by Karl Baker and Mary Yang
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In the days and weeks after the 2020 elections, the Fox News Channel repeatedly broadcast false claims that then-President Donald Trump had been cheated of victory.
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.
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.
"It's remarkable how weak ratings make... good journalists do bad things," Bill Sammon, at the time the network's Washington managing editor, privately wrote on Dec. 2, 2020. Network executives above him stewed over the hit to Fox News' brand among its viewers. Yet there was little apparent concern, other than some inquiries from Fox Corp founder Rupert Murdoch, over the journalistic values of fairness and accuracy.
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." Others hosts, including Dana Perino, were equally shocked.
Fox News host Neil Cavuto was attacked by colleagues for pulling his show away from a presentation by then White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany in which she made unfounded claims of fraud once more. (McEnany is now a host on Fox News.)
Those revelations and far more surfaced in legal filings made public late Thursday afternoon as part of Dominion Voting System's blockbuster $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox and its parent company. Dominion sued after Fox hosts and guests repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that the company had switched Trump votes to Biden.
The material presented in the remarkable 178-page brief reflects there were no illusions that there was heft to the allegations of election fraud even among those Fox figures who gave the most intense embrace to Trump allies peddling those lies.
Instead, Dominion's attorneys paint a portrait of inner turmoil, anger and angst at the news network.
"Dominion has mischaracterized the record, cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context, and spilled considerable ink on facts that are irrelevant under black-letter principles of defamation law," a Fox News spokesperson said.
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."
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.
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.) Dominion says it sent more than 3,600 communications to Fox staffers taking issue with the false claims of election fraud.
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. In her deposition, Bartiromo conceded Powell's claims lacked any substantiation.
For its part, Fox's attorneys call Dominion's suit an attempt to punish the news network for reporting on "one of the biggest stories of the day." The network says it could dissuade journalists in the future from reporting allegations "inconvenient to Dominion—and other companies."
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.
"According to Dominion, [Fox News] had a duty not to truthfully report the President's allegations but to suppress them or denounce them as false," the Fox attorneys argue. Fox further asserts that Dominion did not suffer harm as a result of the broadcasts, and that the company's value as a business is nowhere near the $1.6 billion in damages it is seeking.
"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."
Under the high legal bar of actual malice, defined in that 1964 U.S. Supreme Court decision involving The New York Times, Dominion has to show Fox acted either with knowledge that what it was broadcasting to the public was false, or that it acted with reckless disregard of the truth.
"Here," Dominion's legal team wrote in its filings, "every person acted with actual malice." It offered one example after another that key Fox figures knew what the network was putting on the air was false.
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."
His departure two months later was termed a retirement by Fox News; through an intermediary, Sammon has declined to comment on that, citing the terms of his departure.
Despite their contempt for Powell and Giuliani, the two Trump campaign attorneys appeared repeatedly on Fox shows. On several occasions, so did Trump.
On Jan. 5, 2021, the day before Congress was to ceremonially affirm Biden's win, and an angry pro-Trump mob sacked the U.S. Capitol to prevent it, Rupert Murdoch forwarded a suggestion to Fox News CEO Scott. He recommended that the Fox prime time stars - Carlson, Hannity and Ingraham - acknowledge Trump's loss. "Would go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election was stolen," he wrote. They did not do so. "We need to be careful about using the shows and pissing off the viewers," Scott said to a colleague.
As the election tech firm's attorneys wrote in their filing, Fox never retracted the claims made about Dominion on its airwaves.
You are a Biden suck-ass Barton. Trump had the border under control. Gas was under 2 bucks. There were no wars ….. no inflation. But now? You are part of the problem dude.
ReplyDeletean fyi - It is not posted to read, and this is not an endorsement of him, but if he went with the Texas Constitution his chances are very good. Case Information
ReplyDelete2023-DCL-00962 | Pat Ahumada vs. Yolanda Galarza-Gomez
Case Number
2023-DCL-00962
Court
404th District Court
Judicial Officer
Adobbati, Ricardo M
File Date
02/17/2023
Case Type
Temporary Restraining Order/Injunction
Case Status
Pending
10:25. you sound like Fox News and worse - Really if there was no war why was Biden blamed for the withdrawal from Afghanistan which Trump negotiated with liars. Everyone knows gas was so low because no one was buying it because of the pandemic. Trump called for the last big stimulus which put a fortune into the economy causing people to buy things they did not need causing prices to go up. Supply chain prices caused for a major cost of inflation. Trump did nothing as things got worse. He sat and did nothing as China controlled the computer chip industry, except make money for his daughter in China. This caused a major shortage of cars, which meant inflation. People were spending 5-6 thousand over sticker price for a new car. yesterday my friend bought a new Silverado for 5k under sticker price. Why? Biden expanded our sourcing of the computer chips and now dealers are flooded with new trucks. You sound like Pat Ahumada he lied endlessly about the state of county economically, he lied about the lowering of electric rates. based on the promise the lower rates will be seen in the next Bill and he knows it. So after endlessly complaining with his lies and how the people are hurting he proposes a sales tax increase. Inflation comes from shortages or too much spending. All reports show Americans spending at record rates. He had some good ideas, but all of his lies about the people hurting and then saying he is going to fix it by raising sales taxes, is just so Trump and Fox News. Sales taxes hit the poorest of the poor the hardest. Pat will come in last or second to last. The man cannot take a hint. And then Sanchez claiming all the other vloggers are only asking soft questions, but then did not ask Pat one question about all his arrests, Fly Frontera and on and on.
ReplyDeleteJim something to consider. For the record not a one of the commissioners on the ballot or the challengers are qualified. But John Cowen and his uncle Ralph take the cake. As a Port Commission Ralph Cowen known for a fact John Cowen is lying when he says he will lower utility rates. I will give you the link, but you should not need it. There is a war in Ukraine. Europe is walking away from Russian Natural Gas. As each new LNG plant opens along the Gulf all that natural gas is now going to Europe the price is going to just keep on going up. The BPUB is more reliant on natural gas than coal and has zero policy considering tapping into wind energy which is cheaper.
ReplyDeleteEven with the second 11% price reduction in electric rates within the next year I see the price going up 30% as each new LNG plant comes on line and the natural gas goes to Europe. No one is talking about this reality which cannot be stopped. Europe needs natural gas. Bottom line. This will raise prices.
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/energy-environment/2023/01/10/440912/consumers-in-houston-and-across-texas-may-experience-sticker-shock-after-opening-their-gas-bills-this-month/#:~:text=The%20cost%20in%20the%20wholesale,the%20Texas%2DLouisiana%20gulf%20coast.
Yes Tenaska was a mess but no one is telling the full story. Yes the audit told the truth, but everyone is leaving out a key factor. Had the BPUB not used the Tenaska money to keep the fuel surcharge lower it would have been on your bill. When they were forced to stop using the Tenaska money for the fuel surcharge, my surcharge doubled. It had to be paid. the price of natural gas was out of control.
If you go back 6 months to a year and check you bills - I know most of that time you were not here so maybe a friend can do it for you. Your bill had separate billing for your basic electric and then for the fuel charge. After people went crazy over the doubling of the fuel surcharged they merged it into one number so you could not see how much was your regular bill and how much was surcharge. You have been back llng enough to look at a few bills and the coast of of electricity every month is like a roller coaster because the two are now merged. This was a big con job by the BPUB . I met Tony Martinez in his office as he was running for his first time. My question was, what is going to be your water policy. 8 years of Martinez and 4 of Mendez and we have no water policy which is why they have raised our water and sewage rates big time.
Pat was wrong for pushing the wier dam to back up all the way to downtown. He knew Mexico did not have the money and they told him over and over again. All the sewage lines along the river on the Mexican side and so much more infrastructure needs to get done first. pat refused to accept reality. he had a compromise and he said all or nothing. Well now we have very high water and sewage bills. He could have used the federal money we had to build the dam and create a large reserve of water which did not back up as far as down town. In fact they could have raised the water down town a big without impacting Matamoros. But no.
yes Tenaska was a disaster, but had they not used the money to hold down the fuel surcharge paid by the people, It would have been on your bill and you would have paid it anyway.
But we love simplistic for good headlines. Yes once the deal fell apart they should have lowered the prices, but there is no getting around they would have just raised the surcharge. Natural gas is not free and with the European mess it is about to get a lot higher and their is nothing John Cowen can do about that and his uncle Ralph at the port is helping him with the big lie. John is single handily is going to destroy decades of Cowen good will.
Just something to consider.
bobbywc58@yahoo.com