Why the Fox News trial is so important

In 1964, the Supreme Court made a ruling that would have major consequences for the American media landscape. In the “New York Times Company vs. Sullivan” case, the chief justices found that false reports could only take action if there was “actual malice” (intentional malice).

This judgment had far-reaching consequences. Supported by the First Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression – and is of the utmost importance in the US – the media could now be critical of their coverage of the Vietnam War without fear of a judge to be towed. As of now, only reports that can be proven to have knowingly or grossly negligently spread lies were actionable.

Not only the critics of the Vietnam War benefited from this verdict. In 1973, publisher Rupert Murdoch was preparing for his first baby steps in the United States. He also learned his lessons from it. First with an insignificant regional newspaper called “The News” in San Antonio, which he converted into a scandal paper modeled on the British “Sun”.

He then acquired the New York Post, the oldest newspaper in the United States. Here too Murdoch used the same recipe: the formerly dormant newspaper became a screaming blood-and-sperm pamphlet peppered with arch-conservative political opinion. The commercial success reverberated here as well.

The highlight of Murdoch’s campaign in the US was the creation of the Fox News TV station. Together with Roger Ailes, a former adviser to Richard Nixon, he set up a conservative alternative to the supposedly left-liberal tainted mainstream media. The worst right-wing propaganda was therefore unashamedly spread under the slogan “fair and balanced”. That should pay off. Fox News rose to become the TV cable channel with the highest ratings, Murdoch earned dumb and dumb.

However, Fox News is in deep trouble right now. Today in the state of Delaware – where the company, like so many others, is registered as a limited liability company – begins a process that is not just about a lot of money. It is also about how far freedom of expression can go in a democracy. But one after the other:

After his electoral defeat, Donald Trump began spreading the Big Lie, the lie that Joe Biden’s victory was only possible thanks to massive electoral fraud. The voting machines from the manufacturer Dominion played an essential part in this absurd and repeatedly disproved claim. Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani and an attorney named Sidney Powell have repeatedly argued on Fox News that these machines were programmed to turn as many votes for Trump into Biden’s favor as needed to help the Democrat win. .

To elevate all this to the level of complete absurdity, even Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela who died in 2013, was called in. He once hatched the manipulations.

Dominion denied the lies and sued Fox News for defamation and $1.6 billion in damages. Fox News initially took this lawsuit calmly. Knowing that the New York Times Company vs Sullivan made it virtually impossible to sue a media outlet for libel, there was little response.

That has now changed. Meanwhile, Prosecutor Dominion has managed to obtain a slew of testimony that has cast Fox News in a devastating light. Emails have surfaced in which celebrity hosts like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham admit that they never believed the Big Lie for a second. Maria Bartiromo – once a respected business journalist – based her allegations of the rigged voting machines on a woman who claimed to be long dead and to walk the world like a ghost (no kidding). And Tucker Carlson, currently the undisputed number one at Fox News, wrote in an email that he “passionately” hates Trump.

Even publisher Murdoch was less than satisfied with his TV station’s coverage. In an email to Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott, he wrote, “Terrible things. I’m afraid he’s going to harm us all.”

This fear has now become reality. Murdoch will most likely have to testify at trial, as will his star presenters. And he has bad cards. Delaware Supreme Court Justice Eric Davis is upset before the trial begins because Fox News lawyers withheld important evidence. But why did the Murdoch broadcaster get into this predicament in the first place?

Contrary to popular belief, Fox News doesn’t just influence its viewers, it’s their prisoner. As soon as the broadcaster stops delivering what the MAGA audience is crying out for, the viewers turn away. This is exactly what happened after Trump’s election defeat. Fox News was the first TV station to announce Joe Biden as the winner in the state of Arizona. That was equivalent to Trump’s defeat. The ex-president and his entourage panicked, his son-in-law Jared Kushner even begged Murdoch to withdraw this report.

The MAGA crowd also turned massively away from Fox News and towards the even more conservative channel Newsmax. Panic broke out at Murdoch station. “If they have Trump behind them, an alternative like Newsmax could have devastating consequences for us,” Tucker Carlson told a Fox News colleague.

In the episode, Fox News went all out on the big lie card to keep viewers engaged. Giuliani, Powell, the whole Trump cabinet of horror could let off steam at the station, though they were not believed for a second. In fact, Trump hater Carlson began celebrating the Capitol strikers as patriots and downplaying the events of January 6, 2021. The few serious journalists who left Fox News – Chris Wallace, Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum – left in disgust.

Publisher Murdoch justified his station’s newfound love for Trump when questioned as follows: “He has a lot of followers, and most of them are probably Fox News viewers.” At the same time, the slogan “Respect our viewers” was capitalized. “We broke the law that the viewer is always right,” a Fox producer wrote in an email.

In concrete terms, this means that Fox News no longer dares to tell its viewers the truth. It feeds the MAGA crowd what they want. This has nothing to do with serious journalism. Fox News acted with “deliberate malice”. That is why the broadcaster now has to fear that the Dominion lawsuit will be right. This would be an important victory not only for the voting machine manufacturer, but also for democracy.