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Fox News and the American wet dream
Fox News was typically silent on the details of its lawsuit against Dominion.
People walk by the News Corporation headquarters, home to Fox News, on 18 April 2023 in New York. Moments before opening arguments were set to begin this afternoon, Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems said that they had reached a settlement of $787 million in the voting machine company’s defamation lawsuit against Fox. Photo: SPENCER PLATT / Getty Images via AFP
A triumph! At the 11th hour, the corporate behemoth that is Fox “News” – the most-watched cable news network in the US – has settled a defamation lawsuit brought by the makers of voting machines Dominion, for a whopping $787.5 million. That’s R14 242 520 370, or something.
But if you were watching Fox you likely wouldn’t know this. Instead, you’d have heard the official statement that Fox was pleased to have settled the case and that: “This settlement reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards.”
However, if you were watching CNN you’d have seen the newsreader trying to relay this same statement with a straight face, before he started to giggle.
Dominion were suing Fox over its on-air claims that Dominion voting machines were rigged in certain key regions to switch Trump votes to Biden, thus stealing the presidential election from the incumbent. These claims, oft repeated by Trump and Fox, led to the storming of the Capitol.
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Fox viewers also wouldn’t have been told that the litigation evidence, including e-mails and WhatsApp messages, showed the station’s management and pundits didn’t believe that the US elections were rigged at all, but pursued the fantasy regardless, recklessly, because ratings were more important than the truth.
The court case was set to be explosive with hosts like Sean Hannity, CEO Lachlan Murdoch and even chair Rupert Murdoch called to testify and made to squirm. After all, Lachlan had written in internal communications claims about rigging were “really crazy” and “damaging”.
He also admitted he could have stopped them being aired, but didn’t. Why?
Fox knew what their viewers wanted to hear, so that’s what it gave them: a heap of warm, comforting poop. And profits grew.
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Simultaneously over on Twitter, homeboy Elon Musk busily labelled non-corporate, not-for-profit, publicly funded media organisations like the BBC and NPR (the US National Public Radio) as “government-funded”, casting doubt on their integrity.
Meanwhile Fox, un-labelled as the deceitful profiteering capitalist wet dream that it is, remains unscathed: shares barely dipped, they have $4 billion cash on hand.
A triumph? Hardly. Just business as usual.
