The essential story of Fox Information and the 2020 election is properly understood. Fox’s comparatively small information operation lined the vote depend precisely; this protection infuriated President Donald Trump, the MAGA base, and Fox’s opinion stars; some viewers briefly flipped to further-right retailers, resembling Newsmax; and Fox panicked.
However due to Dominion Voting Methods, which is pursuing a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit in opposition to Fox, we now know that the community’s sense of disaster was much more intense than it appeared from exterior. With the case careening towards trial, a courtroom submitting yesterday revealed a few of what Dominion discovered in the course of the discovery course of, together with eye-popping messages from Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Fox’s senior administration. “Getting creamed by CNN!” Fox’s proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, wrote to its high government after seeing the in a single day rankings on November 8. “Guess our viewers don’t wish to watch it.”
He was proper. A few of Fox’s high reveals started broadcasting a greater story, one which its viewers did wish to watch: a conspiracy-laden story about crooked Democrats stealing an election. Dominion is arguing that Fox knew full properly that Trumpworld’s voter-fraud allegations have been bunk however promoted the lies anyway. Whether or not or not Dominion prevails in courtroom, and plenty of consultants consider it’s going to, the lawsuit is already forcing an moral reckoning over Fox’s disrespect of its viewers. Hour after hour, day after day, Fox stars saved signaling to viewers that Trump would possibly nonetheless win the election, not as a result of they thought he would, however as a result of they have been fearful about their rankings. And all of us witnessed the results on January 6.
On November 12, 2020, almost every week after Joe Biden had clinched the presidency, Trump sought refuge in Fox’s various actuality, and as at all times, the community delivered.
On the high of the 9 p.m. hour, Trump’s good friend Sean Hannity pretended that the result was nonetheless doubtful. He mentioned the election was not honest. He cited “excellent votes which have but to be counted” and “extra stories of useless folks voting from past the grave.” And, importantly, he talked at size about Dominion.
Trump was livid with the small variety of journalists at Fox who saved calling Biden the winner of the election, however Hannity was nonetheless on his good aspect. So in typical Trump trend, he flip-flopped. Twelve hours after tweeting his revulsion with the community, Trump tweeted, “Should see @seanhannity takedown of the horrible, inaccurate and something however safe Dominion Voting System which is utilized in States the place tens of hundreds of votes have been stolen from us and given to Biden. Likewise, the Nice @LouDobbs has a confirming and highly effective piece!”
Now it was almost 11 p.m. japanese time. The Fox Information correspondent Jacqui Heinrich noticed Trump’s election-denying submit and had the audacity to tweet the reality. She wrote that “high election infrastructure officers”—together with some in Trump’s administration—had issued an announcement saying “there isn’t any proof that any voting system deleted or misplaced votes, modified votes, or was in any means compromised.”
Heinrich, a proficient younger correspondent at Fox, was a minnow, and the prime-time sharks have been hungry. The three hosts—Hannity, Carlson, and Laura Ingraham—have been in a textual content chain collectively, the place that they had been commiserating in regards to the insanity of the postelection interval. Carlson flagged Heinrich’s tweet and instructed Hannity, “Please get her fired.” Why? As a result of her minor Twitter fact-check of an out-of-control president was precisely the form of factor that Fox’s fan base couldn’t stand to see.
“It must cease instantly, like tonight,” Carlson wrote. “It’s measurably hurting the corporate. The inventory value is down. Not a joke.”
Hannity replied and mentioned he had already despatched the correct and thus offending tweet to Fox Information Media CEO Suzanne Scott.
“Sean texted me,” Scott wrote to 2 colleagues. Apparently Hannity had threatened to tweet again at Heinrich. “He’s standing down on responding,” Scott wrote, “however not joyful about this and doesn’t perceive how that is allowed to occur from anybody in information.” Scott was bothered too. She fearful that reporters at different retailers would discover Heinrich’s tweet: “She has severe nerve doing this and if this will get picked up, viewers are going to be additional disgusted.”
Disgusted by what? By a reporter fact-checking Trump’s fictions.
This excessive stress between the newsroom and the a lot bigger opinion operation got here up in virtually each interview I carried out for Hoax, my guide in regards to the disturbing relationship between Fox and Trump. One Wednesday morning in late 2019, I turned on Fox & Mates, pressed the “Mute” button, and dialed up a producer who used to work on the present. It was clear from the tone of his voice that he had profound regrets from his time engaged on the morning present, and that’s why he wished to be a confidential supply.
The previous producer mentioned he sensed himself being brainwashed whereas consuming the entire right-wing content material from the Fox & Mates hosts and company. He felt himself remodeling into one of many tens of millions of Fox addicts throughout America. “Folks don’t care if it’s proper, they only need their aspect to win. That’s who this present is for,” he mentioned. “It’s unhappy.”
It might be unhappy, however it’s also enormously profitable. Different sources at Fox instructed me to think about it not as a community per se, however as a revenue machine. They feared doing something that might disrupt the machine. “I really feel like Fox is being held hostage by its viewers,” a veteran staffer instructed me, maybe justifying his personal participation by portraying himself as a sufferer.
After I printed these confessions in Hoax, I wrote that everybody at Fox was “profoundly afraid of dropping the viewers and the ensuing piles of money.” I cited the previous morning-show producer, who instructed me, “We have been deathly afraid of our viewers leaving, deathly afraid of pissing them off.”
These quotes have been evocative, I assumed, however they suffered from all the restrictions that include anonymity. And the quotes had not come from Fox’s high tier of millionaire stars and executives. That’s why the brand new authorized submitting by Dominion is such a showstopper. We are able to learn precisely what the leaders and stars of Fox Information actually assume. That is my greatest takeaway: Within the days after Biden gained the election, whereas Trump tried to begin the steal by shouting “Cease the Steal,” essentially the most highly effective folks at Fox Information weren’t involved in regards to the well being of U.S. democracy. They have been involved about Fox’s model and their very own backside line.
On November 7, Fox had fallen consistent with the opposite main networks and referred to as the election for Biden. There have been spontaneous celebrations in main cities and lengthy faces throughout Fox’s airwaves. The consensus view each inside and out of doors the community was that Fox’s acknowledgment of actuality—and particularly its early projection that Biden had gained Arizona—had turned the viewers in opposition to the community.
I used to be working at CNN on the time, so I studied the rankings spreadsheets that arrived within the late afternoon. Newsmax, a tiny Fox wannabe, was immediately surging by catering to MAGA viewers and refusing to name Biden the president-elect. On November 8, I interviewed Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy and aired clips of election deniers talking on his community. “Your commentators are selling bogus voter-fraud lies,” I mentioned. He tried to show the interview right into a gross sales pitch. “Don’t consider you, don’t consider me, simply watch Newsmax,” he mentioned, “and make your individual judgment about how honest we’re.”
Ruddy, in different phrases, was capitalizing on the enterprise alternative earlier than him. He was welcoming viewers to Newsmax with a pledge to inform them what they wished to listen to. Fox’s high expertise knew it—and freaked out. In line with the Dominion submitting, Carlson texted his producer that weekend and mentioned, “Do the executives perceive how a lot credibility and belief we’ve misplaced with our viewers? We’re taking part in with fireplace, for actual….an alternate like newsmax might be devastating to us.”
On November 9, Carlson wrote to Scott, “I’ve by no means seen a response like this, to any media firm. Kills me to look at it.” Scott shared the message with Rupert’s son Lachlan, the CEO of the Fox Company and a Carlson ally. On that day, Dominion alleges, “Fox executives made an specific resolution to push narratives to entice their viewers again.” One snippet of texts reveals Scott telling Lachlan that viewers have been “going by way of the 5 levels of grief.” Angling to impress her boss, she mentioned the Arizona projection was damaging, “however we’ll spotlight our stars and plant flags letting the viewers know we hear them and respect them.”
What a curious phrase—respect. Journalists are taught that to respect the viewers means to report the reality clearly and thoroughly. However inside Fox, which is firstly a supplier of leisure, respect meant one thing else. Studying the texts and emails, I used to be reminded of one other factor the Fox & Mates producer had mentioned. “We have been deathly afraid” of the viewers, he admitted, “however we additionally laughed at them. We disrespected them. We weren’t training what we preached.”
That’s what Dominion is arguing within the authorized realm—that Fox’s leaders have been saying one factor privately and one other factor publicly.
Lachlan Murdoch affirmed Scott’s plan to “respect” the viewers and mentioned that the community’s relationship with its viewers “wants fixed rebuilding with none missteps.” Quickly messages have been going backwards and forwards about threats to the “model.” Correct reporting by Fox journalists, resembling Heinrich’s tweet, was a type of perceived threats. Carlson texted his fellow hosts that he “went loopy on Meade over it,” which means that he had lashed out at Meade Cooper, Fox’s government vice chairman of prime-time programming, who reported to Scott. By the following morning, Heinrich’s tweet was gone, as Dominion’s submitting notes.
The Trump tweet Heinrich referenced included each Hannity and Dobbs by title, so by fact-checking it, she had technically run afoul of an organization coverage in opposition to intramural warfare, I discovered by way of my reporting. “No taking pictures within the tent,” the previous Fox government Roger Ailes used to say, though the coverage was inconsistently enforced. So Heinrich took down her first tweet, however shortly posted a brand new one on November 13, additionally fact-checking Trump and noting an entire dearth of proof for the anti-Dominion conspiracy theories that have been airing all throughout right-wing TV.
Hannity’s election-doubting monologue, in the meantime, remained on-line. Fox’s web site payments it as “a deep dive into the voting machines at heart of controversy.” And Carlson was proper in regards to the inventory value that November day—Fox Company dropped 2.6 p.c. Whereas the remainder of us have been worrying about how Trump’s antidemocratic conduct was going to undermine our democracy, he was fearful about his checking account.
The opposite essential metric Fox leaders have been watching, in fact, was the Nielsen rankings chart. The Dominion submitting accommodates snippets of conversations from later in November that showcase Hannity’s alarm. “The community is being rejected,” he texted Carlson and Ingraham, to which Carlson responded, “I’ve heard from indignant viewers each hour of the day all weekend, together with at dinner tonight.” In order that they every discovered methods to wink and nod to voting irregularities and unfair techniques—displaying “respect” to viewers by actively misinforming them.
In a separate thread, on November 24, one among Hannity’s producers cited minute-by-minute rankings from the prior week’s episodes and mentioned, “Our greatest minutes from final week have been on the voting irregularities.” The conspiracy-laden segments continued on Fox by way of December, the rankings improved, and the nation’s political divide deepened.
Not lengthy after the election and the rebel, I went again to sources at Fox to listen to in regards to the aftermath, gathering mere scraps compared to Dominion’s discovery-aided buffet. Sources instructed me that the strain from the viewers was debilitating within the postelection interval. A senior staffer at Fox railed in opposition to the community’s journalists and math wizards who had referred to as Arizona for Biden, calling them “conceited fucks” who “are rubbing it in our viewers’ faces.”
Rubbing what? “Biden. They’re rubbing Biden in our faces.”
I by no means absolutely understood that objection till I learn the brand new Dominion submitting. Someplace round web page 157, it clicked. Inside Fox, the prime-time stars and senior executives raged in opposition to the community’s reporters not as a result of they doubted that Biden had gained, however as a result of the reality was too disturbing to the viewers that had made them wealthy. Fox’s postelection technique, the texts and emails counsel, was to cease rubbing Biden in its viewers’ faces. However of their effort to indicate their viewers “respect,” they finally disrespected each their viewers and the American experiment they declare to guard.
