This Just In – Readers and viewers can handle the truth – it’s the top guys at Fox News Channel (FNC) who cannot and there’s a simple reason why. They’re not in the news business.
There’s no licensing process to create a cable channel, so there’s some value in understanding that when FNC was created, the word “News” was just a branding exercise.
For the last couple of weeks, we’ve watched as the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against FNC has dumped out into the public domain, thousands of pages of text messages, emails and various other sources of documentation that all arrive at the same destination:
- FNC knew that claims about the voting systems being corrupted or rigged were completely false and the people featured on their network (including their prime time hosts) to make those claims had no proof whatsoever; and
- They continued to promote these claims because they feared that FNC would lose audience share if they told the truth – that Donald Trump lost the election and claims of fraud were based on lies.
- The people involved at the top of the operation, including Rupert Murdoch himself, knowingly and deliberately deceived the public despite privately communicating that they were booking lunatics who were making utterly ridiculous claims.
That’s all. On item #2 – that’s reckless disregard for the truth – the malice standard. Dominion’s lawsuit is won, basically, before it reaches a courtroom (next month).
We can speculate about why Dominion doesn’t settle the case (take the money and run), but I’m more focused on this Shakespearean exercise in these top dogs refusing to tell their unusually devoted viewers the truth … because loss of viewership would adversely affect them – personally.
The compensation of Hannity, Carlson and Ingraham almost certainly includes shares of stock as well as straight salary. If the company’s stock tumbles, they lose money.
We can easily tell FNC is no news organization. If it were, they’d have shouted from the mountain tops that they called the key state in the 2020 race days ahead of their competition. Instead, they fired the folks at the decision desk who (accurately) projected Biden would win Arizona. They allowed Sean Hannity to appear at Trump rallies, openly embracing the candidate.
Still, we come back to the simple refusal to tell the story as it really is – Trump lost, Biden won. How would other news stories be told if left to Fox’s judgment of “what the viewers can handle”?
- “Civil War ends in stalemate”
- “Lincoln resigns Presidency due to crazy wife”
- “Transportation accident in New York causes hysterical tourists to flee (9/11)”
As an adult, I’ve had the burden several times of having to deliver bad news to family members. I called my uncle and told him my mother (his former sister-in-law) had died. Two years ago, I called him again to tell him that his brother had died. Sitting with my children to tell them that each of their grandparents had died, I had to deliver the news – bad news – with straightforward facts and compassion for them.
The loss of grandparents usually hits kids right between the eyes. It’s hard to get those awful words out of your mouth because you’re feeling the impact, too. When they have questions, you answer them as truthfully as humanly possible.
Walter Cronkite was interviewed some ago about his most awful task as a journalist – telling the country that President Kennedy was dead. He said “It fell to me to make the announcement for CBS. My emotion was apparent as I fought to control my composure, locking it inside a clenched jaw. CRONKITE: From Dallas, Texas, the flash apparently official, President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time – 2 o’clock Eastern Standard Time – some 38 minutes ago.”
Americans, for the week that followed, had to face a terrible truth. Our president had been assassinated. After 9/11, we had to understand our new vulnerability in a dangerous and complicated world. We handle the truth just fine. The story of this massive fraud is not about Fox viewers being weak scaredy-cats. It’s about a bunch of rich, spoiled people being greedy and dishonest.
That’s the way it is.
(featured image via Wikipedia)
Jean Bolduc is a freelance writer and the host of the Weekend Watercooler on 97.9 The Hill. She is the author of “African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History” (History Press, 2016) and has served on Orange County’s Human Relations Commission, The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, the Orange County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Schools’ Equity Task Force. She was a featured columnist and reporter for the Chapel Hill Herald and the News & Observer.
Readers can reach Jean via email – jean@penandinc.com and via Twitter @JeanBolduc
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