Fox misled its viewers.
It was cynical. Dishonest. Morally wrong.
And good business.
"We completed another successful year at FOX, with Fiscal 2022 results demonstrating the strength and durability of our core brands and their ability to deliver consistent audiences across the entirety of FOX. These results validate the strategy we embarked on three years ago. . . . ."
Lachlan Murdoch, Fox CEO, August 2022
Readers who watch mainstream TV or who read the New York Times or Washington Post observe gloating over the supposed comeuppance in store for Fox. The Dominion lawsuit may cost Fox over a billion dollars! It will destroy them!
I beg to differ. Readers who perceive Fox News as a threat to American democracy need to understand that none of this hurts Fox. It helps them.
First, recognize that Fox may not lose the case. News organizations routinely present points of view they don't agree with. It is a gray area and there is a strong presumption of freedom of speech and the press in presenting election controversy. The freedom to present a variety of ideas is a good thing for democracy. Readers ought not to be quick to hope Fox loses this. The next case may be the New York Times or the comment section of this blog.
Second, it is not clear what the financial damages are to Dominion, if any. Two years ago Dominion was unknown. Now Dominion is a household name. Two years ago the world presumed Dominion tabulated votes correctly. Now there is audited and re-audited demonstration that they tabulate correctly. Some bright red jurisdictions will refuse to use Dominion machines to avoid local criticism and controversy, but that wasn't just Fox's doing. It was Trump's and that of other election-denying politicians. County clerks who discard Dominion machines are bowing to pressure from many directions.
Doesn't all this hurt Fox's reputation? Won't a trial further expose that they are distorting news to suit their audience's ignorance and prejudices? Isn't that catastrophic for them?No. It is the opposite. Consumers of conservative media barely hear about this lawsuit. It isn't covered by them. When bits and pieces of this news drifts in from elsewhere, Republican voters have been well alerted that the information is "fake," or at least deeply biased. It is just more lies from the liberal elite media.
Fox is winning points for loyalty. Loyalty is a stronger value than "truth." Loyalty is evident and measurable. "Truth" is questionable and a matter of opinion. Facts can be disputed. Tucker Carlson showed video of people just standing there. Some people weren't rioting. See? Facts show they were just sightseers.
Fox News is very profitable. They have a business model of catering to the Republican team.
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| FOX REPORTS FULL YEAR FISCAL 2022 REVENUES OF $13.97 BILLION, NET INCOME OF $1.23 BILLION, AND ADJUSTED EBITDA OF $2.96 BILLION |
No doubt Fox would prefer not to write a check for a billion dollars, but they could. It would be the cost of doing business. Insofar as their audience heard about it at all, the audience would learn it would be "liberal cancel culture" at work against the good-guy Fox. When Johnson & Johnson learned that its Tylenol packages had been tampered with they took them off the shelves immediately, to great fanfare and at a cost of millions. They destroyed them to more fanfare. They put new pills on shelves packaged in tamperproof containers. Johnson & Johnson was a hero, the victim who paid the price to protect their customers. Tylenol was re-positioned as the safest tablet to take. It was a huge win.
Cheerleaders are not judged on their objectivity. They are expected to cheer win! win! win! when their team is objectively losing. They are advocates and fans are fans. We expect loyalty from cheerleaders. Fox anchors lied. All the better proof of their loyalty.
Fox is not a news organization. They pretend to be but no one is fooled. They are a cheerleader for the Republican brand, and they are protecting that very profitable business.
8 comments:
"They pretend to be but no one is fooled."
Not so, many are completely fooled, that's the issue. Whatever the outcome of the case the FOX brand will be tarnished for some who have some inkling of reality, one hopes.
I think the more interesting aspect of this is that apparently they have chosen to continue the election questioning, albeit not mentioning Dominion, as a defense. This is maintaining the Republican party line. You would think they would dial back the rhetoric, but that would be seen as an admission of guilt. However, this also would make it seem that the revelations of the behind the scenes cynicism are even more dispositive.
It's also interesting that we would not have unassailable factual evidence of FOX's utter disdain for its own audience without this suit. It's nice to be proven correct on some point.
This case will wind its way to some conclusion, but not anytime soon, so I'd prefer MSNBC and the others scale back coverage with the interminable speculation and schadenfreude. FOX will survive, maybe a bit beat up, maybe escape unscathed, who knows? FOX and its audience have a toxic codependent relationship which will certainly not be much affected.
Trump’s many lies propelled him into the presidency, especially his racist “birther” conspiracy. When he was voted out of office, his party became inextricably intertwined with his biggest lie yet – that he had won. Fox accurately reflects its intended audience and the party it serves, people who prefer their own perverted view of reality regardless of the facts.
The other day, Peter featured an ad that glorified violent insurrectionists and their ringleader as they made a mockery of our national anthem and pledge of allegiance. It doesn’t bode well for our nation’s future that most Republicans probably consider their offensive performance “patriotic.” Fox is just more of the same – no honor, no shame.
The first thing to note is that Fox News is an entertainment media company. Fox produces entertainment for its conservative viewers. It may present itself as a news source, but in actuality it produces entertainment.
The sad fact is that when big media companies began monetizing hard news the content became “infotainment “ and was produced to instill emotional impact as a hook to gain viewership and advertising revenue. Fox News is a logical consequence of this phenomenon. Much the same, MSNBC.
In my opinion, about the only TV media news producer who is immune to the infotainment influence is Public Broadcasting. And sadly, in our highly polarized society, PBS efforts to be impartial sometimes leads to painful attempts to find legitimacy in difficult controversial arguments.
We stopped watching MSNBC because there was so much doom and gloom that we were getting deeply depressed. As retired seniors there isn’t much we can do anymore about societies ills and we deserve some enjoyment in our “golden” years.
Fox News had a choice: they could either jettison their unprofitable straight news business, or jettison their wildly profitable opinion business. Unsurprisingly, they went for the money. If they had made the other choice, an outfit like NewsMax would have stepped in to take over the market that Fox abandoned. The situation would have remained exactly the same, except for a new label on the stream of right wing opinion.
Rush Limbaugh died; Bill O’Reilly was taken off the playing field by allegations of sexual harassment; new right wing opinion leaders immediately stepped in to take their places. Even if the current storm of criticism destroyed Fox News, a new source would immediately replace it.
People who criticize Fox News for the choice they made are missing the larger point: what created the market for the opinions of Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Tucker Carlson? Fox News didn’t do it; economic abandonment and scorn from cultural elites did.
“Learn to code, racist” is not a winning message. The bitter clingers and deplorables are mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore. I don’t blame them…
The attitude of Fox “News” toward its poor, oppressed masses is like a cynical parody of Marie Antoinette: “Let them eat bullshit.”
You could have made your case that Fox wasn't hurt financially by its wrong-doing without making assertions that are, in fact, harmful and unworthy of you. Here's one:
"News organizations routinely present points of view they don't agree with. It is a gray area and there is a strong presumption of freedom of speech and the press in presenting election controversy. The freedom to present a variety of ideas is a good thing for democracy. Readers ought not to be quick to hope Fox loses this. The next case may be the New York Times or the comment section of this blog."
News organizations may reference someone voicing an opinion they don't agree with, or interview such a person on a show or publish an op ed by such a person. But Peter, surely you can see how different that is from writing or voicing such opinions as your own knowing you believe they are wrong. When The News Hour interviews a Republican member of Congress who may say something the News Hour hosts think is wrong, the News Hour isn't putting its imprimatur on that opinion. When Tucker Carlson and other Fox "News" hosts voice those opinions, they carry with their audience the Fox seal of approval.
Take another of your assertions: "'Truth' is questionable and a matter of opinion. Facts can be disputed. Tucker Carlson showed video of people just standing there. Some people weren't rioting. See? Facts show they were just sightseers." You can do better than this, Peter. Yes, no one has all of the truth of almost any subject, but there are better understandings and worse understandings, and people with integrity seek the best understanding they can achieve at any given time. You know very well that Tucker Carlson didn't do that with the security camera footage from Jan. 6. And there is a limit to how much facts can be disputed. Did the sun come up this morning? Did you publish this blog today?
Don't poison the well, Peter. You drink from it.
Herb Rothschild’s comment suggests to me that I was unclear in my paragraph about the arguability of “truth.” Carlson found some moments when some people inside the Capitol were just standing there. From that he had the evidence basis for the patentently false claim that there was no riot. The “See” that I wrote was Carlson’s claim. Not mine. Sometimes I put the words of others in italics, as a soft quote, words of others. What Carlson did was wrong, cynical, dishonest: the large font headline of my post. But I suppose I was unclear.it may have appeared that I thought Carlson something less than my headline. No. He lied.
However, Herb did understand me correctly, I think, when I suggested that this case was not a slam dunk for Dominion. The behavior of the Fox people was outrageous and, as I headlined, dishonest, but there are hours and hours of tape of various hosts discussing ballot tabulation, and sometimes they will have essentially endorsed the Dominion Lie, and other times they will have just introduced it neutrally as a controversy. Fox can cherry-pick out of the many hours of tape to make their argument that they were sometimes-mostly neutral. They will have an arguable case forcalling it a gray area, the term I used. In matters of freedom of the press, they have a huge presumption of freedom. Do I think Fox was wrong and dishonest? Yes. Please look at the headline yet again. Am I certain they have legal peril in a trial? No. Not certain.
The proof of my assertion of uncertainty will be if the case settles. It means that even the Dominion people think there is risk of disappointment. Some doubt. Some gray. Some chance some jurors will think Fox was presenting, not endorsing. Every experience imhave had around lawyers and lawsuits is their warning about risks that some people will just see it the other way. Trials are uncertain. It is why nearly every case settles.
The dispute over Twitter now presents that push and pull of gray. When is a platform neutral, and when not? How much of a nudge is ok and not ok. The area is gray, and the ground is shifting over the responsibility of a platform. There is a damned if you do, damned if you don’s element to presenting other points of view. I moderate the comments here to stop incivilityband defamation. In doing so, i have shaped the comments. That makes the comment tone in some sense mine. I get strong critics form people who think the comments are hugely biased. But aren’t these the voices of Herb and Rick and Trigoboff and Mike and Dave? Yes, but ,y critics think I am composing a symphony out of their voices, shaped by what I censor. I am not at legal risk for that shaping. I am insignificant. But Twitter is at risk.
Peter Sage
What about the local FOX affiliate? The networks influence the local stations, in spite of the locals claiming it doesn't.
And we all know Sinclair controls KTVL.
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