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Exactly 50 years ago, Rupert Murdoch bought the first US newspaper, espousing a lifelong credo that would make him a world-shaping media baron.
“We’re not here to think of ourselves as intellectuals,” the Australian mogul told US reporters after buying the San Antonio Express-News in 1973.
“We’re here to give the public what they want.”
They offer shocking sensationalism and tales of crime and immorality. The newspaper’s managing editor would wander through the newsroom and sing, “This isn’t journalism. This is show business,” he said in a profile in Texas Monthly in 1976.
The profile concludes with the observation: “The shocking truth, for those whose hearts beat with civic loyalty, is that Murdoch’s formula is to work.”
It worked so well that Murdoch became the most famous media owner on Earth, with just one property, Fox News, dominating US cable news ratings and wielding unparalleled influence over American conservatism.
That creed has now led to unprecedented punishment.
After the 2020 US election, the stars of the network, and the executives, were eager, according to court records, not to disappoint the viewers, and they did not tell the truth that Joe Biden won.
The result is the golden anniversary of the price of Murdoch’s half-century career as a US media owner: $787.5 million. (All figures in US funds.)
That’s how Fox News and its parent Fox Corporation have agreed to pay a Canadian-founded voting machine company, Dominion Voting Systems, in a last-ditch effort to avoid an embarrassing defamation trial.
Fox News also admitted in a statement to making false claims about the voting machine, during weeks when several network figures were spreading wild conspiracy theories.
“[This] represents a vindication,” Dominion attorney Justin Nelson said.
“The truth is important. Lying has consequences.”
In the limit. Fox has not apologized, barely mentioned the settlement on the airwaves, and in a statement boasted about its high journalistic standards. The lawyer, Nelson, warns that disinformation remains an existential threat to democratic self-government and admits this court will not solve all problems.
Settlement, in perspective
Basic numerical literacy underscores this point.
Anyone expecting Fox News to turn on a dime and start backing down as Donald Trump continues to claim he won the 2020 election might want to check the math.
Yes, $787.5 million is a lot of money, almost half of what Dominion is suing for. And losses can be worse with even larger settings other voting machine companies.
A Dominion lawyer outside a Delaware courthouse on Tuesday hinted at more suits to come, adding: “We’ll see you next time.”
But let’s put the $787.5 million settlement figure in context.
That corresponds to about four percent of the annual revenue of the parent company Fox News, which is trending towards $18 billion this year according to the latest quarterly earnings.
It’s not even the same as one rocky day in the stock market. Certainly not when the network has angered Donald Trump.
Dominion is preparing to argue in court that Fox News willfully misappropriated its money. If the audience wants to rig the election, they will.
That intent was reflected in several Dominion exchanges submitted to the court.
Falling stock prices
Star host Tucker Carlson at one point suggested reporters should be fired for fact-checking Trump’s claims: “You can destroy a company. [Our] the stock price is down,” he said in a text conversation with a co-worker, according to court documents.
Absolutely true.
In just one day, after Trump’s tweet, Fox Corp. shares fell by six percent, and 12 percent for several days in late 2020, after Trump tweeted complaints about the network’s insufficient loyalty and said he would switch to rival Newsmax.
That 12 percent drop is more than $2 billion, based on Fox Corporation’s current market value.
In other words: going out with Trump is a bigger threat, in dollar terms, than anything Dominion has been awarded.
Fox News fears losing supporters as viewers, court documents have shown. And you can see him running at that moment, even in the scene at Trump’s rally after the 2020 election.
Trump supporters in Georgia shouted on the Fox News crew. He was angry that Fox declared Biden won the state of Arizona, and the election.
Others walked past the media pens at the rally and approached reporters to shout the name of Fox News’ rival, the Right-Wing Broadcast Network.
People also stood to take pictures with Scott Presler, an even more passionate election denier and frequent commentator on another rival network, One American News.
Audiences, by the end of 2020, are ready to move on, says Dylan Byers, media writer and founding partner of news site Puck.
“[Murdoch] they feed the lies, they feed the conspiracies, they feed the partisan vitriol — they’ve gotten to the point now, in Frankenstein mode, where they’re almost at the mercy of what they’ve created,” Byers said. The bull podcast.
“If they don’t continue to give us what they want … they’re afraid of losing their audience,” he said, adding that they want the audience to “get crazier and crazier, and more conspiracies.”
Fox News has arranged, in order to reach a settlement, to keep senior staff from appearing on the witness stand.
They are on the verge of being grilled by Dominion lawyers who support the network knowingly, repeatedly, maliciously and intentionally lying about the voting machine.
‘What a disaster’
That last detail – intent – is key. To protect the free press from being abused and sued into oblivion, the US Supreme Court declared in 1964 that a successful libel suit requires proof that the journalist acted with malice, because of knowledge of the falsehood.
Dominion’s legal filing includes emails in which Murdoch called Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s conspiracy about the machine “stupid,” “destructive” and “terrible.”
Fox News’ internal research department, called “Brainroom,” called the claims about Dominion’s machines either baseless or 100 percent false.
Carlson said Trump adviser Sidney Powell was a “crazy man” and “cruel and reckless” for lying “absolutely horrible” that gave Trump supporters, he said, false hope that he could remain president.
Another primetime star, Laura Ingraham, called Powell “a complete nut.” Host Dana Perino says he’s losing sleep over the “bullshit” the network is doing.
The network allegedly warned its staff: Don’t talk about it on air.
Emails sent to the court show company executives asked reporters not to say things that could offend their audience.
One former Fox News star took a shot at the company for abandoning its most important journalistic principles.
Bill O’Reilly said the network has been allowed to pursue profits to defeat the responsibility for honest reporting. He compared that to his own will, on his website, concluding that Trump had lost the election, even though, he said, it cost him more than 1,000 premium subscribers.
He predicted the network would survive but would face a series of painful lawsuits.
“What a disaster,” he wrote. “The nightmare will continue.”
In a sense, the case is somewhat dated, even before it began.
According to preliminary evidence, Carlson wrote a text saying that he hated Trump, and called him a “demonic” force in American life.
For months, Trump was almost banned from Fox News, because Murdoch expressed his preference that Trump could disappear.
But it’s almost another election. Trump is the front runner for the Republican nomination. And there he was again last week, interviewed on Fox’s best show.
And there’s the top host, Carlson, praising Trump. Call him moderate, wise and wise. He avoided forcing back, interjecting or contradicting the subject, like most interviewers would.
In the end, that’s what most people want.
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