On screen, Fox News personalities paint a world of clear heroes and villains, where conservatives are always strong and right and liberals are weak and wrong. But the extraordinary private communications revealed in the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox show who they really are. Panicked over Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, those same hosts, and the executives who run the network, cowered in abject terror.
They feared the same monster that keeps House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) up at night, the monster that conservative media and Republican politicians created: base voters who are deluded, angry and vengeful. …
At the same time, Fox News tried to suppress the truth. Reporters for the organization who corrected false claims were reprimanded and threatened. One reporter who fact-checked Powell and Giuliani was told by her boss that executives were not happy about it and that she should do a better job of “respecting our audience.” When Fox truthfully reported Joe Biden’s victory, Carlson texted his producer: “Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we’ve lost with our audience? We’re playing with fire, for real.” When another reporter fact-checked a Trump tweet spreading lies about stolen votes, Carlson demanded that the reporter be fired.
They feared losing viewers to other cables news purveyors such as notoriously far-right NewsMax and OAN. Why? Not because of some sort of ego-trip over the number of viewers Fox News has, which generally is more than any of their competitors, but because each and every viewer represents money for Fox News. Does this seem obvious? Sure, but it’s worth remembering and repeating, and I’ll tell you why.
A sampling of the sectors of society on sale today.
For those readers who haven’t struggled through my Sectors of Society series, I’ll summarize it thusly: the importation of methods developed to service the goals of one sector of society, such as the private sector and its goal of making money[1], do not automatically well serve another sector. Why? Because measuring optimality, which is the foundation of such a claim, is entirely dependent on the context in which the method was developed. Thus, when a businessman proclaims themselves, as a successful CEO, well-suited for a legislative or government executive seat, it’s entirely appropriate for voters to shake their heads in extreme doubt. If that’s the extent of their claims to government competency, then they have none at all.
This extends to selection of metrics. In order to have an excellent and essential free press sector, we need to select metrics that encourage what we desire from the free press news reporting function: truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth, yes?
Yes.
Money, as a metric in this context, does not encourage excellence; it encourages free press new function as fantasy-satisfaction. If your audience desires to be told that climate change is a fantasy of the left, that crime is caused by the inferiority of those committing same rather than the result of inferior societal policies, that owning more and more guns brings you more and more protection, well, guess what?
The news purveyor who desires money as their most important goal will arrange to convey these messages, overtly and covertly, to their viewers, confident that money may be made off their viewership[2].
And, as might be surmised, the individuals making up Fox News also place money over other less tangible values, as becomes apparent from reading the summaries of the depositions in the DVS suit. Hannity clearly has little use for honesty; Tucker Carlson, perhaps at the apex of the Fox News front line world, is notorious for minimizing the January 6th Insurrection, claiming it was instigated by the FBI or antifa, and for opposing aid to Ukraine, almost as if he were an agent of Moscow. In the current suit, the filing of importance notes:
Meanwhile, later that night of November 12, Ingraham was still texting with Hannity and Carlson. In their group text thread, Carlson pointed Hannity to a tweet by Fox reporter Jacqui Heinrich. Heinrich was “fact checking” a tweet by Trump that mentioned Dominion—and specifically mentioned Hannity’s and Dobbs’ broadcasts that evening discussing Dominion. Heinrich correctly fact-checked the tweet, pointing out that “top election infrastructure officials” said that “‘There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.’”
Carlson told Hannity: “Please get her fired. Seriously….What the fuck? I’m actually shocked…It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.” Tucker added: “I just went crazy on Meade over it.” Id. at FNN035_03890512. Hannity said he had “already sent to Suzanne with a really?” He then added: “I’m 3 strikes. Wallace shit debate[.] Election night a disaster[.] Now this BS? Nope. Not gonna fly. Did I mention Cavuto?”
Hannity indeed had discussed with Scott. Hannity texted his team: “I just dropped a bomb.” Suzanne Scott received the message. She told Jay Wallace and Fox News’ SVP for Corporate Communications Irena Briganti: “Sean texted me—he’s standing down on responding but not happy about this and doesn’t understand how this is allowed to happen from anyone in news. She [Heinrich] has serious nerve doing this and if this gets picked up, viewers are going to be further disgusted.” By the next morning, Heinrich had deleted her fact-checking tweet.
This suit may be a devastating blow to Fox News, and their devotion to the false goals of money, money, and more money, with allegiance to truth nowhere in sight, will not be of any help to them. After all, the free press news functions ideally operate under the flag of truth, even in America. Thus, their devotion to a goal inappropriate to their sector is coming around to damage them, and, hopefully, to an extent that gets the attention of their audience. Indeed, firing the entire on-air crew would not be inappropriate punishment, as their relentless pursuit of profit, indifference to truth, and the consequential polarization of America is certainly a matter of importance: One does not piss in one’s own living room.
And, returning to an earlier point, a good metric? Maybe start with Pulitzer Prizes.
1 Itself a dubious goal.
2 It may be argued that the audience should have higher standards, especially since there are alternative media sources that provide closer renditions of the facts on the ground. Such is the frailties of mankind, eternally prey for the confirmation bias monster.
