Fox News Devoid of Coverage of Defamation Suit Against it
While most major news sources have covered the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit involving Fox News brought by Dominion Voting Systems, one major “news” outlet has been noticeably absent any coverage of the court proceedings: Fox News.
This leaves a significant population of Americans, including in this valley and across Colorado, those who rely upon Fox News almost exclusively for their national news, completely uninformed. The case is set to go to trial in April. Deposition details in the case have become public over the past few weeks and a lot of it reveals astounding hypocrisy.
The depositions represent mounting evidence that the Chair of the Fox News parent company Rupert Murdoch, Fox News executives, and show hosts knew that claims of a rigged 2020 presidential election were not true. In fact, their top-level and private messages, texts, and testimony appear to show that Fox News executives and on-air personalities knew that it was a lie.
But rather than reporting the truth, they kept up the facade that they were simply covering the allegations made by former President Donald Trump and his advisers. Reporters who attempted to cover the truth lost their jobs.
As The Intercept reported this week, when a Fox News reporter fact-checked a message from Trump and concluded there was no evidence of voter fraud, Tucker Carlson wrote, “Please get her fired. It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.”
Dominion says that in reality, Fox News was afraid of “offending” their viewers (that could be translated as losing viewers) by presenting them with the truth. The truth, if it lost viewership, this would mean lost revenue, and Fox executives surely didn’t want to see that happen. Dominion claims that because of that, those at Fox News continued to knowingly spread false information on the air; not just immediately after the 2020 election, but continuously over time.
Murdoch himself could be seen to admit this when in his deposition he has described their position as “we weren’t reporting news as red or blue, it’s green.”
In other words, it appears in the depositions that Fox not only put profits ahead of journalistic integrity but of our responsibility as journalists.
If this were in the past, and Fox News was now covering what is occurring in pre-trial preparations and the information being revealed by depositions, that would at least catch up Fox viewers on what is occurring. But that is not the case.
Howard Kurtz, host of the Fox News show about the media “MediaBuzz,” has gone on record, telling his viewers that although he knows this is news, and he wants to report on what is being revealed in the depositions, he says that Fox executives have ordered him not to mention the story on the air as of now:
So Fox News is at the center of news — but it is news that their own viewers will likely not see or hear. Why? Because it has spent many years conditioning its viewers not to trust any other news media source.
It is likely that Fox News viewers reading this may not believe us, but if they simply Google “Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems,” they will find numerous news articles and coverage of what is already being revealed.
As the sordid details are coming out, including the fact that Murdoch was “done with Trump” after the election, former President Donald Trump is lashing out at Fox News head Murdoch. He is attacking Murdoch, who admitted that the ad creative submitted to Fox from the Biden campaign leading up to the 2020 election was being shared with the Trump campaign. This is an ethical decision that is an absolute “no-no” in legitimate news media.
The Washington Post’s long-time motto happens to be a promise that we agree with; “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” That which is not even allowed to enter the light can’t be seen or believed. At Ark Valley Voice, by covering this we articulate our journalist responsibility that “truth has a voice.”
I think the most surprising thing about this news is that anyone is surprised.
Fox News themselves define themselves as “entertainment” whenever they’re dragged into court over some stunt they’ve pulled. They claim in court that no reasonable person could take seriously the things said by Tucker Carlson – that the things he and other Fox News hosts say are so dumb and outrageous on their face that no one would ever take him seriously. It seems to be an effective defense in court, but I don’t think most of the viewers of Fox News have gotten the news that Fox News isn’t news – it is angertainment engineered to keep their viewers angry and engaged with the network.
The best thing about this story has been learning that the Fox Hosts feel the same way that I feel about Sydney Powell – that she’s a laughable loon that anyone with a brain would dismiss immediately. I’m sure one thing you’ll never see on Fox News is the fact that Powells primary source for all of this election fraud was a time-traveling mystic!
It is just frauds all the way down on the right these days, and we can thank Trump for making that the norm for the Republican Party.
For the guy who lumped in The Blaze and The Daily Wire with normal news organizations as if The Blaze and the Daily Wire aren’t both rightwing trash news sites – thanks for the laughs. When I want to know what Kanye West has to say about Jewish people, I’ll check the Daily Wire to see what his pal Candeath has to say.
First, not sure how relevant an article on perceived bias at Foxnews is broadly relevant to Arkansas Valley readers, or, The Voice is simply being used as a platform to discredit a known conservative company in an effort to amplify personal biases. Second, while I agree Foxnews should cover the suit because it’s news, many other “news” sites like MSNBC and CNN frequent fail to cover, or had limited coverage of nationally relevant events as well. In my opinion, the mainstream media is simply a business, and like other businesses they are profit driven. What it seems is that due to, or because of, the divisions in our nation, mainstream media simply cashes in on our preexisting biases. Further, it seems pretty obvious from the information released from the Twitter files, certain entities (on both sides of the aisle) are using media (cable and social) as vehicles to influence public opinion. So, my suggestion as an Arkansas Valley resident is to keep your content limited to local issues and not as a partisan platform for your opinions.
Thanks for AVV. I read your reports every day. We, in this valley, are fortunate to have you and your staff publish the truth about critical issues.
Tom Golson
Salida
To be fair, the CNN app doesn’t have mention of the story anywhere on the main story page. If you use the search feature, there are two stories written by the same analyst, but you would have to specifically search for the story if you get your news from the CNN app. Fox News does not have the story on their app at all.
If you are getting your news from any one source, you are missing out. There is no single source of unbiased information. You should get all sides: Fox, CNN, Blaze, MSNBC, DailyWire, AVV, etc then probably average them and make your own decision.
Sadly, this was all predictable as Murdoch has done this before with the Hitler Diaries. It is a shame that our GOP reps and citizens do not have the ability to discern right from wrong or fact from fiction. The republican citizens should be insulted that their reps think they are so gullible as to believe the things promoted on Fox, but they seem to be willing to ignore sense in order to get away with unbridled hatred and discrimination and an excuse to use their weapons on their fellow citizen for fun. It is my opinion that the members of congress who supported this farce and caused Jan 6 to happen by repeatedly refusing to correct their misrepresentation in order to keep political power should be eliminated from congress. Watching them continue to get away with their attempts to gut our democracy with these lies is devastating. and so is the fact that such a large percentage of our law enforcement community is also taking advantage of this situation to practice excessive force and discrimination in the name of justice.