Fox "News"

A partial reckoning

Credit: Chip Somodevilla 

There’s no getting around it: $787.5 million is a lot of money. 

But when you divide that total by the number of lies Fox “News” has disgorged over the years, it doesn’t seem like all that much. And then there is this: Rupert Murdoch has an established record of buying his way out of legal troubles, and now he’s done it again. At an exceptionally high price, but still.

In the days since the sudden announcement that Fox “News” had settled the defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, many who had been desperate for accountability were left wrestling with a sense of unfinished business. Already the legal proceedings represented a well-deserved black eye for Fox through damaging revelations in documents released during the discovery phase. But a trial, with the potential for a daily drip of damning information and sanctimonious Fox hosts and executives squirming under oath trying to defend the indefensible, could have proven to be much more — a bright spotlight on Fox’s perfidy and a cleansing exercise for American democracy. 

Rupert Murdoch and his lavishly paid team of manure-spewers have consistently undermined the health and security of the United States by fracturing the country with their carefully cultivated lies and false narratives. The embarrassing texts, emails, and other communications brought to light in this case confirmed what many had long suspected: The well-coiffed hosts spouting off from Fox’s plush New York studios have a cynical contempt for their viewers and the truth. They knew what was real, and they didn’t care — even if it meant a violent insurrectionist mob storming the Capitol to undermine a free and fair election. 

These people care about their narrow self-interest, which they define in terms of revenue and market share, over the well-being of the nation. They are eager to feature packs of liars on their shows if doing so means higher ratings. They long ago conditioned their audience to embrace conspiracy theories and false victimhood. So they feared that if they disengaged from the mendacity arms race, they would lose those viewers to the media upstarts clamoring to become the new home for the ill informed. 

Sure, Fox has taken a significant financial hit, but the promise that it all could have been much more damaging to their destructive echo chamber leaves a sense of a major missed opportunity. Fox, and those who lied in service to its bottom line, had to issue no formal apologies. And that means that the millions of Fox faithful can continue to skate along in an alternative reality, unburdened by the realization that they were played for rubes. 

At the same time, Fox does face other legal challenges for the geysers of lies it promoted around the 2020 election. Most notably, another voting technology company, Smartmatic, has filed a defamation lawsuit amounting to $2.7 billion. Perhaps some of what was missed with the settlement of the Dominion case — more documents and damaging testimony — will come to pass. 

There is also the truth that in the (non-Fox) real world, a settlement of $787 million does translate to a major admission of guilt. Fox lied, and they had to pay. A lot of money. And that has to have some sort of deterrent effect. Yes, Fox has made so much money over the years that they can afford to weather this amount, but it is a hit.

Dominion deserves credit for bringing the lawsuit and taking it as far as it went; after all, Murdoch has a history of scaring away legal accountability. And now others who have cases against Fox will see vulnerability and a path to move forward. It is difficult to criticize Dominion for taking substantial guaranteed money rather than risking it in a trial they could lose. It should not be their job alone to hold the Fox empire to task for its abhorrent behavior. 

One also has a sense that in our unsettled political and media landscape, this case and others that might follow could play out in ways we can’t currently predict. Fox “News,” with its misleading name and laughable tagline “fair and balanced,” has long claimed that it deserved respect as a legitimate outlet. Often a cowed press corps and politicians looking to minimize risk to their own interests tacitly played along. It was a game and always was. And it followed the well-worn playbook of its founder, Roger Ailes — reputation through intimidation.

Now, hopefully, some of that charade has been more fully exposed. As much as the network and its hosts claim not to care what the establishment thinks, there is a reason its headquarters are in midtown Manhattan. Fox wants respect. It just got a public shaming instead.

Fox has always nurtured a biting edge, and it has damaged America. But we got to see clearly with the Dominion lawsuit a level of desperate cravenness and shameless hypocrisy that was predictable but still shocking. We got a peek behind the curtain, and what we saw was as far from “news” as you can get. It was a joke. And it would be a hilarious farce if it weren’t so dangerous. 

Hopefully, Fox will continue to have to deal with the fallout of the truth. 

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