FOX News FINALLY Reports on the Dominion Lawsuit and is Predictably Dishonest and Biased

The biggest media story of the year – or even the century – is the billion dollar defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting systems against Fox News. Recent disclosures in court filings have unmasked just how brazenly Fox News has deceived their viewers by repeatedly lying on air about matters for which they privately held diametrically opposing views.

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Fox News, Howard Kurtz

For weeks following the Dominion filings, Fox News refused to even bring up the subject of the lawsuit. Then their chief media correspondent, Howard Kurtz, addressed it briefly on his Sunday program, MediaBuzz. However, his only comments were to tell his audience that he was not going to be reporting on the lawsuit because he had been forbidden to by Fox editors and executives.

MORE HERE: BANNED ON FOX NEWS: The Network Prohibits Any Reporting on the $1.6 Billion Dominion Lawsuit

Apparently that censorious edict has been revoked and Kurtz was given some sort of conditional permission to cover the story. So he did so in the most Fox-ish manner possible. Which means that he was overtly dishonest in his starkly biased presentation that looked like it was written by the Fox News PR department. What follows are some of the lowlights of Kurtz’s whitewashing coverage (video below).

Kurtz began by defending the indefensible saying that “there is a crucial First Amendment argument here involving the coverage of unsubstantiated claims of 2020 election fraud by Donald Trump and his allies.” That’s patently false. The First Amendment prohibits Congress from “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Dominion is not Congress. Furthermore, Dominion is not seeking to censor Fox News. They are suing for damages due to Fox’s purposeful and repeated defamation, which is not protected by the First Amendment.

Kurtz then quotes from a Fox News statement saying that “Dominion has been caught red-handed using more distortions and misinformation in their PR campaign to smear Fox News and trample on free speech and freedom of the press.” Nothing in that statement is true. Dominion was not “caught red-handed,” and Kurtz doesn’t bother to substantiate any of its charges of “distortions and misinformation.” Yet somehow, Kurtz asserts that his framing of the “facts” will be fair to both sides…

“Now I’m going to give you both sides, but let me say this: Fox’s critics and competitors are denouncing the network, and many of them are rooting not just for Fox to lose the suit, but to be wiped out as a company because they can’t stand the mostly conservative view of a relative handful of opinion hosts”

Notice that Kurtz immediately contradicts his own assertion to give both sides. The criticism of competitors is completely irrelevant to the misconduct that Fox has been engaging in. If Fox News were a legitimate news enterprise, they would tell the truth regardless of what their competitors are saying. And the claim that only “a relative handful of opinion hosts” are disgorging conservative views is pure fiction. Fox’s alleged “journalists” (i.e. Brett Baier) were shown to be just as dishonest as Sean Hannity in the Dominion filings. Even so, Fox’s opinion hosts are the highest rated personalities on the network, so their lies carry more weight than unknown field reporters.

Kurtz went on to soft-pedal Fox’s deceit saying that “The heart of dominion’s suit is a gap” between what hosts said on the air and what they said privately among each other. Referring to Fox’s outright lying as merely a “gap” is like referring to the Grand Canyon as a pothole. Kurtz is deliberately underplaying the severity of Fox’s corruption. And he spent the remainder of his remarks spewing defenses for it. For instance, Kurtz said that…

“There was, to be sure, straight reporting by the news division, which also caused some friction, but the fact that some people in the chain of command privately dismissed the fraud claims as nuts or outlandish or insane doesn’t necessarily mean Fox couldn’t cover and comment on the extremely newsworthy spectacle of a president saying an election was stolen.”

Actually, no reputable media organization would allow a reporter to cover a story they were caught lying about. What’s more, the problem wasn’t that Fox was “covering” what Donald Trump and others said about election fraud. The problem was that the Fox News hosts were endorsing the fraud allegations themselves. That isn’t journalism, it’s propaganda.

In conclusion, Kurtz – still claiming to be fair to both sides – closed with a comment by Fox’s CEO, Lachlan Murdoch, who said that…

“The network has an obligation to report the news fairly. I think a lot of the noise you hear about this case is actually not about the law, and is not about journalism, and is really about the politics.”

Really? For Murdoch to brag about Fox’s “obligation to report the news fairly” after what the Dominion lawsuit has revealed is preposterous. That has never been the mission of Fox News, and the recent disclosures of their internal communications proves that it isn’t now. Not when you have their hosts knowingly deceiving viewers and spreading flagrant falsehoods that undermine democracy and foment violence.

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Does the White House Consider Fox News a News Organization? Let’s Ask the WH Press Secretary

The question as to the legitimacy of Fox News is not one that has been difficult to answer. It was designed from the start to be a right-wing propaganda dispenser by its founders, Rupert Murdoch (an ultra-conservative newspaper baron), and Roger Ailes (a Republican media consultant). That’s not exactly a roster of reputable journalists.

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Fox News, Peter Doocy, Karine Jean-Pierre

Twenty-seven years later, Fox News has exceeded the aspirations of its politically prejudiced founders. In recent weeks the network has been exposed as being brazenly dishonest. Internal communications made public by Dominion Voting Systems in their defamation lawsuit against Fox reveal that its executives and hosts were telling their viewers one thing, while saying the opposite to one another in private.

RELATED: Hannity Admits in Fox News Lawsuit that ‘I Did Not Believe [Trump’s Big Lie] for One Second’

Those depositions affirm that Fox News knew very well that there was no truth to their “reporting” of fraud in the 2020 presidential election. While they were lying to their viewers on the air, they were discussing privately among themselves about the “crazy” and “idiotic” assertions that Donald Trump had actually won. They even openly disparaged Trump as dangerous confessed their personal hatred for him.

The subject of the Dominion vs Fox News lawsuit came up Friday on MSNBC’s “Alex Wagner Tonight.” Wagner prefaced a question addressing the matter during an interview with White House Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, by noting that “The White House has been fairly outspoken about what’s happening in certain Republican circles – specifically, what’s going on over at Fox News.” Which led to the following exchange…

Wagner: Does the White House consider Fox News a news organization?

Jean-Pierre: I’ll say this. When you look at the depositions that have been out there recently, it even states from FOX leadership that they do not see Tucker Carlson’s show as news or even truthful. That is coming from the FOX News leadership. That is not coming from me. That is coming from them.

I also would quote – I’ll paraphrase here – what the Chief of Capitol Police said. He said essentially when you watch Tucker Carlson as it relates to January 6th, it is misleading, and it is misinformation as with the conclusion of what happened on January 6th, the attacks that happened. As you saw from the President’s statement, nearly 140 officers were injured on that day. It was an attack on our democracy. It was an attack on our constitution. And you cannot whitewash that. Tucker Carlson cannot whitewash that.

Wagner: So, I’m gonna say that sort of sounds like the White House doesn’t think Fox is a news organization, but we gotta leave it there.

Jean-Pierre correctly noted that Fox News itself has defended its hosts (successfully) in defamation lawsuits by arguing that “no reasonable person” would take what they say seriously. Fox News lawyers singled out Tucker Carlson saying that

“[Carlson] cannot be understood to have been stating facts, but instead that he was delivering an opinion using hyperbole for effect. [and that] given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’ about the statements he makes.”

In other words, Carlson is a known liar whose commentaries can be dismissed out of hand as the ravings of a dishonest blowhard. And the evidence from the Dominion case drives that point home. The problem with this legal argument, however, is that Fox’s viewers are not remotely reasonable. Consequently, there is real and measurable harm done to millions of feeble-minded cultists.

While Jean-Pierre didn’t give a definitive yes or no answer, the gist of her response was plainly evident. Wagner got the message and rephrased it as an affirmative. Jean-Pierre smiled knowingly, and didn’t challenge Wagner’s interpretation. What’s more, the fact that Fox News is not a news organization was an opinion that the Biden administration held from the first days of its term. And they said so explicitly…

“Biden’s aides also promised not to allow outlets to use the briefings to spread baseless conspiracies. ‘We expect reporters covering the White House to operate in good faith and tell their audience the truth, and this White House will do the same. We are moving forward with that mutual understanding,’ […] ‘Organizations or individuals who traffic in conspiracy theories, propaganda and lies to spread disinformation will not be tolerated.”

If the Biden press team, as well as the White House Correspondent’s Association, were to adhere to those principles, they would be required to ban Fox News from all White House media events, including the daily briefings. And the revelations from the Dominion case provide the strongest argument yet to impose that ban.

A pseudo-news operation like Fox should not be credentialed so that it can masquerade as legitimate journalism. At the very least, they should be required to acknowledge their lies, apologize to their audience, their peers, and the nation, and take reparative action (i.e. fire Fox CEO Suzanne Scott, as well as hosts Carlson, Sean Hannity, and other offenders) before their credentials are restored. Short of that they should be shunned and banished to the pod swamps with the likes of Alex Jones and Steve Bannon.

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GOOD LUCK: Democratic Leaders Call On Rupert Murdoch to Stop Fox News From Spreading Lies

This week America learned that Fox News executives and hosts knowingly deceived their viewers about election fraud in support of Donald Trump and his “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged and stolen” from him. The revelations came with the release of depositions from the defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News.

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Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch

The testimony in those depositions affirmed that Fox News CEO Rupert Murdoch, as well as hosts Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, etc., knew very well that there was no truth to their “reporting” of fraud in the 2020 presidential election. While they were lying to their viewers, they were discussing privately among themselves about the “crazy” and “idiotic” assertions that Trump had actually won.

RELATED: Hannity Admits in Fox News Lawsuit that ‘I Did Not Believe [Trump’s Big Lie] for One Second’

Most rational media observers already knew that Fox News has never been a news network. They were created as a right-wing propaganda organ by Murdoch and Roger Ailes. However, this may be the first time that we have principles at Fox admitting that they are lying propagandists, and we have it in their own words. Not surprisingly, Trump is very upset by these developments…

UH-OH: Trump Blasts Rupert Murdoch for ‘Throwing His Anchors Under the Table’ in Election Fraud Lawsuit

In the wake of these scandalous disclosures, Democratic leaders in Congress are going on record with their objections to the confirmation of Fox’s purposeful dishonesty. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries made their positions clear in a letter to Murdoch, demanding that the network “stop spreading false election narratives and admit on the air that they were wrong to engage in such negligent behavior.” The letter pressed Murdoch saying that

“As noted in your deposition released yesterday Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and other Fox News personalities knowingly, repeatedly, and dangerously endorsed and promoted the Big Lie that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election [and that] network hosts continue to promote, spew, and perpetuate election conspiracy theories to this day.”

The letter noted that Fox’s hosts continue “to peddle election denialism to the American people.” This is the sort of pernicious pulp fiction employed by Trump that incited the January 6th insurrection in Washington, D.C., as well as numerous other subsequent acts domestic terrorism by the radical right. Schumer and Jeffries recognized the impending threat saying that…

“This sets a dangerous precedent that ignores basic journalistic fact-checking principles and public accountability. This is even more alarming after Speaker McCarthy is reportedly allowing Tucker Carlson to review highly sensitive security camera footage of the events surrounding the violent January 6 insurrection.

“We demand that you direct Tucker Carlson and other hosts on your network to stop spreading false election narratives and admit on the air that they were wrong to engage in such negligent behavior.”

The letter goes on to warn that the dishonesty of Fox News “weakens faith in our democracy and hurts our country in countless other ways.” And it closes by insisting that Murdoch take action to repair the damage he and his network have caused…

“Fox News executives and all other hosts on your network have a clear choice. You can continue a pattern of lying to your viewers and risking democracy or move beyond this damaging chapter in your company’s history by siding with the truth and reporting the facts. We ask that you make sure Fox News ceases disseminating the Big Lie and other election conspiracy theories on your network.”

Schumer and Jeffries are saying all the right things. Unfortunately, it would be naïve to expect Murdoch, or anyone else at Fox News, to cooperate or to concede wrongdoing. They have established that they are more interested in disseminating conservative propaganda and profiting off of deceiving their audience, than in telling the truth or acting in the best interests of the country. That would require some sense of ethics. Plus, they are terrified of Donald Trump and his glassy-eyed cult followers.

In fact, they are so frightened that that they have forbidden the matter of the Dominion lawsuit to even be mentioned on the air. Which is just another way that they can keep their viewers ignorant and riled up by phony trivialities.

SEE THIS: BANNED ON FOX NEWS: The Network Prohibits Any Reporting on the $1.6 Billion Dominion Lawsuit

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Trump Blasts Rupert Murdoch for ‘Throwing His Anchors Under the Table’ in Election Fraud Lawsuit

Donald Trump was up very early on Tuesday morning to cry petulantly about how his former Ministry of Propaganda – aka Fox News – was not living up to his egomaniacal expectations of unflinchingly worshipful adoration. It’s a complaint that Trump unleashes whenever anyone fails to recognize his perceived messianic divinity.

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Rupert Murdoch Donald Trump

The bug up Trump’s butt on this occasion was that new details of the deposition given by Fox News boss, Rupert Murdoch, in the defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, were made public. And those details affirmed that Murdoch and the hosts of his Fox News network knew very well that they were lying when they told viewers that there was fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

RELATED: In Dominion v Fox News, Network Cries ‘We Can’t Make People Think We’ve Turned Against Trump’

Of course, Trump cannot restrain himself whenever the facts that his “Big Lie” that the election was “rigged and stolen” from him are exposed. Particularly if those facts are delivered by people that he thinks should be compulsorily beholden to him. Which, in his cartoon brain, is everybody. Consequently he posted on his floundering Twitter clone, Truth Social

“Why is Rupert Murdoch throwing his anchors under the table, which also happens to be killing his case and infuriating his viewers, who will again be leaving in droves – they already are. There is MASSIVE evidence of voter fraud & irregularities in the 2020 Presidential Election. Just look at the documentary ‘2000 MULES’ and you will see large scale ballot stuffing caught on government cameras, or votes cast without Legislatures approval, or just recently, the FBI/Twitter Files Scandal. RIGGED!!!”

There is an abundance of derp in that rant. Beginning with Trump’s mangling of the idiom about being “thrown under the bus.” Being under a table is something else entirely.

More to the point, Trump is aghast that Murdoch would say things during a deposition, under oath, that reflect badly on Fox News, and more importantly, on Trump. Trump takes any suggestion that the 2020 election was legitimate as a personal attack. However, Murdoch had no choice but to tell the truth, or be liable for perjury.

The result was a trove of testimony that does indeed strengthen Dominions case. Such as conceding that Fox News hosts (Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs, etc.) “endorsed” the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen. And allowing Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell on air to lie about Dominion.

Literally everything else in Trump’s post was untrue. There was no “MASSIVE evidence of voter fraud.” If there were he would have presented it by now. The “2000 MULES” crocumentary has been totally debunked. And the “Twitter Files” were a pathetically contrived nothingburger.

SEE: Tucker Carlson Hysterically Hypes Bogus Election ‘Fraud’ Film By Convicted Election Fraudster
AND: The Sham ‘Twitter Files’ Exposé Actually Proves that Trump’s Coup Plot was Appropriately Muted

However, Trump was just getting started. He posted a second comment on this subject a few minutes later that repeated the same false allegations of election fraud, and continued his chastising of Murdoch and Fox News, saying that…

“They look too scared and frightened to reveal the massive amounts of voter fraud & Irregularities already found, and it would actually help them in the lawsuit. Instead FoxNews wants to silence its anchors and reporters.”

Trump is actually right, but not about what he thinks he’s right about. Fox News may not have wanted to silence its anchors when they were lying about election fraud, but they do want to silence them now…

SEE THIS: BANNED ON FOX NEWS: The Network Prohibits Any Reporting on the $1.6 Billion Dominion Lawsuit

Trump’s morning caterwauling isn’t going to win him any converts. It is just more of the tedious yammering he’s been putting out since he was evicted from the White House two years ago. In all that time he has failed to produce the “massive amounts of voter fraud” he claims to have found. And he lost 60 court cases in his futile effort to overturn the election and undermine democracy. But he obviously intends to continue down this pitiful path, oblivious to the fact that it’s only going to hurt himself and the Republican Party that kowtows to him.

UPDATE: Trump posted (and deleted) another attack on Murdoch, saying that if he doesn’t believe that the 2020 election was “was not Rigged & Stollen” (sic) he should “get out of the News Business as soon as possible, because they are aiding & abetting the DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA with FAKE NEWS.” When was Fox in the news business? Trump goes on to praise the “BRAVE & PATRIOTIC FoxNews Hosts [who] got it right.” However, those hosts were just revealed to have known that Trump’s election fraud claims were false and that they lied to their viewers. So yeah, they got it right privately, and lied about it in public.

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BANNED ON FOX NEWS: The Network Prohibits Any Reporting on the $1.6 Billion Dominion Lawsuit

A few years ago Fox News dropped their long-time slogan that falsely declared that they were “Fair & Balanced.” Having been founded by an ultra-rightist newspaper baron (Rupert Murdoch) and a Republican media consultant (Roger Ailes), it was never true. It only served to imply that every other news source was unfair and imbalanced.

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Fox News, Censorship

That’s the modus operandi of a cult, wherein members are admonished that the cult is the only source of truth and that everyone else is lying. Fox News replaced their slogan with “Real News, Real Honest Opinion.” Which was equally false. And the extent of their brazen and deliberate dishonesty was recently revealed in a motion filed by Dominion Voting systems as part of their $1.6 defamation lawsuit against Fox. The motion cited numerous instances of Fox News hosts and executives saying in private that they didn’t believe the election fraud lies that they were reporting on air as facts.

RELATED: In Dominion v Fox News, Network Cries ‘We Can’t Make People Think We’ve Turned Against Trump’

The revelations in the Dominion motion were widely reported by virtually every news outlet. Except, of course, for Fox “News”. And on Sunday it was revealed why. Howard Kurtz, the network’s alleged media analyst, confessed on his program that his bosses had forbidden him to discuss the matter…

“Some of you have been asking why I’m not covering the Dominion Voting Machines lawsuit against Fox involving the unproven claims of election fraud in 2020, and it’s absolutely a fair question. I believe I should be covering it. It’s a major media story, given my role here at Fox. But the company has decided that as part of the organization being sued, I can’t talk about it or write about it, at least for now. I strongly disagree with that decision, but as an employee, I have to abide by it. And if that changes, I’ll let you know.”

It is not uncommon, when a company is the subject of a lawsuit, for it to order its employees to refrain from making any public statement about the case, for fear of them disclosing something detrimental. However, when it is a media company it poses a unique dilemma, because they have a professional and ethical obligation to report the news. In this case, Kurtz could easily have reported on the existence of the lawsuit without prejudicing it in any way. And his statement affirms that it is “a major media story,” and that his audience is interested in it.

Nevertheless, Fox News has imposed a total ban on reporting anything about the case. Clearly they are censoring themselves to avoid the embarrassment of having their viewers learn the truth about their purposeful lying. Fox surely doesn’t want them to know that their most popular hosts, such as Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson, and Sean Hannity, discussed among themselves that Trump’s “Big Lie” about the 2020 presidential election being “rigged and stolen” from him, was a wholly fabricated fiction.

RELATED: Hannity Admits in Fox News Lawsuit that ‘I Did Not Believe [Trump’s Big Lie] for One Second’

Since Fox News banned Kurtz from reporting on the Dominion case, it’s fair to assume that they imposed the same blackout on the rest of their hosts, contributors, and guests. That muzzling of their own “reporters” is, in itself, news. However, Kurtz is wrong when he says that “as an employee, I have to abide by it.” Actually, he has several other options.

First of all, he could ignore this infringement on free speech and report on the case anyway. Secondly, he could argue with his superiors and organize his peers to get the restraint lifted. Thirdly, he could resign in protest and retain some measure of integrity. He could also offer to anonymously tell what he knows to other media, or even to the Dominion lawyers.

All of those options, however, would require that Kurtz have some dignity and respect for journalistic ethics. So it’s no wonder why he chose to simply obey his bosses and shut his mouth. Suppressing real news that Fox finds uncomfortable is their standard operating procedure. It’s why they didn’t air live a single minute of the hearings by the House Select Committee on the January 6th Insurrection that Trump incited, despite the high ratings the hearings received on MSNBC and CNN.

SEE THIS: Trump Toady Lies that Fox News ‘Destroyed CNN and MSNBC’ By Not Airing the January 6th Hearings

Finally, in addition to gagging Kurtz, Fox also refused to air an ad by MoveOn that featured the words of their own hosts and executives. So Fox is not only rejecting journalistic ethics, they are even refusing revenue for advertising. And if they are turning down cold, hard, cash, you know they are scared witless.

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In Dominion v Fox News, Network Cries ‘We Can’t Make People Think We’ve Turned Against Trump’

The billion dollar lawsuit against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems has been proceeding at a fairly rapid pace. And each new development has proven to be devastatingly damaging to Fox News. The evidence is particularly damning since most of it comes from either what Fox News aired or private communications between Fox hosts and executives.

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Donald Trump, Fox News, White House

The latest wrinkle in this affair is a motion of summary judgment filed by Dominion. Included in the motion were numerous examples of Fox News personnel admitting that they knew that their reports of election fraud were lies and that they were lying in order to benefit Donald Trump. The tone and quantity of these admissions is astonishing, but it isn’t new. In December a portion of Sean Hannity’s testimony was revealed wherein he confessed that he never believed the election fraud lies.

SEE THIS: Hannity Admits in Fox News Lawsuit that ‘I Did Not Believe [Trump’s Big Lie] for One Second’

However, in this new motion the case is bolstered with a slew of new revelations that affirm that Fox News was lying all along. A Twitter thread posted by John Whitehouse of Media Matters neatly compiles the evidence against Fox by their own people (More from Media Matters here). And among the flood of affirmations of Fox’s dishonesty was one that is especially incriminating. Not surprisingly, it came from Tucker Carlson’s team who were afraid of angering Trump further after Fox correctly called the state of Arizona for Joe Biden.

“We’re threading a needle that has to be thread because of the dumb f**ks at Fox News on Election Day. We can’t make people think we’ve turned against Trump. Yet also call out the bullshit. You and I see through it. But we have to reassure some in the audience.”

So apparently Fox News was more worried about how Trump would react than they were about reporting the truth. A lot of the well deserved criticism of Fox News as being biased generally toward Republicans and conservatives is only half the story. They have clearly leaned heavily toward Trump specifically. And their leanings were motivated more by fear of Trump and his glassy-eyed cult followers than by any particular ideology. That fear-based favoritism was evident in many other messages revealed in Dominion’s motion. such as…

  • Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch: Really crazy stuff.
  • Tucker Carlson: What [Trump is] good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.
  • More Tucker Carlson: I hate [Trump] passionately [and he is] a demonic force.
  • Rupert Murdoch to Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott: We don’t want to antagonize Trump further, but Giuliani taken with a large grain of salt. Everything at stake here.
  • Bret Baier: There is NO evidence of Fraud. None. [and] We have to prevent this stuff…We need to fact check.
  • Fox News producer Justin Wells (on Jeanine Pirro): They took her off cuz she was being crazy. Optics are bad. But she is crazy.
  • Carlson (complaining to Hannity about Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich, who was fact checking a tweet by Trump): Please get her fired. Seriously….What the f*ck? I’m actually shocked…It needs to stop immediately, like tonight.
  • Suzanne Scott: You can’t give the crazies an inch right now […] The audience feels like we crapped on [them] and we have damaged their trust and belief in us … We can fix this but we cannot smirk at our viewers any longer.
  • Laura Ingraham: Sidney [Powell] is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy {Giuliani].
  • Sean Hannity: That whole narrative that [Sidney] Powell was pushing, I did not believe it for one second, [and that] she’s a f*cking lunatic.

Fox News responded to the Dominion motion with their predictably dishonest deflecting:

“According to Dominion, FNN had a duty not to truthfully report the President’s allegations but to suppress them or denounce them as false. Dominion is fundamentally mistaken. 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.”

The problem with Fox’s argument is that they were not merely “giving a forum to the losing side.” They were overtly taking that side’s position and affirmatively arguing their case. For some proof of that, see this…

Ironically, after shilling for Trump for years, Fox News now seems to be exhausted by his tedious obsession with nonexistent election fraud. Some at Fox Fox are even starting to tilt toward Ron DeSantis (or “Meatball Ron” as Trump calls him). But they are still taking baby steps because they are still terrified of the Trump cult. Just wait until he gets a whiff of the messaging in this Dominion motion.

RELATED: Trump Post Urges His Cult Followers to Take Up Arms and ‘Physically Fight’ for the Presidency

UPDATE I: Fox News is so afraid of the Dominion lawsuit that they have barred any mention of it on their network.

UPDATE II: The judge in the Dominion case has sanctioned Fox News for withholding evidence. He also made several other rulings that hamper Fox’s ability to deflect from the issue of defamation.

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Hannity Admits in Fox News Lawsuit that ‘I Did Not Believe [Trump’s Big Lie] for One Second’

for more than two years Donald Trump has been sobbing about the 2020 presidential election that he pretends to believe was “rigged and stolen” from him. Never mind that he hasn’t been able to produce a shred of evidence of it more than sixty court cases. And for all of that time his official Ministry of Propaganda (aka Fox News) has supported his “Big Lie” even when such support resulted in a violent insurrection in Washington, D.C., that Trump incited, and for which he may soon be indicted.

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Fox News Sean Hannity

As a result of Fox News serving the seditious aspirations of Trump, the network is being sued for more than a billion dollars by Dominion Voting Systems for defamation. They allege that Fox News knowingly aired false stories that Dominion purposefully designed their voting machines to switch votes for Trump to Joe Biden.

RELATED: Dominion Voting Systems Files $1.6 Billion Defamation Lawsuit Against Fox News

Critical to the success of a defamation suit is the plaintiff’s ability to prove that the defendant knew, or should have known, that their defamatory statements were false and were made with malicious intent. And Dominion is apparently meeting that criteria according to reports of testimony given during deposition.

Specifically, testimony provided under oath reveals that Fox News Senior Trump-Fluffer Sean Hannity knew that Trump’s claims of election fraud were untrue, even a he was reporting on and endorsing them. When Hannity was asked by Dominion’s lawyer about Trump’s unfounded claims, he replied that “I did not believe it for one second.”

That’s about as clear a confirmation of deliberately defamatory speech as any court will ever hear. And unfortunately for Fox News, it isn’t the only example of it in this case. In September, a Fox News producer sent out a memo warning that the network must stop “pulling conspiracy theories from dark corners of the Web to justify then-President Donald Trump’s lies that the election had been stolen from him.” And Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott made similar warnings about Trump’s “Big Lie” purveyors and election deniers saying that “We can’t give the crazies an inch.”

SEE THIS: Fox News Producer Warned Network to Stop Putting Hosts on Air to Spew Election Conspiracy Lies

The Dominion trial, which is scheduled to commence next April, is still just in its preliminary phase, conducting depositions and discovery. They have yet to present this evidence to a jury. And we still don’t know how much more evidence has been obtained, or will be obtained, through the acquisition of documents and depositions. But suffice to say that at this point Fox News must be extraordinarily nervous.

If the pretrial particulars continue to unfold as they have been thus far, look for Fox News to beg for a settlement. Dominion, however, has said that they won’t settle for anything that doesn’t include a confession of guilt by Fox News and an unqualified apology and retraction.

However, even if Fox News concedes to Dominion’s demands and they settle, Fox still has to deal with another election related billion dollar lawsuit by Smartmatic. And a judge in that case has already issued an opinion that “actual malice” is evident in statements by Fox’s Senior White Nationalist, Tucker Carlson. So 2023 looks to be a, let’s say “interesting” year for Fox News.

RELATED: Judge Cites Tucker Carlson as Validation of ‘Actual Malice’ in Defamation Suit Against Fox News

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Fox News Producer Warned Network to Stop Putting Hosts on Air to Spew Election Conspiracy Lies

It’s been almost two years since Joe Biden decisively defeated Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. And for all of that time Trump has stubbornly insisted that he was the real winner and that the election was “rigged” and “stolen” from him. Never mind that he couldn’t provide a shred of evidence to support his claims and that he lost dozens of lawsuits in a futile and delusional effort to cling to power.

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Donald Trump, Fox News, Lies

Trump’s belligerent dishonesty has had numerous deleterious effects on the nation. Most notably, it led directly to a deadly assault on Congress by his cult followers attempting to stage a violent coup and obstruct the peaceful transfer of power. His relentless lying about the election contributed to undermining faith in democracy and fomenting fear and future violence by glassy-eyed StormTrumpers. It also resulted in billion dollar lawsuits against his Ministry of Disinformation – aka Fox News – for spreading election fraud conspiracy theories.

RELATED: Dominion Voting Systems Files $1.6 Billion Defamation Lawsuit Against Fox News

The case of one of the plaintiffs against Fox News, Dominion Voting Systems, has been progressing steadily. It has compelled depositions from Fox News hosts such as Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs, and Jeanine Pirro. And in new a report it has been revealed that the network was well aware that their hosts were disseminating false allegations that Dominion’s voting machines were designed to suppress Trump votes and/or switch them to Biden. NPR reports that…

“The November 2020 email from an anguished Fox News news producer to colleagues sent up a flare amid a fusillade of false claims. The producer warned: Fox cannot let host Jeanine Pirro back on the air. She is pulling conspiracy theories from dark corners of the Web to justify then-President Donald Trump’s lies that the election had been stolen from him.”

Fox News not only let Pirro back on the air, they promoted her to a co-host of Fox’s “The Five,” a top rated daily program. They also continued to allow Hannity, Carlson, Bartiromo, and many others on the air to spread Trump’s lies. NPR continued to say that…

“Dominion’s attorneys have obtained emails, texts, WhatsApp messages and more, documenting how the network’s executives and journalists behaved and acted behind the scenes, as well as determining what they actually knew about the claims, according to three people with knowledge of the litigation. Witnesses have been pressed about the degree to which the Murdochs and Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott were involved in making editorial decisions or kept in the loop.”

When NPR sought a comment from Fox News, they said only that they “were covering the most newsworthy story of that period — the president of the United States claiming election fraud.” Of course that is also a lie. The Fox hosts were not simply reporting what Trump had said. They explicitly alleged that the election was riddled with fraud and that Dominion was among those responsible.

Defamation lawsuits rest on the ability of the plaintiff to show that the defendant knew, or should have known, that what they were saying was false and that they acted with malice. The new evidence does a pretty good job of establishing that. Not that it was necessary. Fox News had been pushing the election fraud lies despite the fact that even members of Trump’s own administration had validated the election as legitimate.

They included Christopher Wray, FBI Director; Benjamin Hovland, of the U.S. Election Assist­ance Commission; director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Chris Krebs; and even Attorney General Bill Barr. Barr went so far as to tell ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl (in his recent book “Betrayal”) that “My suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. It was all bullshit.”

RELATED: AG Bill Barr on Trump’s Big Lie: We Realized From the Beginning it Was Just Bullsh*t

With all of the legal tribulations bearing down on Trump and his media cohorts, it isn’t surprising that he is becoming ever more unhinged. And much of that lunacy is manifesting in his preposterous excuses for having stolen and hoarded classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago bunker. Look for Trump to sink farther into this abyss of desperation of his own making as the prospect of his being held accountable gets closer.

UPDATE: The lawsuit against Fox News by Smartmatic, a voting software company, is also progressing. A judge just ordered Fox “to start turning over files from a pool of millions of documents that the voting machine company demanded.”

Update II: NPR reports that Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott knew that the election fraud lies the network was promulgating were false. This helps substantiate the defamation case by Dominion against Fox. Scott told her staff, referring to election deniers, that “We can’t give the crazies an inch.” They did anyway. And still do.

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Judge Rules that Fox News Acted With ‘Actual Malice’ By Spreading Trump’s Election Fraud Lies

The hearings of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection incited by Donald Trump have been effectively exposing the role of Trump and his confederates in politics and the press. It is now an inescapable fact that they knew that their attempts to undermine democracy and overturn the election were illegal and they just didn’t care.

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Donald Trump, Fox News, Lies

On Tuesday a judge confirmed that Fox News was among those who knowingly spread lies and disinformation regarding the 2020 presidential election. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems who allege that Fox News (and Newsmax and One America News Network) defamed them with blatantly false reports of election fraud. The ruling rejected Fox’s motion to dismiss the case, and explicitly cited the network’s owners as justification to allow the suit to proceed. According to Bloomberg News

“Fox News’s parent company can be sued by a voting-machine maker because Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch may have acted with “actual malice” in directing the network to broadcast conspiracy theories alleging the 2020 presidential election was rigged against Donald Trump. […]

“Dominion cited in its suit a report that Rupert Murdoch spoke with Trump a few days after the election ‘and informed him that he had lost,’ the judge noted.”

The judge further noted that…

“‘These allegations support a reasonable inference that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch either knew Dominion had not manipulated the election or at least recklessly disregarded the truth when they allegedly caused Fox News to propagate its claims about Dominion.””

The evidence that Fox News purposefully maligned Dominion is overwhelming and irrefutable. The flagrant falsehoods promulgated on Fox include bizarre allegations that Dominion was created by deceased Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chavez; that their machines were rigged to switch votes from Trump to Biden; that Dominion was run by a George Soros associate; that Jewish space lasers operated by China altered the voter database.

Okay, that last one was not alleged in the lawsuit, but has been alleged by other Trump cult disciples. And the fact that it fits right in with the other real allegations says something all by itself.

In another defamation lawsuit filed by voting software company, Smartmatic, actual malice – exemplified by Tucker Carlson – was also cited when Fox’s motion to dismiss that case was rejected.

RELATED: Judge Cites Tucker Carlson as Validation of ‘Actual Malice’ in Defamation Suit Against Fox News

There’s a reason that these ruling keep going against Fox News. The network’s deliberate distortions of the truth have been a core part of their propaganda crusade to advance the “Big Lie” that Trump has been whining about for more than a year and a half. He has lost more than sixty cases challenging the election results, primarily because he has never produced a shred of evidence to support his charges.

Unfortunately, the efforts by Trump, aided and abetted by Fox News, have led to numerous episodes of violence, including the January 6th insurrection on Capitol Hill. And even that was predicted by a judge in a related case…

SEE: Judge: Trump’s ‘Frivolous’ Lawsuit is ‘The Stuff of Which Violent Insurrections Are Made’

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Dominion Voting Systems Files $1.6 Billion Defamation Lawsuit Against Fox News

The bill is coming due for Fox News for having recklessly, repeatedly, and maliciously spread flagrant falsehoods to support Donald Trump’s Big Lie over election fraud. Dominion Voting Systems has just announced that they are suing Fox for defamation to the tune of $1.6 billion.

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The Associated Press is reporting that Dominion’s case argues that “the cable news giant falsely claimed in an effort to boost faltering ratings that the voting company had rigged the 2020 election.” The story goes on to note that…

“The lawsuit is part of a growing body of legal action filed by the voting company and other targets of misleading, false and bizarre claims spread by President Donald Trump and his allies in the aftermath of Trump’s election loss to Joe Biden. Those claims helped spur on rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 in a violent siege that left five people dead, including a police officer. The siege led to Trump’s historic second impeachment.”

This lawsuit against Fox News follows on to Dominion’s previously announced suits against Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell (who is adopting the Tucker Carlson Defense), as well as Mike Lindell, the infamous MyPillow Guy. And Fox News has also been sued by Smartmatic, a voting software services company that alleges similar defamation in Fox’s election reporting.

Fox News is going to have a hard time defending itself from these lawsuits. There is an abundance of evidence that supports the claims, and most of it consists of video from Fox News itself. Their program hosts and guests relentlessly made baseless charges against Dominion on the air. Media Matters has documented some of the more egregious episodes:

  • Dominion Was Used to Rig the Election for President Joe Biden and the Company Has Done This Before
  • Dominion Is of Venezuelan Origin, Created at the Request of Hugo Chavez to Alter Election Results in Furtherance of an International Conspiracy
  • Dominion’s Scheme Was Run by a Deputy of George Soros
  • Kickbacks Were Paid to State Officials — Including Those in Georgia – to Utilize Dominion Machines
  • Smartmatic Owns Dominion and Its Software Is Embedded in Dominion Machines
  • Dominion Machines Are Unreliable and Cannot Be Truly Audited

This video has a summary of some of just a few of the Fox News references to Dominion Voting Systems:

In addition to this lawsuit, Dominion’s lawyers say that they are continuing to explore legal options that could include naming Fox News hosts such as Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro, Maria Bartiromo, and more. [NOTE: Dominion has added Newsmax and One America News Network (OAN) as defendants] The list of defendants could even extend to include Trump. Which would only be fair. There must be consequences for knowingly disseminating slanderous lies. And that is what Fox News does every day. This lawsuit should just be the first of many more to come.

UPDATE I: Trump tried to peddle his Big Lie about election fraud again on Laura Ingraham’s show Thursday night. But Ingraham cut him off. Ya think that had anything to do with this lawsuit?

UPDATE II: In April of 2023 Fox News settled this lawsuit for a whopping 3/4 of a billion dollars.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Also, Be sure to visit and follow News Corpse on Instagram. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.