What Does This Mean for Leaguers?
In March 2021, Dominion Voting Systems (Dominion) filed a defamation lawsuit against Fox News Channel (Fox News) seeking $1.6 billion in damages. A trial was about to go forward when, on April 18, after several damaging revelations that Fox News was deliberately promoting false claims of 2020 election fraud and a “stolen election,” Fox settled with Dominion for $787.5 million—one of the largest payouts ever in a defamation case. (Fox News is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owned by the Fox Corporation.)
The settlement spared Lachlan Murdoch, CEO of Fox Corporation, and several of Fox News Channel’s popular anchors—including Sean Hannity, Maria Bartiromo, Tucker Carlson (later fired by Fox for reasons evidently extending beyond the Dominion case), and others—from being grilled about why the network promoted lies to maintain ratings and market share.
In a statement about the settlement, Fox News “acknowledged” the court’s findings that certain claims about Dominion were false. This carefully crafted statement “acknowledging the court’s findings” is not an admission of guilt. With this settlement, Fox avoided a court judgment with a potentially larger penalty payment and what Fox calls a “divisive trial” to allow the country “to move forward from these issues.”
What does this mean for our democracy? Does this settlement fix the damage done to our democratic process? The settlement does not bode well for the hopes of a wholesale repudiation of the lies Fox promoted to an audience ready to believe that President Trump’s bid for re-election was stolen from him. In fact, the Fox network has a history of offering a platform for false theories regarding President Barack Obama’s birthplace and the murder of a young Democratic National Committee staffer who they claimed, without evidence, leaked Hillary Clinton’s emails. Although internal personnel changes such as Carlson’s ouster followed the settlement, the network gave the settlement little coverage.
Fox, which has a history of high ratings for its factually questionable sensationalism, is still facing a lawsuit by Smartmatic USA, a smaller voting systems company, and another suit by Fox investors who allege that Rupert Murdoch and other board members harmed the network’s reputation as a news organization by allowing Fox News to promote the “Big Lie”—the false assertion that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election.
The sad truth, however, is that most Fox News viewers are unlikely to abandon the network or change their opinions about its prominent hosts. This means that there exists no incentive for Fox to stop manipulating information in order to keep the viewers happy and its ratings high. What’s worse is that Fox has continued to amplify the voices of political figures intent on sowing mistrust in the free press. They remain free to spread a culture of victimhood, hatred, and intolerance. Why? Because attacking our government institutions, feeding conspiracy theories, and rewriting history have historically increased Fox’s ratings and will continue to contribute to the company’s now diminished bottom line.
What does this mean for LWV-PA members? Fox will most likely continue to act like the profit-making machine that it is. The question is, will the electorate continue to buy what it is selling?
As members of the League of Women Voters, we live by Thomas Jefferson’s words, “A well-informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.” Helping to build that citizenry by educating voters is at the core of the League’s mission. As a nonpartisan organization serving the electorate, we encourage all citizens to register to vote, to educate themselves about the issues, and to vote their well-informed conscience—regardless of party. In so doing, it is the responsibility of every citizen to avoid extreme infotainment media and instead employ critical thinking when gathering the facts and making their choices. LWV-PA offers a Resource Toolbox where you can find a variety of sources for fact-checking the media.
As the 2024 election season gets under way, the LWV-PA rededicates itself to denouncing rumor, propaganda, dis- and misinformation—and to advancing our core mission of supporting a well-informed citizenry.
—Martha Y. Zavala
