A Judge’s Benchmark for the Projections of Arizona for Biden by the Fox Business Network During the 2019 Presidential Campaign: A Response to Fox News Chairman Ed Nelson

Fox has dismissed both suits as attempts to stifle legitimate coverage of election fraud, an allegation made by the president and his top campaign advisers. The original sin in the eyes of the campaign was the projection of Arizona for Biden. The network lost viewers as the more right-wing Newsmax and OAN went Mainstream. Some Fox stars challenged the legitimacy of Biden’s certification in early January.

The lawsuit was filed in March 2021, alleging that the Fox News network knowingly made false statements during the presidential election in order to make money.

In a ruling yesterday, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis affirmed that Dominion should receive the contracts – the point of contention in Tuesday’s hearing.

According to Nelson’s remarks at the hearing, senior Fox News executives interceded to try to block Fox Business stars Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo from having Trump’s campaign attorneys, Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, on their shows to repeat such lies. In late 2020, Dobbs and Bartiromo hosted Trump’s advocates to make those accusations.

In his exchanges with the judge, Keller drew a line distinguishing between a host or producer “who are sometimes pre-scripting material for the show, that is going to be tethered to a specific channel’s telecast” and a network executive.

Fox News executives were fixated on the decline of viewers and so they eliminated senior journalists who were focused on reflecting the facts. Scott wrote to the top publicity executive of Fox News, saying that Sammon was not a good fit for the network. Scott said that Sammon’s job was to protect the brand in the case of projecting Arizona for Biden.

Nelson said a document was obtained from Fox and that it talked about the daily editorial meeting with almost all of the executives.

Dominion sued Fox for airing false claims that it helped cheat then-President Donald Trump of a win in the 2020 elections. Both sides just filed motions asking Davis to grant them victory ahead of the jury trial scheduled to start in April. The motions are under seal, which means they are not public.

The 1964 U.S. Supreme Court decision that involved The New York Times, defined the high bar of actual malice, and included Fox’s actions in broadcasting false information to the public.

No one at Fox would comment on Baker and Glasser’s assertions, other than Baier, who took issue with how his objections were framed. One person with direct knowledge of the Fox election coverage toldNPR that there was a glitch in the control room that caused the delay in calling the White House victory for Biden.

In hosting Fox’s first post-election interview with Trump that November, Bartiromo echoed Trump’s disproven allegations of electoral fraud, saying, “This is disgusting, and we cannot allow America’s election to be corrupted.” She told viewers in mid-December that “an intel source” told her that Trump had won the election. Bartiromo never came back to explain what grounds the source made that statement. (Fox no longer publicly characterizes her as an anchor, which had rooted her in the news side of Fox, as opposed to an opinion host.)

In December 2020, Dobbs contended on the air that Trump’s opponents within the government had committed “treason,” and later suggested any action by a Republican officeholder to uphold Biden’s victory might have been “criminal.” On the same day that Smartmatic filed its own lawsuit against Fox for false accusations of fraud, he left the network. The case isn’t so far along in the process.

Dominion’s legal team asked the court to compel additional testimony from Pirro late last month, arguing that after Fox invoked a reporter’s privilege to shield her from some questions during her deposition. There is a decision about whether or not the person needs to return for questioning.

Fox News has repeatedly defended its conduct, saying the cases of Smartmatic and Dominion are attempts to chill reporting and commentary.

Fox Corp CEO and Executive Chairman Lachlan Murdoch has taken a seemingly conflicting stance halfway across the globe in Australia, where the media magnate and his family live. A political columnist for the magazine Crikey accused the Murdochs of being “unindicted co-conspirators” in the insurrection at the U.S. Congress by Trump supporters because of the false fraud allegations and the hyper-charged rhetoric ahead of the planned rally.

In that case, Murdoch is accusing a much smaller media outlet of defamation. He has forced the site to pay out for highly critical commentary several times previously; Crikey says it intends to use the suit as a test case for recent changes in libel law in that country. Legal cover for media outlets is less in Australia than in the U.S.

The fate of the lawsuit against Fox News is currently in the hands of a judge known for his poker face.

Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis, a 12-year veteran of the state’s bench and former corporate attorney, has often sought to temper emotions in the contentious proceedings between the broadcasting giant and Dominion Voting Systems, a voting-technology company. Each side repeatedly has accused the other of acting in bad faith.

“If he were to be given a name in culture, it would be Cool Hand Luke,” says Joseph Hurley, a criminal defense attorney based in Wilmington who has argued before Davis but has no involvement with the case. “In court, he never shows any emotion, and I mean that in a good way.”

A New York State Attorney General Will File a Motion Against the Newsmax Investigating Reporting of 2020 Election Fraud Messages on a News Channel

The two cases have intersected several times. In his ruling on Smartmatic’s case against Newsmax, Davis cited a Nov. 17, 2020 email sent by Dominion officials to Newsmax relaying evidence that, he said, “cut against the narrative that the election was stolen.”

There were false claims that Smartmatic’s software had switched Trump votes to Biden. Those claims were broadcast on Newsmax, Fox News and elsewhere.

“Here, Smartmatic’s allegations support the presumption that Newsmax’s reporting was not accurate or disinterested,” Davis said.

“It’s obvious that the judge wasn’t having any of the Newsmax arguments at all…” says John Culhane, professor at Delaware Law School.

While Culhane, an authority on defamation law, cautions against drawing too strong a conclusion from the Newsmax ruling, he says Davis “is very clear and he’s very step-by-step when it comes to the law.”

The most prominent stars and highest-ranking executives at Fox News privately ridiculed claims of election fraud in the 2020 election, despite the right-wing channel allowing lies about the presidential contest to be promoted on its air, damning messages contained in a Thursday court filing revealed.

Smartmatic has sued Fox, but that suit is far apart from the one being filed by Dominion. On Tuesday, a New York state appellate court rejected a motion by Fox News to have the case against it thrown out. The claims against Fox Corp were dismissed by the ruling.

The complaint will include more information about the involvement of Murdoch and Murdoch’s sons.

Much like Fox’s lawyers in New York and Delaware, Newsmax’s attorneys similarly cite a legal privilege, known as neutral reportage, allowing it to present “unprecedented allegations without adopting them as true, so that the public could draw its own conclusions” about “a news story of extraordinary public interest.”

While he notes the First Amendment protects reporters in order to guarantee a “robust and unintimidated press,” he also states the “First Amendment is not unlimited.” A neutral reportage principle doesn’t protect the publisher who deliberately distortsstatements to launch a personal attack on a public figure.

The stakes are enormous in the two cases. Davis doesn’t want to amplify his own profile. His court would not allow a photo of him to be used for this story. The Delaware legal bar is famous for its air of comity around the proceedings.

Davis had apologized to the legal teams in the case after reading an email he said was “sarcasm”.

He used a pat phrase. “You know, that typical sarcastic thing that judges say?” Davis asked about it. Don’t let me know I’m wrong. It means that I’m making some kind of statement. But that wasn’t why I was doing it.”

The legal filing made public on Thursday showed how Fox News executives and hosts privately trashed the lie that the 2020 election was rigged.

In one set of messages revealed in the court filing, Carlson texted Ingraham, saying that Sidney Powell, an attorney who was representing the Trump campaign, was “lying” and that he had “caught her” doing so. Ingraham responded, “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy [Giuliani].”

The material presented in the remarkable 178-page brief reflects there were no illusions that there was heft to the allegations of election fraud even among those Fox figures who gave the most intense embrace to Trump allies peddling those lies.

“There will be a lot of noise and confusion generated by Dominion and their opportunistic private equity owners, but the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution and protected by New York Times v. Sullivan,” the network said.

After the election, Trump encouraged his supporters to switch to Newsmax and attacked Fox News. And, in the days and weeks after the presidential contest had been called, they did just that. Newsmax gained significant viewers while Fox News lost some of its audience.

The hosts were so alarmed by Newsmax’s rise, they were enraged when their colleague, White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich, tweeted a mere fact check of Trump’s election lies.

A person with direct knowledge of the matter told CNN that Heinrich was blindsided reading the details in the legal filing and was not aware of the efforts by top hosts behind the scenes to get her fired.

A team led by then-Fox Corp senior vice president Raj Shah, formerly a White House aide to Trump, warned other top corporate leaders of a “Brand Threat” after Cavuto’s refusal to air McEnany’s White House press briefing on baseless claims of voter fraud.

Scott exchanged messages with Lachlan Murdoch, the Fox Corporation chief executive, and outlined a plan to win viewers back. Scott said the right-wing talk channel would “highlight our stars and plant flags letting the viewers know we hear them and respect them.” Murdoch said that the brand needed to be rebuilt without any mistakes.

The Cable News Stars Tell Them Why Weird Reporters Don’t Win: Endorsement of the Fox News Era Revived

Jason Koerner/Getty Images; Jason Koerner/Getty Images; Carolyn Kaster/AP; Alex Brandon/AP; Michael Brochstein/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images; Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images

Off the air, the network’s stars, producers and executives expressed contempt for those same conspiracies, calling them “mind-blowingly nuts,” “totally off the rails” and “completely bs” – often in far earthier terms.

Bill Sammon, the network’s Washington Managing Editor, wrote on Dec. 2, 2020 that it was remarkable how weak ratings made good journalists do bad things. The hit to Fox News’ brand was felt by network executives above him. There was little concern over the journalistic principles of fairness and accuracy, other than some inquires from Murdoch.

The cable network’s attorneys say in a separate filing that the company’s controlling owner wants to enrich itself and that the damages request is designed to generate headlines.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/16/1157558299/fox-news-stars-false-claims-trump-election-2020

When Fox News learned of the Capitol Attack on January 6, 2021, President Donald Trump dialed into Fox News to complain about the lies he had seen

On Nov. 5, 2020, just days after the election, Bret Baier, the network’s chief political anchor texted a friend: “[T]here is NO evidence of fraud. None. Allegations – stories. The social media site, twitter. Bulls—.

Sammon was gone for two months, he didn’t respond to the terms of his departure.

Former President Donald Trump tried to call into Fox News after his supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, but the network refused to put him on air, according to court filings from Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation case against the company.

The House select committee that investigated the January 6 attack did not know that Trump had made this call, according to a source familiar with the panel’s work.

The panel sought to piece together a near minute-by-minute account of Trump’s movements, actions and phone calls on that day. His newly revealed call to Fox News shows some of the gaps in the record that still exist, due to roadblocks the committee faced.

In their legal brief, the lawyers stated that on January 6th, after the Capitol came under attack, then President Trump dialed into Lou Dobbs to try to get on the air.

“But Fox executives vetoed that decision,” Dominion’s filing continued. Why? Not because of a lack of newsworthiness. It was an important event on January 6. President Trump not only was the sitting President, he was the key figure that day.”

The lies took hold of the air even though the network acknowledged the realiity of it, because executives and hosts were afraid of offending their large audience.

Fox News executives and hosts were panicked. Jay Wallace said that Newsmax needed to be on war footing and described its surge as “troubling”.

Hannity said he had already spoken to Scott about the matter. He then proceeded to criticize two of his other colleagues, Fox News host Neil Cavuto and then-Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, both of whom were critical of Trump.

According to the legal filing, executives at Fox News worried about alienating him when he criticized them. Scott sent a note and a gift to him, according to the filing.