential candidates will be Trump at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Haley, the other candidate for governor of South Carolina, will attend as well.

While launching a campaign, he is skipping the event so he can promote his book. He’ll also pop into a private retreat for the anti-tax Club for Growth in Palm Beach, Florida, where he can hobnob with donors, according to Politico.

CNN interviewed a number of lawmakers who were hardcore Trump supporters, part of the Freedom Caucus, and who were essentially his most loyal defenders during his four years in office.

Republicans worry about Trump’s viability as a candidate, according to Raju. “After he underperformed in the last three election cycles, they’re worried that he could give Joe Biden another four years in the White House.”

The Freedom Caucus members went to Florida to talk to the Governor, not to meet with Trump. They were impressed.

Murdoch Settling Suzanne Scott Down to Fall for It: A Conversation with the Fox News Managing Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith

The Murdochs are setting Suzanne Scott up to fall for it, according to Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of a Sunday night media column.

Murdoch’s media empire has been facing serious and embarrassing matters in the past. In 2011, his now-defunct News of the World newspaper was ensnared in a phone hacking scandal. In 2016, Fox News founder Roger Ailes was accused in an explosive lawsuit of sexual harassment. Bill O’Reilly was caught in a sexual harassment scandal in 2017, he was a star host.

In each case, Murdoch made the decision to sever ties with top personnel. As one source who once worked in Murdoch-world said Wednesday, “His pattern has been to throw some money overboard and offer a head or two in the process to make it go away.” And cutting ties with Scott would appear to be one of the easier ousters for Murdoch to execute over the course of his decades at the helm of one of the world’s biggest media empires.

Folkenflik said that Murdoch and the companies have tended to try to pay early and quietly to make things go away. “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’s what he does. It can be editors. It could be executives. It can be more than that. He’s not throwing himself over the side.”

Folkenflik said that every senior executive who takes a position under Murdoch knows that is the fall position. “They understand that’s part of the job. You’re very well paid. It can be a somewhat glamorous life. If you fall out of favor with the sun king, or it is to his benefit, that’s part of the equation.”

We’ll see what Scott’s fate ultimately looks like. Fox isn’t giving a statement of support for her at the moment. When I reached out to Fox spokespeople on Wednesday asking for comment, the company declined.

Fox News: The Story of the Media, the Way America Lives and Worked for the Right People, the Right Politics and the Status of America

Roger Ailes, a key part of the media team that put Richard Nixon in the White House, saw it as an outlet that could be used 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.

Fox is further away from the news part of its name than it has ever been. It still presents itself as a news channel with the familiar trappings of correspondents and anchor desks.

But it has become so much deeper as a culture. 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 told them that they aren’t to blame if they are struggling. The democrats in Washington are giving away the country to immigrants and minorities and the viewers are getting their money back.

The audience might be so angry with Murdoch that they will never watch the channel again.

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. And I suspect most other viewers who have let Fox News that far into their lives won’t be either.

► When the special election for the balance of power in the US Senate was imminent, Murdoch instructed Scott to focus on Georgia, so she could help any way she could.

► 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 about the topic, it will spread.