But he pushed it on Fox audiences anyway.[A] newly unsealed court filing [...] which pulls from a host of internal communications from Fox News employees involved in election coverage, includes comments and quotes revealing that producers, executives and stars of the network knew that the election wasn’t stolen and that many fraud claims were bogus.
The filing is the latest made public in the defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, one of the largest manufacturers of U.S. voting equipment, against Fox News for $1.6 billion.
[...]
Even certain hosts who sometimes embrace conspiracy theories on their shows said in private that they knew that Sidney Powell, who filed election lawsuits to stop multiple states that Joe Biden won from certifying their elections, was not telling the truth, according to the filings.
Dominion is also suing Powell for defamation.
Tucker Carlson told a producer soon after the election that Powell “is lying,” the documents show.
Sean Hannity said, according to the legal filing: “That whole narrative that Sidney was pushing. I did not believe it for one second.”
NBC
$1.6 billion isn't enough. When they lose this case and have to pay up, do you suppose Fox News will tell its viewers?Even Fox’s internal fact-checks after the election found that claims of election fraud were “incorrect” and “not evidence of widespread fraud.”
A top network programming executive wrote privately that he did not believe the shows of Carlson, Hannity and Jeanine Pirro were credible sources of news.
Even so, top executives strategized about how to make it up to their viewers - among Trump's strongest supporters - after Fox News' election-night team correctly called the pivotal state of Arizona for Democratic nominee Joe Biden before other networks. A sense of desperation pervades the private notes from Fox's top stars, reflecting an obsession with collapsing ratings.
[...]
The audience started to erode severely that fall, starting on Election Night itself. Fox executives and stars equally obsessed over the threat posed by the smaller right-wing network Newsmax. Hannity texted Carlson and Ingraham that Fox's Arizona call "destroyed a brand that took 25 years to build and the damage is incalculable." Carlson shot back that it was "vandalism."
[...]
After Fox's correct projection of Arizona for Joe Biden, network leaders schemed to woo back Trump supporters. Fox News chief executive Suzanne Scott texted Lachlan Murdoch, the Fox Corp co-chairman, that "the AZ [call] was damaging but we will highlight our stars and plant flags letting the viewers know we hear them and respect them."
[...]
The claims against the election tech company recurred on Fox News despite Dominion sending thousands of communications dissecting and disproving the false claims - even taking to the opinion pages of Fox News' corporate cousin, the Wall Street Journal, to do so. (Both Fox News and the Wall Street Journal are part of the Murdoch family's media empire.)
[...]
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. Twitter. Bulls---."
The following week, a producer for Ingraham sent a note conveying similar disgust. "This dominion s--- is going to give me a f---ing aneurysm."
In answering questions from Dominion's attorneys under oath, former Fox Business host Lou Dobbs said he had never "seen any verifiable, tangible support" that Dominion was owned by a second voting-tech company Smartmatic. Yet that claim was repeatedly said on air by Fox hosts and guests. Dobbs also said he was aware of no evidence that Dominion rigged the election, according to Dominion's legal filings.
On the air, Dobbs was among the most muscular proponents of Trump's baseless claims of election fraud. He was forced out of Fox the day after Smartmatic filed its own $2.7 billion defamation case against the network.
Meanwhile, fixated on the erosion of viewers to smaller right-wing rivals, Fox News executives purged senior journalists who were fixated on reflecting the facts. In a note to the network's top publicity executive, Fox News CEO Scott denounced Sammon, the former Washington managing editor. Scott wrote Sammon did not understand "the impact to the brand and the arrogance" in projecting Arizona for Biden, saying it was Sammon's job "to protect the brand."
NPR
Word at election time was that Trump would call Hannity for advice about what to do. Apparently he didn't always do it.
Other outlets that spew propaganda knowingly, like OAN and Newsmax, perhaps. And that would be a good thing.In their counterclaim, Fox attorneys wrote that when voting technology companies denied the allegations being made by Trump and his surrogates, Fox News aired those denials, while some Fox News hosts offered protected opinion commentary about Trump’s allegations.
Fox’s counterclaim is based on New York’s “anti-Slaap” law. Such laws are aimed at protecting people trying to exercise their first amendment rights from being intimidated by “strategic lawsuits against public participation”, or Slapps.
[...]
Fox attorneys warn that threatening the company with a $1.6bn judgment would cause other media outlets to think twice about what they report.
Guardian
A trial is set to begin in mid-April.
September 25, 2020:
Fox News got to claim victory on Thursday after a new ruling in a lawsuit brought against the company came out in its favor, but the win arrived at a steep cost. To deflect an allegation of defamation, the network was forced to claim that one of its highest-profile personalities can't reasonably be expected to consistently provide accurate information to viewers.
[...]
Federal Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil found:This "general tenor" of the [Tucker Carlson] show should then inform a viewer that he is not "stating actual facts" about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in "exaggeration" and "non-literal commentary." . . . Fox persuasively argues . . . that given Mr. Carlson's reputation, any reasonable viewer "arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism" about the statements he makes.[...]
Fox News' official position is that its lead commentator cannot be counted on to be accurate when discussing the news of the day, even when he says he's simply stating the facts of a case.
Yahoo
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