Dominion lawsuit alleges Fox News viewers thought losing Trump was bad for ratings
That concern — a real one, judging by Fox’s post-election ratings — played a key role in Fox failing to set the record for baseless fraud allegations, the network’s prosecutor claims.
“It’s remarkable how poor ratings lead good journalists to do bad things,” Fox Washington news anchor Bill Sammon is quoted as saying in the filing.
The details were added to a trove of private communications unearthed by attorneys and included in a redacted brief filed Thursday by Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion alleges in a $1.6 billion lawsuit that Fox spread allegations that Dominion rigged the anti-Trump vote even though it knew this was not true. Fox says it has been doing its job as a journalist, spreading the allegations of Trump and his allies.
Fox’s internal troubles began with a real call: On election night of 2020, he declared that Democrat Joe Biden had beaten Trump in Arizona. The statement, which preceded other news organizations, infuriated the president and his fans.
The backlash was noted in internal emails. “Holy cow, our audience is mad at the network,” said one, quoted by Dominion. “They are ANGRY,” said another.
Five days after the election, Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch told Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott that the network was “being pressured by CNN. I guess our viewers don’t want to see it,” the court documents said.
According to the company Nielsen, between the November 3, 2020 election and Biden’s January 20, 2021 inauguration, Fox News plummeted from first to third in the news network’s ratings. Meanwhile, thousands of Fox viewers flocked to the more conservative Newsmax, where prime-time viewership shot up from 58,000 the week before the election to 568,000 the week after.
The change shook the foundations of a network that topped the news ratings for nearly two decades.
Fox roared back into the lead by turning sharper to the right after Biden took office. But immediately after the election, there was real concern at New York headquarters.
Almost immediately, the network went on a “war basis,” Dominion said, citing a Fox executive.
“Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we’ve lost with our audiences?” Fox primetime star Tucker Carlson wrote to his producer, according to Dominion. “We’re really playing with fire… an alternative like Newsmax could be devastating for us.”
Dominion alleges that Fox executives made the decision to push false narratives to lure their audience back, citing claims made by Trump allies like attorney Sidney Powell on programs hosted by Maria Bartiromo and Lou Dobbs.
On Nov. 9, Fox News Channel’s Neil Cavuto interrupted a press conference held by Trump’s aide Kayleigh McEnaney when she began spreading baseless allegations. A Fox exec later complained that Cavuto was damaging the network’s brand.
The court filings also listed two cases in which Fox News reporters were internally attacked for publishing fact-checks about tweets. In one, reporter Jacqui Heinrich tweeted that there was no evidence that an electoral system had erased, lost or altered votes.
“Please have her fired,” Carlson wrote to his colleague Sean Hannity, saying that according to Dominion’s record, Heinrich is harming the company. Heinrich’s tweet was later deleted, the court filings said.
Carlson himself was trying to “thread the needle,” Dominion said. It noted how he publicly stated that Powell never presented any evidence to support her allegations of fraud. “On the other hand, he didn’t say what he privately believed — that she lied,” Dominion said.
Fox said many of his specific answers will come in a document that Delaware Supreme Court Justice Eric Davis has had sealed until Feb. 27.
“There will be much noise and confusion from Dominion and its opportunistic private equity owners, but the heart of this case remains freedom of the press and speech, the fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution and protected by the New York Times v. Sullivan,” said Fox.
If either side can persuade Davis to issue a summary judgment in their favor, the case will end without a jury trial. Otherwise, the process should start in mid-April.
As a result of Sullivan and subsequent cases, such libel suits against journalists are usually very difficult to prove, and Fox also argues that Dominion grossly overstates the economic damage to the company.
Ultimately, however, the case pulls back the curtain on what happened at the country’s largest media outlet, which is appealing to conservative viewers at a pivotal time in the network and in the country’s history.
“Secretly, Fox anchors and executives knew that Donald Trump lost the election and that he had to admit,” Dominion argued in the newspapers released Thursday. “But Fox viewers have heard a different story – repeated.”
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