If there is anything that resembles a so-called “smoking gun” in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox, this might be it.
Court documents released Monday show that Rupert Murdoch, chair of Fox News’ parent company, acknowledged that several Fox News hosts “were endorsing” the false narrative that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election.
Under oath in a deposition held last month, Murdoch was asked specifically about hosts Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo. Murdoch said, “Some of our commentators were endorsing it. I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it, in hindsight.”
Asked if Pirro endorsed such false claims, Murdoch said, “I think so.” When asked about Dobbs, a former host, Murdoch said, “A lot.” When asked about Hannity, Murdoch said, “A bit.”
Murdoch, however, denied that the network itself endorsed such claims, and mentioned how Fox News was the first to call Arizona for Joe Biden — a key state in swinging the election in Biden’s favor. Murdoch said in the deposition that following the 2020 election, Fox was “trying to straddle the line between spewing conspiracy theories on one hand, yet calling out the fact that they are actually false on the other.”
Murdoch added, “We were treating it as news that the president and his lawyers were saying this.”
That has been Fox News’ defense all along — that it was news that Trump and his advisers were saying the election was fraudulent and that Fox was merely covering that news. Dominion is claiming that Fox News knew claims that the election was rigged were false but aired them anyway. Last week, other court documents showed some Fox News executives and on-air personalities, in private texts and messages, expressed disbelief about the false election claims, but such theories were still promoted on the air. Some messages showed that there was concern about offending Fox News viewers if the network was to totally shut down Trump’s claims.
In a statement on Monday, Fox News said, “Dominion’s lawsuit has always been more about what will generate headlines than what can withstand legal and factual scrutiny, as illustrated by them now being forced to slash their fanciful damages demand by more than half a billion dollars after their own expert debunked its implausible claims. Their summary judgment motion took an extreme, unsupported view of defamation law that would prevent journalists from basic reporting and their efforts to publicly smear Fox for covering and commenting on allegations by a sitting President of the United States should be recognized for what it is: a blatant violation of the First Amendment.”
But some legal experts said the documents released last week were a gut punch to Fox News. Laurence Tribe, a former Harvard law professor, told The Washington Post, “I think that Dominion both will and should prevail.”
Sonja R. West, a First Amendment scholar at the University of Georgia law school, told the Post that last week’s documents were “incredibly damning” to Fox.
Then came Monday’s news of Murdoch’s deposition.
Dominion lawyers asked Murdoch whether he could have ordered Fox News to keep Trump lawyers (and leading election conspiracy theorists) such as Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani off the air, Murdoch said, “I could have. But I didn’t.”
Murdoch also said it was “wrong” for MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, a Trump supporter and one of the leading voices in the false claims of a rigged election, to appear on Tucker Carlson’s show in January 2021.
Monday’s documents also revealed that former House Speaker Paul Ryan, who sits on the Fox Corp. board, warned Rupert and his son, Lachlan Murdoch, “that Fox News should not be spreading conspiracy theories.”
Ryan went on to tell the Murdochs, “We are entering a truly bizarre phase of this where (Trump) has actually convinced himself of this farce and will do more bizarre things to delegitimize the election. I see this as a key inflection point for Fox, where the right thing and the smart business thing to do line up nicely.”
Meanwhile, The Washington Post’s Jeremy Barr, Sarah Ellison and Rachel Weiner reported one more nugget from Monday: “In a particularly explosive part of the filing, Dominion alleges that Murdoch provided Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, with confidential network information about Joe Biden’s ads as well as debate strategy, citing an exhibit that remains under seal.”
We still have a long way to go before a conclusion, but it sure looks as if Fox is facing some serious headwinds.
The trial is scheduled to begin in April in Delaware.
Adams dumped by distributor
Following his racist comments last week, Scott Adams saw his Dilbert comic strip dumped by hundreds of newspapers across the country. (I wrote about this in Monday’s newsletter.)
On Monday, it got even worse for Adams. Andrews McMeel Universal, the distributor of the Dilbert comic, announced on Twitter that it was cutting ties with Adams.
In a statement signed by chairman Hugh Andrews and CEO/president Andy Sareyan, the distributor said, “As a media and communications company, AMU values free speech. We are proud to promote and share many different voices and perspectives. But we will never support any commentary rooted in discrimination or hate. Recent comments by Scott Adams regarding race and race relations do not align with our core values as a company.”
The note went on to say, “Our creator-first approach is foundational to AMU, and we deeply value our relationships with our creators. However, in the case of Adams, our vision and principles are not compatible.”
As Associated Press media reporter David Bauder wrote, Dilbert has “disappeared with lightning speed.”
Enough, already
CNN and SiriusXM host Michael Smerconish says it’s time to stop paying attention to the controversy involving Adams, the Rasmussen poll that Adams was quoting and Twitter boss Elon Musk for seemingly backing Adams.
Here’s the clip where Smerconish says, in part, “Adams is a lot of things. He’s not a dope. He’s a smart guy. So he was not speaking off the cuff and got himself in trouble. He knew what he was saying.”
Smerconish said maybe Adams was ready to put away his Dilbert pen and wanted to be “provocative.” And Musk wants to make sure all this takes place on Twitter.
“So they all got exactly what they wanted,” Smerconish said about Rasmussen, Adams and Musk. “They want ears and they want eyes and they got all of the above. Let’s not give them any more oxygen.”
The latest at the Times
Vanity Fair’s Charlotte Klein has a new piece out: “Inside The New York Times Blowup Over Transgender Coverage.” Klein wrote about the latest with the ongoing issue, including a recent all-hands meeting where top editors addressed the staff.
Klein writes, “The Times’ journalistic mission, as framed by the masthead that day, may have seemed cut-and-dried. And yet a week later, the newsroom would be embroiled in debates over objectivity and ‘activism,’ as criticism of the paper’s coverage of transgender issues sparked a series of exchanges involving Times leaders, staffers, contributors, and the paper’s union. The current dispute, ostensibly about transgender coverage, has reignited past concerns about how the Times covers marginalized groups, as well as whether younger, so-called ‘woke’ staff are helping shift the paper’s journalistic values.”
Klein reviewed all that has happened in recent weeks and how the Times is attempting to move forward.
Klein wrote, “The most recent clash at the Times is playing out as a kind of Rorschach test, seeming to buttress, or even confirm, one’s perspective on where the paper is going off course. The Times is either overreaching to appease critics and marginalized groups, and veering toward ‘activism,’ or it’s clinging to a pose of neutrality that allows management to brush off legitimate scrutiny of coverage, especially as it pertains to race and gender. And the NewsGuild is either protecting workers’ rights or overstepping its mandate.”
Klein also mentions how this is the first real test for Joe Kahn, who took over as executive editor of the Times last June.
Check out Klein’s story for way more details.
Bezos blocked
Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)
Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos might be among the richest people in the world, but there’s something he cannot buy: the National Football League’s Washington Commanders.
The Athletic and the New York Post both reported that current Commanders owner Daniel Snyder is blocking Bezos from making a bid. The reason? According to the reports, Snyder is upset at Bezos’ Washington Post for reporting on stories documenting a culture of sexual harassment with the Commanders that ultimately are the reason Snyder is being urged to sell the team in the first place.
The Athletic’s Ben Standig and Daniel Kaplan wrote, “… it is always possible the NFL pressures Snyder to let Bezos bid. Bezos’ Amazon is an NFL partner through its broadcast of Thursday Night Football. And there is even talk Bezos could sell the Post, though whether that is enough for Snyder and his apparent visceral dislike of anything connected to the newspaper, is uncertain.”
Meanwhile, late Monday, The Washington Post’s Mark Maske, Nicki Jhabvala and Liz Clarke wrote, “Daniel Snyder’s demands anger NFL owners, renew talk of voting him out.”
Media tidbits
- NPR television critic Eric Deggans ranks the guest hosts of “The Daily Show” (so far).
- New York Post sports media columnist Andrew Marchand reports that Derek Jeter is expected to make his Fox Sports debut as a Major League Baseball analyst on June 24 when Fox will air a game from London featuring the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals.
- My Poynter colleague, Al Tompkins, with “Standard General’s takeover of Tegna is headed to judicial review — and a long delay.”
An extra long Hot Type …
There are so many good stories that I wanted to link to today that Hot Type went from its normal three links to, well, many more. Here is today’s extra-long Hot Type:
- This oral history from Politico Magazine is from last week, but worth your time. Erin Banco, Garrett M. Graff, Lara Seligman, Nahal Toosi and Alexander Ward with “‘Something Was Badly Wrong’: When Washington Realized Russia Was Actually Invading Ukraine.”
- Led by Aisha Harris and Dan Kois, Slate polled a group of experts — industry and critical authorities — to assemble the list of the 75 best movies by Black directors.
- CNN’s Catherine E. Shoichet with “He deported thousands of people, then learned he was undocumented.”
- One more from CNN, Casey Tolan with “A proposed ‘takeover’ has sparked a battle for power in one of America’s Blackest big cities.”
- The New York Times’ Oliver Whang with “Is There an Ethical Way to Kill Rats? Should We Even Ask?”
- Wall Street Journal sports columnist Jason Gay with “I Thought Baseball Games Were Too Slow. Now They’re Too Fast?”
More resources for journalists
- Subscribe to Poynter’s Friday newsletter, Open Tabs with Poynter managing editor Ren LaForme, and get behind-the-scenes stories only available to subscribers.
- How to Improve Your Coverage of LGBTQ+ Communities (Webinar) — Start anytime.
- Poynter’s Beat Academy (March-Oct.) (Webinar series) — Enroll now.
- Lead With Influence (July 2023) (Seminar) — Apply by June 2.
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