In the weeks and days following the elections of 2020 in 2020, the Fox News Channel repeatedly broadcast false stories that claimed President Donald Trump had been cheated of winning.
Off air The network’s stars, executives, and producers expressed their displeasure for the same plots they called them “mind-blowingly crazy,” “totally off the rails” and “completely ridiculous” frequently in more in more concrete terms.
The top stars of the network’s primetime lineup — Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity — texted with a snarky tone about the allegations in group chats, but condemned colleagues who pointed it out in public or on TV.
Ingraham said that Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell “a bit nuts.” Carlson, who famously demanded proof from Powell on air, in private, employed the vulgar term “women” in her description of the. An executive from the top of the network’s programming admitted to a private meeting that he was not convinced the programs that featured Carlson, Hannity and Jeanine Pirro to be reliable sources of information.
Yet, the executives were pondering ways to redress the grievances of those who watch their shows — which includes Trump’s biggest supporters following Fox News’ election-night team correctly identified the key Arizona state Arizona for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden before other networks. There is a sense of despair in the notes of Fox’s top executives, revealing an obsession with the declining ratings.
“It’s astonishing how poor ratings can cause… excellent journalists can do bad things,” Bill Sammon, at the time, the Fox News’ Washington director of journalism, in private wrote on December. 2nd in 2020. Network executives in his position argued over the loss in the Fox News’ brand among its viewers. However, there was no sign of worry, aside from a few requests by Fox Corp founder Rupert Murdoch about the journalistic principles of accuracy and fairness.
The viewership began to decline rapidly in the fall, and it began with Election Night itself. Fox stars and executives were also concerned about the danger posed by the right-wing news network Newsmax. Hannity sent a text message to Carlson and Ingraham informing them that Fox’s Arizona decision “destroyed the brand that took over 25 years to create and the harm is irreparable.” Carlson shot back that it was “vandalism.” Other hosts, such as Dana Perino, were equally stunned.
Fox News host Neil Cavuto was criticised by colleagues for taking his show from the presentation given by White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany where she made unsubstantiated accusations of fraud once again. (McEnany has since become a host for Fox News.)
The revelations, as well as many others, were revealed in legal filings that were that were made public late on Thursday afternoon in the Dominion Voting System’s massive $1.6 billion lawsuit for defamation in the case against Fox and the parent corporation. Dominion filed suit following allegations that Fox hosts , and their guests frequently claimed with no any evidence, that the company was adrift and had changed Trump voting preferences to Biden.
The evidence in the extraordinary 178-page report is clear that there was any weight to the claims of election fraud , not just in the ranks of Fox people who gave their most fervent support to Trump allies who pushed these falsehoods.
Instead, Dominion’s lawyers draw a picture of internal anxiety, anger, and anger at the news channel.
“Dominion have mischaracterized the facts and cherry-picked quotes that have been without context and splashed a lot of ink on facts that are not relevant in the black-letter defamation principles of laws,” a Fox News spokesperson told reporters.
Fox executives are worried that not to acknowledge false accusations of voter fraud could damage their reputation
Following Fox’s accurate prediction on Arizona to Joe Biden, network leaders tried to win to woo back Trump supporters. Fox News chief executive Suzanne Scott sent a text message to Lachlan Murdoch co-chairman of Fox Corp. Fox Corp co-chairman, that “the AZ [call] was negative, but we’ll highlight our top performers and raise flags that let the viewers know that we listen to them and value the views of their viewers.”
A team headed by Fox the senior vice-president of the corporation Raj Shah, formerly a White House aide to Trump and other corporate executives of the possibility of a “Brand threat” following Cavuto’s decision not to broadcast McEnany’s White House press briefing on false claims of fraud in the voting process.
The accusations against the company that makes election technology were repeated in Fox News despite Dominion sending thousands of emails that dissect and refute the false allegations — and even going on the opinions pages in Fox News’ corporate cousin the Wall Street Journal, to take action. (Both Fox News and the Wall Street Journal are part of the Murdoch family’s media empire.) Dominion claims it has delivered more than 3,600 messages to Fox staffers who are dissatisfied with the false claims about fraud in the election.
Fox News host Maria Bartiromo was the first host to talk with Powell the Trump attorney on November. 8 in 2020, just a few days following the election. Powell was soon to be one of Trump’s most passionate legal supporters. In her testimony, Bartiromo conceded Powell’s claims did not have any proof.
Fox News: ‘A lot of confusion and noise created from Dominion and their private equity owners who are opportunistic’
Fox’s lawyers consider Dominion’s lawsuit as a way to punish the news channel for covering “one of the most important news stories that day.” Dominion claims it will try to discourage journalists from reporting on allegations “inconvenient for Dominion, and other businesses.”
In a separate document which was released in the open on Thursday, counsel for the cable network’s attorneys claim that Dominion’s 10-figure demand for damages is intended for “generate news stories” and benefit the controlling shareholder of the company and the fund for private equity Staple Street Capital Partners.
“According to Dominion the company, Fox News was required to honestly report on the President’s allegations and instead to either censor the allegations or declare them to be untrue,” the Fox attorneys claim. Fox claims that Dominion was not harmed from the broadcasts and its worth as a business is not close to the $1.6 billion worth of damage that it is seeking.
“There will be plenty of confusion and noise generated through Dominion and their private equity owners who are opportunistic,” Fox News said in a statement issued today. “The fundamental issue in this case remains the freedom of expression and freedom of speech which are fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution and guaranteed in New York Times v. Sullivan.”
Dominion Voting Systems: ‘Every person who acted in a manner that was actually malicious’
In order to meet the legal high bar of actual malice, as defined in the 1964 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of The New York Times, Dominion must prove that Fox was either aware that the information it broadcast in its public broadcast was not true or without regard to the truth.
“Here,” Dominion’s legal team said in its court filed documents “every one of us acted with real malice.” The team provided numerous examples of how important Fox executives knew that what the network was broadcasting onto the radio was a lie.
On November. 5 2020, just a few days after the elections, Bret Baier, the anchor of the news network, wrote to a colleague: “[T]here is NO evidence of fraud. None. Stories — allegations. Twitter. Bulls–.”
The next week the following week, a producer from Ingraham wrote a letter expressing similar displeasure. “This dominion s— will cause me a freaking aneurysm.”
In response to questions from Dominion’s lawyers under oath ex- Fox Business host Lou Dobbs stated that he’s never “seen any tangible, verifiable evidence” for the claim that Dominion was part of a different voting technology company called Smartmatic. But that was a claim that was repeatedly stated on broadcast from Fox hosts as well as guests. Dobbs added that he had no evidence to support the claim that Dominion had manipulated the election, in accordance with Dominion’s lawful documents.
On on-air, Dobbs was among the most ardent supporters of Trump’s bogus assertions of fraud in the electoral process. He was kicked out of Fox on the same day Smartmatic has filed it own $2.7 billion lawsuit for defamation against the network.
A purge of journalists behind an truthful Election Night call
In the meantime, enthralled by the decline in viewers from smaller right-wing rivals, Fox News executives purged senior journalists who were intent on presenting the truth. In a letter to the company’s top publicity officer, Fox News CEO Scott has slammed Sammon who was previously the Washington executive editor. Scott said Sammon didn’t understand “the consequences to the brand and arrogance” when he portrayed Arizona as a candidate for Biden and that it was the responsibility of Sammon “to safeguard this brand.”
Two months after his departure, his departure was described as the retirement of Fox News; through an intermediary, Sammon has declined to speak about it in light of the conditions of his resignation.
Despite their resentment towards Powell as well as Giuliani Giuliani and Powell, the two Trump campaign attorneys have appeared on numerous occasions in Fox shows. On several occasions, so did Trump.
In January. 5 2021, the date prior to when Congress was set to officially confirm Biden’s victory and an angry pro-Trump crowd stormed the U.S. Capitol to prevent the ceremony, Rupert Murdoch forwarded a suggestion to Fox News CEO Scott. He suggested that Fox top three stars in prime time such as Carlson, Hannity and Ingraham acknowledge the loss of President Trump. “Would help to dispel the Trump belief about the electoral process being rigged,” he wrote. They didn’t do it. “We must be cautious when using these shows to annoy people watching,” Scott said to one of his colleagues.
The election tech company’s lawyers wrote in their report, Fox never retracted the allegations that it made about Dominion on its airwaves.
Karl Baker and Mary Yang have contributed to this story.
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