Just that worried
Amanda Marcotte wonders why Murdoch is not trying to settle the Dominion case when settling is what he usually does.
I suspect the reason Murdoch and Fox News seem determined to stick this out is that they are just that worried about what impact an admission of wrongdoing would have on their reputation with their audience. The possibility of a jury ruling in their favor, which they could spin as a total exoneration of their tactics, is so important to them that they’re willing to take a big risk that the opposite could happen. A settlement, however, would remove all doubt about who was in the wrong.
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[A]s the Dominion filings showed, internal machinations at Fox News were precisely about how to prevent journalists from conducting basic reporting. Tucker Carlson demanded the firing of a Fox reporter for reporting the simple fact of the election outcome. The latest filing quotes Murdoch himself suggesting firing a data analyst for correctly reporting that Biden had won the Arizona election. It’s telling that Fox News puts so much pressure on journalists, even when it’s just opinion writing. It suggests they’re incredibly worried that this lawsuit really could damage them in the eyes of the only people they clearly care about: MAGA.
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What this all suggests is that Fox News leadership is genuinely worried that their viewers will perceive them as a propaganda outlet, instead of a news organization. Why that bothers them is hard to suss out. As the court filings show, the leadership of Fox News felt pressure from their audience to downplay actual facts and play up conspiracy theories. It feels like theirs is not an audience who cares about facts, or even the illusion of facts. But watching Fox’s machinations around this case, it seems that they believe keeping up the pretense that they are “news” matters to their viewers, even if no one actually believes it.
Murdoch and Trump are why we can’t have nice things.
Shane Dowling at the Kangaroo Court of Australia:
(Reasoning supplied.) Fox could be headed down a wormhole in space-time. It may well be every Tucker for himself; or herself as the case may be. Or other terms ending in ‘ucker’ but starting with a different letter.
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https://kangaroocourtofaustralia.com/2023/03/02/rupert-murdoch-fox-news-and-news-corp-set-to-be-sued-for-over-30-billion-and-die-a-death-of-a-thousand-lawsuits-after-ruperts-admissions-under-oath/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New+post+emails
I was listening to The Daily podcast from NYT, and the reporter said something that was interesting. I’m not familiar with New York’s civil procedures, but I am with California’s (at least to the extent that they are taught in undergrad pre-law courses.) He said that they (FOX) are hoping to be able to convince one juror that the texts do not show actual malice beyond a reasonable doubt.. But, my understanding is that the standard of civil juries is that they apply a different standard, and also that juries do not need to be unanimous in their verdict.
At any rate, if Fox wins and the case is dismissed, then there is basically an open season for all media companies. Say what you want, no one can stop you.
I hope that Murdoch loses; not just because of the precedent – it’s important that such lies get punished – but because it might lead to the loss of control of the mainstream media by a handful of very wealthy men, and allow the rapid proliferation of independent news sources to expand. The more voices we have giving us information, the harder it is for one man to spin the news and influence how people think.
Of course, we also need to start dialling back the ‘us-and-them’, brand-loyalty, mindset which has been imposed on far too many people, and get proper discourse happening again. B&W demonstrates regularly how people with different views can nevertheless have a respectful discussion on contentions subjects, with no one view imposing itself on others, but sometimes changing minds by persuasion.
I don’t see it. Look at the deregulation of “professional wrestling.” The owners of WWE, Vince and Linda McMahon, testified thirty years ago before the New Jersey Senate that the “competition” was fake and scripted, was just entertainment rather than a genuine sporting competition. They did so in support of a bill, which was passed, deregulating professional wrestling in NJ (and, following that, in other states), which meant it was held to the lower regulatory standards for entertainment rather than the more stringent requirements for athletic competition.
Was that the death of wrestling? No. It’s as big as ever, and nobody cares it’s fake.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/26/opinion/vince-mcmahon-wwe-trump-kayfabe.html
Fox News is the WWE of journalism. Their audience won’t care a bit if it’s demonstrated that it’s fake.
Michael H @2,
I believe that the Dominion case is actually in Delaware, not NY? The former apparently does require a unanimous jury in civil cases unless the parties stipulate otherwise. (NY appears to allow a verdict by 5/6)
But yes, “beyond a reasonable doubt” is a criminal standard. In civil cases, it’s generally “preponderance of the evidence,” though for some specific issues a higher (but still less than the criminal) standard applies.
I think part of our problem is that many of us grew up during the actual golden age of American journalism, which I think spanned the time between Edward R Murrow and Ted Koppel. Prior to that time, rich white guys like Hearst, pumped out biased positions on the issues and after Ted Turner created the first endless loop of the same old same old for 24 hrs at a time, the likes of Murdoch took over again. In reality, mainstream objective journalism was a relatively short lived phenomenon.
Frankly with the way social media elevates every voice to 11 makes me doubt that we’ll ever see it again.
Michael H @2, the case is in Delaware, so the jury needs to be unanimous unless the parties agree to a verdict by majority, and it looks like it is a 12 person jury. The substantive law is NY defamation law, which requires actual malice to be proven by clear and convincing evidence, so the “reasonable doubt” standard was incorrect, although I think Dominion could meet it.
I don’t know that Dominion wants to settle. They may very well win on Summary Judgment, so then the jury just decides damages.
Thanks for the information, Eava.
Wasn’t Tucker Carlson recently acquitted of lying in some court case on the grounds that no reasonable person could be expected to take him seriously? But of course “reasonable” people (if ever there was such a thing) are a rare and elusive (possibly even extinct) species these days.
(My emphasis)
This admirably describes the post-truth mindset: It might not be technically “true”, but I don’t care. Everybody’s always lying anyway, so I might as well go with the lies that favor my own “team”, and if plausible deniability can’t be established then implausible deniability will do just as well.
It might be tempting to blame the likes of Murdoch and Carlson* (as we should!) and let the general public, the ordinary folks, the “little guy” etc. off the hook by saying things like “they have been mislead” etc. That excuse only gets you so far, though. E.g. climate Change deniers (without financial ties to the fossil fuel industry) are often said to be “misinformed”, and, of course, there is no shortage of misinformation – not to say disinformation – out there. But that in itself doesn’t explain why so many people actively seek out the disinformation and are determined to believe it (or pretend they do) over the real information, which after all is also out there. Beyond a certain point, if you keep repeating the same baseless claims and refuse to have them corrected, you cannot have made much of an honest effort** to find out what’s true, and if your burden of proof for updating your views in the light of new information goes from minus infinity (for the disinformation) to plus infinity (for true information), I don’t think “innocent victim of disinformation” is how I would chose to describe you.
* Or, for that matter, the Guardian, Owen Jones etc.
** And once again, cherry-picking information to rationalize a pre-determined conclusion does not count as an “honest effort”.