Fox Trot

“We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait.”
-Tucker Carlson

For many, many people, Fox News is the Truth. Founded on the notion of being “fair and balanced,” it was long regarded by its critics as merely a shill for the right. But now the recent $787.5 million settlement of the defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems pulled open the curtain shielding the Great Oz to reveal that instead of countering the perceived liberal bias of the mainstream media, it is in business to massage the facts as perceived by its fervent viewers to retain their faithful following.

Thanks to the legal mechanism of discovery, we were able to see that the supposed purveyors of truth, primarily named Carlson, Ingraham, Hannity and Pirro, did not believe what they were reporting but merely giving their viewers what they wanted to hear. When the network dared to wade into legitimate journalism by calling Arizona for Biden, effectively calling the election in his favor, their viewers rebelled and turned to other sources, most notably NewsMax, that would echo their belief that the Great Trump could not have lost an election that wasn’t fixed.

So did Fox double up on their correct call and start to discuss the expected peaceful transfer of power as had occurred in every election throughout the history of the Republic until then? Of course not. They gave a platform to charlatans named Powell and Giuliani and Lindell who fostered a ludicrous accusation that an electronic voting platform created by Dominion enabled votes to be switched from Trump to Biden. And who was behind the nefarious scheme? None other than Venezuelans close to their deceased strongmen Hugo Chavez. What could be more plausible than that a brutal dictator, dead since 2013, was behind a plot to deny a wannabe authoritarian his rightful second term?

The Fox defense was that a claim of election fraud by a deposed leader was itself newsworthy regardless of whether the underlying facts held water. They portrayed their “journalists” as mere bystanders although they sacrificed the most outspoken, Lou Dobbs, once he was personally named in the Dominion lawsuit. And the analyst who correctly called Arizona for Biden? He also got canned.

As the actual trial loomed, the network’s case looked worse and worse. In addition to the emails that revealed the true feelings of its opinion makers, Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch was forced to admit that several Fox hosts had endorsed the false narrative and concede “I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it in hindsight.”

While many had hoped that the Dominion case would ultimately lead to a reappraisal of the Supreme Court opinion in Sullivan v. New York Times that has set an “actual malice” standard that many believe is too high a bar to allow a public figure to successfully bring a defamation case, the one argument that may have worked in Fox favor was the amount of damages Dominion had actually suffered. And while the dollar amount of the settlement will not kill Fox, it is far from nothing and reflects how much Fox feared a jury finding in Dominion’s favor.

Although Dominion failed to force Fox to apologize, the network had to admit that the fraudulent election narrative was false. But the bigger question is whether the settlement will force Fox to change their ways. If its reporting of the settlement is any indication, it is highly unlikely. In four hours of coverage on the day of the settlement, Fox News devoted all of six minutes to that news. Obviously its viewers didn’t want to hear it.