Fox pays dearly for its many election lies | Editorial

It was a very good day for the U.S.A. when Fox News agreed to pay a record-shattering $787.5 million for defaming Dominion Voting Systems with its false commentaries on the 2020 presidential election.

Although Fox didn’t have to admit wrongdoing, it was the equivalent of a no-contest plea to a historic fraud — against not just Dominion but the nation. On Monday, the network abruptly and with almost no notice parted ways with its most popular host, Tucker Carlson ― jettisoning one of the nation’s biggst purveyors of election-centered fiction.

The decision to fire Carlson came directly from Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch, The New York Times reports.

The lies that Fox and Carlson parroted as fact, and were found to be lies by the judge, contributed to the attack on Congress on Jan. 6, 2021 by the mob determined to keep Donald Trump in the office he had fairly lost.

Trump’s echo chamber

Many other voices perpetuated Trump’s lie that the election was stolen from him, but Fox was the most prominent of his echo chambers, if only for having the most followers.

Even now, a recent CNN/SSRS poll showed two-thirds of Republicans continue to believe Trump’s claim, although fewer, barely half, still think actual evidence exists to support it. Perhaps their eyes will be opened by the price Fox is paying.

Yet Fox avoided having to make an on-air apology. The network gave the settlement only six minutes of coverage last week and its original statement was laughable in both its avoidance and bald-faced pretense:

“We acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false. This settlement reflects FOX’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards. We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues.”

Dollars and dishonesty

A more accurate assessment came from Bill O’Reilly, the host who was forced out of Fox in 2017 because of sexual harassment allegations.

“This is what happens when money becomes more important than honest information,” he said. “Since I left FNC, the template changed from ‘Fair and Balanced’ to ‘tell the audience what it wants to hear.’ And millions of Trump voters, to this day, want to believe the 2020 election was rigged. That opinion can certainly be presented if you provide a counter opinion — equal time. However, once the facts begin to overwhelm any point of view, a news agency has an obligation to say that.”

The outcome wasn’t perfect — few settlements are — and in some corners it was disappointing. It was not quite half of the $1.6 billion in damages sought by Dominion, whose voting equipment is used in 18 Florida counties.

Internal emails that exposed the difference between what Carlson and morning ancho Maria Bartiromo were saying and what they knew to be true are on the record — forever. So are the judge’s findings of fact, which may be helpful in Dominion’s pending litigation against others, including Trump’s lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell and Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy. Fox still faces a similar defamation suit for $2.7 billion from Smartmatic, another election technology vendor.

The record of the Dominion case should not intimidate any voices, whether right, left or center, from reporting and commenting fairly and forcefully on public issues. What’s important is to avoid passing off opinion as fact and to clearly distinguish opinion commentary, such as this editorial, from the news report.

What about Don Lemon?

There was another high-profile media firing Monday. CNN jettisoned its own marquee anchor, Don Lemon, with even less notice than Carlson had.

Lemon was often viewed by conservatives as the liberal equivalent of Carlson. That’s a hard call to make. Certainly, he’s not the subject of sprawling documentation of knowing attempts to deceive the public to match the role that Carlson played at Fox: Most early reports about Lemon’s ouster focused on allegations of inappropriate behavior with other CNN staff.

But there is an opportunity for both networks: Get back to reporting the news instead of reacting to it, and keep opinion separate. We hope they take it.

The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board includes Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson, Opinion Page Editor Krys Fluker and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, and Anderson. Send letters to insight@orlandosentinel.com .