Fox Execs Were Furious Fox Reporters Fact-Checked Fraud Claims
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Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against Fox News has placed a glaring spotlight on the internal workings of the network, revealing a marked disconnect between what executives and hosts said privately about the 2020 election and what they broadcast to millions of viewers. Documents and internal communications made public in new court filings highlight the degree to which the network was willing to punish their own staff to avoid angering their audience with factual reporting.
Rupert Murdoch, Tucker Carlson, and other prominent figures within Fox knew the election was legitimate, filings have revealed, but the network kept promoting false claims of election fraud, largely because executives feared a backlash from viewers over any suggestion President Biden did indeed win the election.
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CEO Suzanne Scott came down particularly hard on former Fox White House Correspondent Kristin Fisher after she fact-checked a bizarre press conference from Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. “I can’t keep defending these reporters who don’t understand our viewers and how to handle stories,” she wrote in an email to network President Jay Wallace. “We need to manage this […] The audience feels like we crapped on [them] and we have damaged their trust and belief in us.”
In a separate email chain, with the subject line “Brand Alert,” Scott wrote that the network couldn’t “give the crazies an inch” because they are “looking for and blowing up all appearances of disrespect to the audience.”
In a subsequent text exchange with fellow correspondent Gillian Turner, Fisher wrote that she was “100% being muzzled.” Fisher said that since her on-air fact check she’d had “zero live shots from the [White House]” and that her usual morning segments were being given to other employees. “They even pulled me from anchoring the 2PM last Friday,” she wrote. “I’m being punished for doing my job. Literally. That’s it.”
Fisher would eventually leave the network.
If you wanna know why Kristin Fisher left a White House correspondent job at the most-watched cable news network to be the space reporter for CNN, look no further than how Fox treated her for fact-checking Rudy Giuliani's nutty press conference. pic.twitter.com/NZmpEM8i7g
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) February 17, 2023
Fisher was not the only host targeted by executives for fact checking claims of election fraud on-air. White House Correspondent Jacqui Heinrich made the mistake of correcting a tweet from Trump that included a reference to primetime host Sean Hannity.
“She has some serious nerve doing this,” wrote Irena Briganti, Fox’s Senior Executive Vice President of Corporate Communications, to Wallace. Briganti complained that Heinrich would tweet stories from other outlets, including The New York Times and CNN. She’s “not a team player either,” Brigianti wrote, “more interested in getting her name attached to reporting than being part of FNC.”
Here's some top Fox executives dumping on Fox reporter Jacqui Heinrich because she fact-checked a Trump falsehood that was based on a Hannity segment — "not a team player," "audition[ing] on twitter for a job elsewhere," "She has serious nerve doing this." pic.twitter.com/fvr51WeFCX
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) March 8, 2023
The contentious email exchange was sparked by outrage from Hannity himself. In a group text between primetime stars Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Hannity, Carlson urges his fellow host to “please get [Heinrich] fired.”
News-side reporters like Neil Cavuto and Sandra Smith were the primary targets of Fox’s internal war.
In one instance, the host cut away from then-White House Press Secretary (now Fox host) Kayleigh McEnany. “We have to be very clear: she’s charging the other side as welcoming fraud and illegal voting,” Cavuto said. “Unless she has more details to back that up, I can’t in good countenance continue to show you this.”
Members of Fox’s communication team labeled the situation a “brand threat” and warned of backlash from conservative publications. The situation was compounded by a hot-mic moment from anchor Sandra Smith, who instructed her co-host to shut down a guest who cast doubt on the network’s Arizona call.
“What [Smith] did, and what Neil [Cavuto] did was worse,” wrote Suzanne Scott. “Terrible.”
Dominion, a voting machine and software company that became the focus of several baseless conspiracies promoted by Trump and his allies, sued Fox last year, claiming the network committed defamation by knowingly spreading false claims about the company. The resulting legal process has produced thousands of pages of documents containing emails, text messages, and other internal communications from Fox hosts and executives, as well as guests and political operatives in their orbit.
The emails make plain that Fox was more than willing to give airtime to baseless conspiracies and the former president’s election fantasies, even if it meant punishing their own talent. The network has long maintained that while their ratings-gobbling stars are entertainers and not believable reporters, the maintenance of a “hard news” side legitimizes the network as a reputable news source.
It’s now just about impossible to argue Fox is a legitimate journalistic entity. The now-public communications highlight that the network believes its primary purpose is to spoon-feed carefully curated propaganda to its audience — not to deliver news. The maintenance of that relationship may end up costing Fox as much as $1.4 billion dollars, and considering everything we’ve learned, things don’t seem to be going their way.
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