1. The suit is settled
$787,500,000.
However you look at it, that’s gonna leave a mark.
Fox’s agreement with Dominion Voting Systems for that amount ends a contentious legal battle that has been keenly watched by Fox haters, which includes, of course, most of the establishment press. It’s a happy day for them. It was a high-stakes poker game and Fox folded.
The news channel apparently made that decision fearing the potential peril of an even-higher jury award, as well as a trial that would have been a month-long media spectacle. Fox News executives, including Rupert Murdoch, and other high-profile personalities would have been subjected to uncomfortable and potentially damaging testimony on the witness stand.
Even for a company that earns profits well over $1 billion per year, bad programming decisions and a PR nightmare rarely cost this much. It’s in the league of a Bud Light disaster.
Yet while the large anti-Fox crowd paid close attention, another large group of Americans hasn’t: Fox viewers. After this check is written, the New Yorker crowd can’t not-watch Fox News any harder than they already are. And if one clucks too loudly near you, ask them a simple question, “What’s the worst thing you heard a Fox employee say about Dominion or the stolen election?”
There isn’t a big video reel of Fox personalities or reporters saying incriminating things, a la Rachel Maddow’s two-year-long fantasy about Russiagate, because the great quotes don’t exist. Aside from a few Lou Dobbs tweets, most of the damage Dominion claimed was from allowing people like Rudy Giuliani or Sidney Powell to air false charges without enough of a pushback.
While the settlement will make it easier for Democrat politicians and the White House to ignore or exclude the network, its ratings won’t be harmed. The only real threat to Fox News ratings is a fairer CNN / MSNBC or a smarter NewsMax, neither of which appear to be in the works.
Will there be any internal fallout from this? It’s hard to say, since the released emails, which were highly selective, showed Rupert with his hand on the wheel. He wasn’t an executive far removed from operations, but one who was active and involved … just not quite enough.
What he needed was a boss strong enough to rein in some of the hosts.
I remember years ago when I launched a Fox investigation into Barack Obama’s refusal to release his original birth certificate.
Roger Ailes, who was the CEO, knew that the mainstream press had already dismissed it all as a racist conspiracy theory (surprise!), and he knew a screw-up would harm our reputation. He gave me a stern look and said something similar to, “I”m not telling you to not do the story. Just don’t make us look stupid.”
It worked. And it was a warning Lou Dobbs and friends should have heard in 2020.
2. Musk: Twitter was a "glorified activist organization"
In his interview with Tucker Carlson, Twitter CEO Elon Musk criticized the platform's previous leadership for running an "absurdly overstaffed" operation resembling a "glorified activist organization." He confirmed that 80% of Twitter's staff were let go or left after his takeover. He also emphasized his goal for the new Twitter to be fair, without favoring any political ideology.
‘“My understanding is that [Zuckerberg] spent $400 million fundamentally in support of Democrats. Is that accurate or not accurate?” Musk asked Carlson, who responded that it was accurate.
“Does that sound unbiased to you?”’
You can watch the entire interview here:
3. For once, the media’s silent about mass shooter’s motives
Hours after the El Paso Walmart shooting, the NYT cited a “hate-filled, anti-immigrant manifesto”. Shortly after the Tree of Life synagogue murders, the shooter’s antisemitic writings were public (along with blame for Trump, naturally.) And Twitter allowed the misinformation that Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, who killed 10 people in a Boulder grocery store, was a “white Christian terrorist.”
But the trans person who killed three nine-year-old students and three staff members at a church-run school in Nashville? NBC News isn’t sure what the motive is there yet.
I see NM as more right than FNC
Cover same issues & add more light to issue
I dont want to hear opposing viiews since Leftists wont give any in a sane way
Watching Fox as I write this. Switch to CBS, ABC, NBC or listen to NPR? Not likely. I'll tune in to some of those channels to help include both sides in my decision making but Fox will continue to serve as my main news station.