Arguing With Fox Fanatics
787 million reasons to stop watching Fox News
I start all conversations about Fox News with a simple question:
“Do you know what seven hundred eighty seven million dollars means?”
I always get a blank look. Then I explain it.
“That’s how much Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems for lying to Fox viewers for months on end. It’s a huge settlement, and they AGREED to pay it. It wasn’t a runaway jury punishment or some Obama judge that ordered it. Fox News agreed to pay that much money after admitting they lied TO YOU, a Fox viewer.”
If you don’t know what $787 million dollars is, that’s the April 18, 2023, mutually accepted settlement Fox News paid Dominion for repeatedly allowing guests and hosts to repeatedly make false statements about Dominion. Over and over, despite evidence otherwise, Fox hosts and guests made more than 100 disparaging and untrue statements about the company in an effort to back up Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud.
During discovery in the lawsuit, Dominion turned up dozens of emails from Fox employees including Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson indicating that they did not believe the false claims or the sources providing the “news,” and that they were tired of endlessly supporting Donald Trump. Instead of pursuing true journalistic process, the hosts obeyed Fox executives terrified that Fox News viewers would flee to other, more right-wing networks, if Fox stopped reporting the party line that the election was stolen.
Fox viewers I confront with these facts have a handful of excuses, including:
- All media outlets get sued: Maybe. But no media outlet has ever paid a settlement like this. OAN recently settled – in a sealed agreement – with Smartmatic for identical claims, but no settlement or judgment gets anywhere near what Fox News paid, or what became obvious during discovery – that they had lied to viewers over and over.
CNN, NBC, PBS, Reuters, the AP, etc., NONE of them have ever paid anywhere near this for blatantly lying to its viewers. There have been mistakes and even egregious libel and slander lawsuits, but none come close to the $787 million agreement Fox made with Dominion.
- All media outlets lie to their viewers: Well, if your only news source is Fox News or other right-wing outlets who admit to lying to their viewers, who can you believe? The ones who admit lying for profit or all the other media outlets who present truthful reporting on a regular basis?
Yes, “mainstream” media outlets report with a bias. It’s called good reporting based on facts from reliable, expert sources. Compared to Fox, which regularly aired lies by people like the disbarred Rudy Guiliani and the MyPillow guy, the sources at other networks are solid, reliable experts in their fields.
But when viewers of Fox News have become trained to disbelieve “mainstream media” for so long, they can’t see the facts because they love the feeling of being spoon fed their own distorted beliefs. It’s just more satisfying to watch Fox when you BELIEVE the election was stolen or that Donald Trump’s self-absorbed bluster is a show of strength.
- Well, the election WAS stolen: No, it wasn’t. Go talk to your county clerk, Republican or otherwise. They’ll tell you the truth: There is no real evidence of election fraud that would have affected the outcome of 2020.
And this is a sign of exactly how much Fox News lies. When the Dominion rabbit hole had been fully explored, they just changed the storyline and found new sources to support it. Well, they now claim, the election wasn’t “stolen,” it’s just that all the rules were changed to make it easier to vote. That’s why Pennsylvania went for Biden.
These lies are still being promoted on Fox News but without factual support. It’s a theory without fact repeated over and over to placate viewers.
- Fox News just tells it like it is: No. $787 million clearly shows that Fox News lies to its viewers, not just about Dominion but about many things.
Fox News doesn’t report the news its viewers need to hear. It reports the news viewers WANT to hear, to keep the viewers and promote itself among right wing leadership.
- I never heard about this settlement: Of course you didn’t hear about it because Fox News spent about 20 minutes reporting on the deal, without real analysis, then fell absolutely silent about the largest slander lawsuit in American history.
Omitting facts is lying. More proof that Fox News lies to its viewers.
- It’s no big deal: It’s a huge, huge deal. Fox News served as a mouthpiece for Donald Trump throughout his presidency, sculpting a belief structure based on lies and distorted sources.
Donald Trump spoke almost daily to Sean Hannity and Rupert Murdoch for the first several months of his presidency. When Donald Trump became upset with attempts by Fox to present accurate reporting, Fox News decided to placate Donald Trump and keep its viewers happy.
This is a path to autocracy. In autocratic countries, a leader who has praised dictators and believes he is the only person who can save a country takes control of a major media outlet that reshapes the truth to fit the leader’s narrative.
Take a look at what Putin did in Russia. Exactly the same. Over the course of 20 years, he took control of state media and now the only reporting Russians get is spoon fed by the great and powerful Vladimir Putin.
Is this the same as what Donald Trump and Fox News have done? Almost exactly. And what’s next? Threats against “enemy” media outlets? Trump has done exactly that. Aligning the legal power of government against the lies of “mainstream media?” Trump has promised to do that with “his” Justice Department. Rewriting the laws to limit reporting negative to the great leader? Trump has threatened exactly that.
Listen, I’m a trained journalist, and Fox News is not journalism. On almost every hot button issue – the economy, immigration, the Democratic Party, global warming, January 6, the Middle East – Fox News has chosen how to report the news based on one desire: to feed the beliefs of its viewers to keep its viewers and to keep in the good graces of an autocrat.
That’s not journalism. That’s propaganda. And, amazingly, one third of this country BELIEVES Fox News.
Even when they hear about a $787 million settlement in which Fox News admitted to lying to its viewers.
It’s sad. One thing that became apparent during discovery in the Dominion case was a sense that Fox News executives, “commentators” and “reporters” feel trapped by its own trajectory. The network HAS to lie to its viewers because it is built on a foundation of feeding its viewers what viewers want to hear.
Well, there’s a way to change that. Fox News can become a legitimate news organization, reporting facts accurately and fairly to its viewers.
Or people can just shut it off.
And, frankly, there are at least 787 million reasons why viewers should shut off Fox News.