When Dominion Voting Systems filed its defamation case against Fox News, the political world may not have been fully prepared for the significance of the revelations. To a very real degree, some observers, many of whom were already inclined to believe the worst about the controversial network, weren’t quite cynical enough about what the public might learn.
Now we know better.
To briefly recap, a recent court filing presented evidence that suggested Fox News promoted bogus election claims they knew to be false, on purpose, in order to placate its audience and make money. We also learned that News Corp. Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch acknowledged under oath that some prominent Fox News hosts “endorsed” baseless claims the network knew to be wrong.
And while Fox News has denied all wrongdoing and is vigorously contesting the lawsuit, the hits just keep on coming. NBC News reported overnight, for example, on a series of internal Fox communications, including a text from Jan. 4, 2021, in which Tucker Carlson said he “passionately” hated Donald Trump, even as the host delivered a very different message to his viewers.
The revelation is in hundreds of pages of testimony, private text messages and emails from top Fox News journalists and executives that were made public Tuesday, adding to the trove of documents that show a network in crisis after it alienated core viewers by reporting accurately on the results of the 2020 presidential election. … The messages are blunt and, at times, profane, as hosts and top executives panicked about how to boost their ratings as Trump refused to acknowledge his defeat. The depositions, meanwhile, offer the broadest picture yet of how executives including Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch allowed baseless conspiracy theories to flourish on air.
The materials reached the public late yesterday afternoon, after a judge unsealed the documents, along with parts of some employee depositions.
It’s difficult not to marvel at the…
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