In the days following the 2020 election, Rupert Murdoch, the chair of Fox Corp and executive chairman of News Corp, was worried about one of his most lucrative businesses. Fox News had been the first major network to call Arizona for Joe Biden on Election Night, a brutal blow to Donald Trump’s reëlection hopes, and Fox viewers weren’t happy. “@FoxNews daytime ratings have completely collapsed,” Trump tweeted. “Very sad to watch this happen, but they forgot what made them successful, what got them there. They forgot the Golden Goose.”
Two days after the Arizona call, the anchor Bret Baier e-mailed Fox News’ president, Jay Wallace, to suggest retracting it. “It’s hurting us,” he wrote, proposing that the network put the state “back in his column,” referring to Trump. A few days after the election was called for Biden, Baier texted Wallace and his fellow-anchor Martha MacCallum that he was “trying to focus on the memes not the Fox hating.” MacCallum was similarly glum. “I can’t look at any of it anymore,” she wrote. “I’m watching the Queens Gambit, good escape.”
That same day, Tucker Carlson texted the Fox News producer Gavin Hadden: “Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we’ve lost with our audience? We’re playing with fire.” Hadden was soothing. “Hopefully just a moment in time,” he wrote. “We will just ride on your shoulders.” Carlson was still jittery. “With Trump behind it,” he wrote, “an alternative like newsmax could be devastating to us.”
During the past few weeks, such texts and e-mails from Fox News hosts have been made public in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against Fox, which claims that the network knowingly aired false allegations that the election was stolen from Trump, at least in part, with the help of Dominion’s products. “I hate him passionately,” Carlson said of Trump in one text message. According to Laura Ingraham, another of the network’s prime-time hosts, Trump’s attorney Sidney Powell, who peddled election lies on the network, was “a bit nuts.”
Much of the non-Fox News media, meanwhile, has crowed at tangible evidence of the network’s duplicitous coverage and speculated about whether any of it will force Fox News to reform. “The documents lay bare that the channel’s business model is not based on informing its audience, but rather on feeding them content—even dangerous conspiracy theories—that keeps viewers happy and watching,” CNN’s Oliver Darcy wrote. Margaret Sullivan, in a column for the Guardian, asked if a Fox News loss in the lawsuit might “make coverage more responsible.”
But, despite the bad headlines, Fox News has little incentive to change its ways. For one thing, the network’s loyal audience is likely to remain glued to their screens, especially as a contested G.O.P. Presidential primary plays out on-air over the next two years. . . . “The audience is not going anywhere,” they said. “Fox may be forced to read an apology on air or something, but the audience still loves the product. It’s basically the W.W.E. for this kind of world.” . . . What’s more, Fox News’ parent company has pursued a successful, if conservative, fiscal strategy in the past few years.
Of course, a loss in the Dominion trial would have an impact. Dominion is seeking $1.6 billion in damages, and Fox is facing a similar lawsuit from Smartmatic, another voting-tech company, which is claiming $2.7 billion in damages. Assuming the Dominion case goes to trial next month instead of settling out of court—something that close watchers of the proceedings think is more and more likely—Fox risks a hefty financial burden. Although Dominion might get only a fraction of the $1.6 billion in compensatory damages if it wins at trial—essentially, revenue the company can prove that it lost because of the defamation—Sandy Bohrer, a former partner at a large law firm who defended defamation suits for decades, said that the network could face huge exposure on punitive damages. “It’s a very, very unsympathetic defendant,” he said. “I have never seen this bad a case for a defendant. Ever.” A number of law firms are already soliciting to file suits on behalf of Fox Corp shareholders. Even still, Fox could likely absorb a sum in the billions without bankrupting its business.
But Fox News could still find itself imperilled if its pro-Trump audience turns against some of its biggest stars, such as Carlson. In one of the released messages, Carlson called Trump “a demonic force, a destroyer.” . . . So far, though, Trump and Carlson are playing nice. . . . “He doesn’t hate me, or at least, not anymore!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, of Carlson.
But if the disclosures in the Dominion case have revealed anything it’s that, for Fox News, there’s no money in tacking to the center. Consistently, the network has shied away from covering political realities that would upset its audience. In the wake of the riot on the Capitol, Ingraham suggested on her show that the violence was in part to blame on Antifa agitators, and Carlson, in his own producer’s words, spent his show on January 6th “beating around the bush” about what was actually happening. For all the behind-the-scenes hand-wringing at Fox News about the dangerous untruths being spread by Trump in the wake of the 2020 election, the programming tone never really shifted. . . . Even though Murdoch has admitted that he didn’t believe the election was fraudulent, he allowed his network to continue pushing falsehoods.
At this point, the only thing that might trigger an internal reckoning about the role of Fox News in American civil life is the departure of its owner. Murdoch, who is ninety-two, is a committed conservative, as is his eldest son and preferred successor, Lachlan. In his deposition, Lachlan spoke of his faith in the power of the network to withstand the post-election turbulence.
But there is a speculative scenario in which, at some point in the future, Murdoch’s youngest son, James, makes a play for the top spot and outmaneuvers Lachlan by securing the support of two of his sisters, Prudence and Elisabeth. (Yes, this is the stuff that premier-cable dreams are made of.) James and his wife donated to various democracy organizations and Democratic causes during the Trump years, and his sisters are thought to be more politically aligned with him. Elisabeth was a Barack Obama supporter; Prudence, who’s largely stayed out of the limelight, is a little more difficult to peg. Perhaps, with the help of his sisters, James could restructure Fox, dialling back its most extreme rhetoric to create a network that is center-right, with politics more in line with something like the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. Of course, he would have to persuade the company’s board to go along with the plan, which seems like a stretch, given the success of Fox Corp in its current iteration. One former Fox executive seemed skeptical that such a shift would happen. “Trump has so crazed both the left and the right,” they said. “Extremists screaming at each other gets quicker ratings.”
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