Much of the media oddly rejoiced after the nearly $800 million settlement between Fox News and Dominion Voting and were ecstatic after the network parted ways with its top-rated host, Tucker Carlson.
Many on competing networks also groaned only because they missed the long-awaited trial they hoped would embarrass big names like Carlson and Sean Hannity.
Their celebration is unprincipled and disingenuous.
There was a time where reputable news organizations expressed concern about defamation lawsuits. Fox News is the exception because it leans right and has been a ratings juggernaut.
The giddiness among talking heads is couched in terms of upholding journalistic and even democratic principles. But it’s clearly personal animosity.
Jake Tapper, certainly more credible than most other CNN hosts, laughed hysterically on the air. When reading the Fox statement on the air, Tapper said, “I’m sorry. This is going to be difficult to say with a straight face,” then laughed aloud reading about “continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards.”
This coming from CNN, which touted the Russia collusion conspiracy theory for four years of the Trump administration?
Let’s remember that CNN, as well as The Washington Post, had to settle with the Covington Catholic School student Nick Sandman in a defamation case for clearly irresponsible reporting smearing a kid. These were significantly smaller settlements, but it seems a bit more unconscionable for a giant media corporation to smear a teenager just because they can, than for a giant media corporation to besmirch a giant voting machine corporation.
This is by no means a defense of Fox News.
As The Wall Street Journal, the nation’s largest circulation newspaper, said: “One journalistic lesson of the Dominion case is not to indulge crank claims because your audience wants to hear them.”
“That includes claims about Russian collusion or stolen elections,” the newspaper continued. “Mr. Trump could never admit he defeated himself in 2020, so he claimed the election was stolen. He tweeted a false ‘report’ about Dominion, and the grifters who attend him, then and now, spread it.”
Fox News settled after an embarrassing process. Another lawsuit still awaits with Smartmatic over airing similar crazy things Team Trump said after the 2020 election.
There are caveats about these crazy conspiracy theories. Trump’s legal team vented outrageous claims on opinion programs–often with no follow up question. News programming–by contrast–took a decidedly more serious approach.
But the bottom line is Fox should be accountable. The text messages that emerged in the lawsuit suggest the talk hosts were skeptical about Trump’s claims of a stolen election but said the opposite on the air. The texts further show that Fox personnel were increasingly worried about losing to Newsmax, as the smaller news network took the lead in a few timeslots.
Such concerns were paranoid, as Fox eventually regained the decisive ratings advantage. Clearly in hindsight, the network would have been well-served riding out the ratings dip.
After Trump’s victory in 2016, MSNBC used wall-to-wall Russia conspiracy coverage to gain a rating edge in primetime as the Trump-opposition network. But it was all short lived, and Fox was back on top within a few months in 2017. The same thing would have happened here had Fox continued business as usual. It was an unforced error.
During the Trump years, CNN, seeing potential gold, set out to be MSNBC Jr. There was a temporary ratings bump, but it didn’t really work, and the network only lost credibility.
To somehow claim Fox is unique among major news outlets is just dishonest.
Columbia Journalism Review, hardly a rightwing source, did a devastating takedown of the irresponsible media coverage of the Russia hoax in a six-part series offering a textbook case of how not to do journalism. Almost every major news outlet took the most outrageous, conspiratorial claims seriously. The Pulitzer board even beclowned itself (wouldn’t be the first time) in awarding prizes for puffed up Russia stories that needed correction later.
Then special counsel Robert Mueller, who was supposed to be the white knight of the Democratic and media establishment, issued a report that brought their hopes and dreams crashing down. Other than Trump himself, it’s difficult to identify a clear plaintiff who could show damage here as was the case with Dominion.
But the bad journalism in this case perhaps had more severe consequences. Also, unlike with Fox, the nonsense about Russia ran on the front pages and led newscasts, rather than being mostly confined to the opinion corner.
The Columbia Journalism Review dissects the Russia hoax coverage as being part confirmation bias, part access journalism by the reporters covering it who wanted to please their sources.
Missing from the CJR’s equation is that the Russia, Russia, Russia obsession gave the audience what it wants. For The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and especially MSNBC, anti-Trump conspiracy coverage fed the audience’s confirmation bias, and was good for the ratings.
The same might surely be said of Fox or other outlets who indulged Team Trump’s fanciful claims about Venezuela-controlled voting machines and other tall tales.
It would be nice if this settlement could provide a moment of introspection for media across the political spectrum. But we all know, such hopefulness would truly be fake news.
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Barbara Joanna Lucas is a writer and researcher in Northern Virginia. She has been a healthcare professional, political blogger, is a proud dog mom, and news junkie. Follow her on Twitter @BasiaJL.
