Office Hours: Will Fox be detoxed?

 

APR 12

Office Hours: Will Fox be detoxed?

The Dominion defamation lawsuit goes to trial next week. If Fox is found guilty, what if anything will change? Friends, The $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News — which goes to trial next week — has uncovered a trove of damning text messages and emails showing that Fox News hosts like Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham knowingly lied to their viewers about false claims of voter fraud during the 2020 presidential election. A few weeks ago, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis ruled that the evidence made it “CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true,” and that the statements from Fox News that are challenged by Dominion constitute defamation “per se.”  Doesn’t look good for Fox. But one key group of people haven’t heard the revelations about Fox News: Fox News viewers. There’s been a near-total blackout of the story on Fox News, and Fox host Howard Kurtz has confirmed that Fox higher-ups have issued orders to ignore the story. Fox has even rejected paid ads that would have alerted viewers about the lawsuit. Other Rupert Murdoch-owned properties, like the New York Post, are also keeping their readers in the dark. Fox News has even filed a motion arguing that the court should maintain the confidentiality of discovery material already redacted by the network, shielding it from the public. So today’s Office Hours question: If the court finds that Fox News defamed Dominion, will Fox viewers ever know the network knowingly lied to them about the 2020 presidential election? And will the judgment force Fox News (and other news media) to change the way they cover the news in the future? What do you think? (I’ll chime in with my own view later today.) POLL What do you think will be the consequence at Fox News if the court finds Fox News guilty of defamation? Nothing. It will continue to lie. It will start telling the truth. It will separate news from opinion. It will become even worse. Other (in comments) Reminder to please join me Friday for the second session of my course on Wealth and Poverty. (If you missed the first session, you can find it here.)