Fox News pays the price for lies

Fox News settled a major defamation lawsuit for $787.5 million early last week, avoiding a trial that would have been both fascinating and damaging to the news giant. In agreeing to the settlement, Fox acknowledged it repeatedly aired allegations that Dominion Voting Systems voting machines were rigged against former President Donal Trump in 2020 while knowing the accusations were untrue. According to the Associated Press, Fox contended that it was reporting newsworthy charges made by supporters of the Republican president. The network said it was supported legally by libel standards.
While Fox was giving airtime to people claiming the voting machines were rigged, Fox brass and talent were privately admitting to each other behind the secenes they didn’t believe the accusations were true.
“Sidney Powell is lying” about having evidence for election fraud, popular host Tucker Carlson said via text on Nov. 16, 2020 to a Fox News producer, referring to one of Trump’s lawyers, the AP reported.
In a deposition, fellow host Sean Hannity said “that whole narrative that Sidney was pushing, I did not believe it for one second,” according to Dominion’s filing.
Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the Fox Corportation, in an email, described what he saw in a press conference that day featuring Giuliani and Powell as “Really crazy stuff. And damaging,” the AP reported.
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.
“Freedom of speech and freedom of the press would be illusory if the prevailing side in a public controversy could sue the press for giving a forum to the losing side,” Fox attorneys wrote. Fox attorneys warned that threatening the company with a $1.6 billion judgment will cause other media outlets to think twice about what they report.
Above anything, it is the job of the media to report the truth, even if their viewers, readers, etc., do not like that truth. Fox News knew full well that the voting machines were not rigging the election, but they kept allowing people on their airwaves who claimed they had. For what reason? A large portion of their audience wanted it to be true.
Whether or not Fox News, MSNBC, etc., are still actual true “news” stations, rather than entertainment dished out by people screaming their opinions is up for debate. What isn’t up for debate is that you cannot blatantly repeat a lie on air or in print without consequence. Media will always make mistakes, and the bar for libel is rightfully high, because reporting requires risk-taking that sometimes requires a correction or even an apology. It does not mean a wreckless disregard for the truth. That’s not news.
“We acknowledge the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false,” Fox News said in a news release.
“Liberal” media is not absolved in all of this, either. There are plenty of occasions such media has also lied (declaring protests “mostly peaceful” while buildings burn in the background come to mind, as does the Nick Sandmann incident) but not to this level.
We hope this is a message to all news networks. When you’re reporting “news,” stick to the facts. When it’s opinion, label it as such. That’s what opinion pages like this are for.