Front Burner - Fox News settles voting case but ‘Big Lie’ remains

Episode Date: April 19, 2023

Fox News is the most watched news network in the United States. In the days after the 2020 Presidential election, it broadcasted Donald Trump’s ‘Big Lie”: that the election was stolen from him and voting machines were partly to blame. The company that makes some of those voting machines, Dominion Voting, pushed back suing Fox for defamation and settling for $787-million. Today, CBC’s Washington-based correspondent Alex Panetta takes us through what court filings revealed about how Fox’s most powerful people knew they were telling their audience was untrue, but did it anyway for ratings. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. Late Tuesday afternoon, just hours after the jury had been selected in Wilmington, Delaware, in the Dominion Voting v. Fox News defamation trial,

and his lawyers were preparing to give their opening statements. A very abrupt end to it all. A $787.5 million settlement was reached, one of the largest defamation settlements in U.S. history. Here's one of Dominion's lawyers talking after the announcement. The truth matters. Lies have consequences. matters. Lies have consequences. Today's settlement represents vindication and accountability. Dominion, as you'll likely remember, is a Canadian-founded company that provided some electronic voting systems used in the 2020 U.S. election. And in the lawsuit they had filed, the company alleged Fox and some of its loudest voices pushed Donald Trump's big lie that the 2020 U.S. election was stolen, in part by saying the voting systems themselves were rigged.

The settlement means that some of the highest profile figures of the corporation won't be taking the stand. Rupert Murdoch, Maria Bartiromo. But a huge cache of documents already released through filings have given us this window into how Fox News works, what its stars like Carlson really think about Trump, the election, and more. Today, my colleague Alex Panetta is here to talk about all of this. Alex, hey. How's it going? Good. Thanks very much for joining me at this late hour.

This was really shocking to me. I don't know about you. Everyone had gathered in the courtroom on Tuesday. I saw the lawyers literally had microphones clipped to their jacket lapels for their opening statements. And we thought the trial was about to begin. And then what happens? Take me through it. Oh, yeah.

Everyone was set to go. It was going to be the media trial of the century. It wasn't even the media trial of the day. It didn't last one full day. It didn't even get underway, as a matter of fact. The settlement is for, as you stated, $787.5 million. It's not the largest defamation settlement in U.S. history. Alex Jones, a conspiracy theorist, was told to pay more than a billion dollars.

Lawyers for the families of Sandy Hook victims showing how just hours after the massacre that left 20 first graders and six staffers dead, the InfoWars host claimed it was all a hoax and the grieving parents, actors, Jones mocking them on his show. In this case, I think there's a good chance Fox News will actually pay the money and that the recipient or the plaintiff will actually get it. will actually pay the money, um, and that the recipient of the plaintiff will actually get it. Uh, the plaintiff Dominion voting systems also gets, uh, uh, a sort of apology or a statement from Fox, uh, admitting that they said, uh, factually untrue things about the company. Uh, and, um, uh, Fox, uh, basically moves on, uh, to fight probably additional, um, legal cases. Yeah. And let's talk about that a little bit more

in a bit, but I want to go over with you how we got here to this extraordinary moment today. And so take me back to the 2020 election. What was Fox saying on air about the election at the time, specifically about dominion let's go back to election night november 3rd 2020 fox news declares is the first network as a matter of fact to declare that donald trump had lost arizona um arizona are you 100 sure of that call and when you made it and why did you make it? Absolutely. We made it after basically a half hour of debating. Is it time yet? Because it was it's it's been clear for a while.

I'm sorry. The president is not going to be able to take over and win enough votes to eliminate that seven point lead that the former vice president has. Joe Biden had won and it was extremely close, actually so close that it might have been a mistake to call it in the first place because because they were like within a few thousand votes could have gone either way. But it turned out they were right. And this set off an incandescent rage within Donald Trump's entourage. The White House was livid at Fox News. They saw it as a betrayal. And the reason for that is their entire election lie was predicated on Trump's veneer of inevitability. Had Trump won Arizona,

he then had leads in Michigan and Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. Recall that it was the mail-in ballots that took Joe Biden over the finish line. Those took a few days to tabulate. Trump would have basically said, I won. It's over. And it would have, uh, uh, created some momentum. I'm not sure how far that would have gotten because it's not like litigary, uh, weight in court, but that was the plan. And they were mad at Fox for, for having, uh, sacrificed that plan. And over time, uh, Republicans became livid at Fox news. I covered a, um, uh, a Trump event, uh, a rally a few weeks later in Georgia because there was this Georgia Senate runoff, and people were heckling and booing the Fox reporters. People were lining

up for pictures with the figures with these more fringe right-wing outlets. People were chanting, right-side broadcast network into the media pen. That is Rupert Murdoch's greatest nightmare. And then take me through how Dominion becomes kind of the ground zero here, like one of the ground zeros in this whole saga. Yeah, so Fox News and a lot of outlets said a lot of things. I mean, Tucker Carlson referred to dead people voting, which he got from the Trump campaign, a tip he got. And no one quite embodies that story like James Blaylock of Covington, Georgia.

Mr. Blaylock was a mailman for 33 years until he passed away in 2006. 14 years later, according to state records, he was still mailing things. James Blaylock cast a ballot in last week's election. But it turned out to be wrong. It was inaccurate. And Carlson actually apologized on the air for that. We've got some good news tonight and an apology. One of the people who voted in last week's election isn't dead. James Blaylock is still dead. We told you about him, but it was his wife who voted. She voted as Mrs. James Blaylock. It's old fashioned and we missed it. But some Fox News personalities, in particular, Maria Bertiromo, Lou Dobbs, Jeanine Pirro, basically bought lock, stock and barrel.

The wildest, craziest conspiracy theories involving Dominion voting systems. They were connected to, you know, the former or the current Chavez regime of Venezuela, now led by Nicolas Maduro. Claims debunked by the company's founder. We were founded in Toronto, which is where my family was from, and there was nothing to do with Venezuela. And there were no apologies. There were no attempts to air countervailing views.

And especially relevant are the private conversations within the Fox News world, where you had senior figures at the network, including Rupert Murdoch, including other executives, Tucker Cross and Laura Ingram, referring to the people peddling this stuff, Sidney Powell, Rudolph Giuliani, as crazy. And so, and just to be clear here, like when we're talking about these private messages, these are messages that we've seen in recent months only because of this lawsuit. Right. Because they were part of filings in this lawsuit. It sort of gave us a window into the inner workings of Fox. So if on air you have, you know, Jeanine Pirro interviewing lawyer Sidney Powell and Powell is talking about how it was created for the express purpose of being able to alter votes and secure the reelection of Hugo Chavez. And it is one huge, huge criminal conspiracy that should be investigated by military intelligence for its national security implications.

for its national security implications. Yes, and hopefully the Department of Justice, but who knows anymore. Inside Fox, there was lots of pushback behind the scenes. Tell me about what we've learned about that. Yeah, from these filings, we've seen that Rupert Murdoch referred to Rudy Giuliani's conspiracy mongering as stupid, damaging, terrible. We learned that Fox News has an internal research department called the Brain Room.

It just basically, you know, provides its reporters and staff with facts. And it called the claims about Dominion machines unfounded or 100% false. Tucker Carlson called Sidney Powell crazy, cruel and reckless for her shocking, what he called them, shocking election lies, which he said gave Trump supporters false hope that he might remain in office. Laura Ingraham called Sidney Powell a complete nut for these conspiracy theories. But the network warned its staff, and this we've seen in the filings, don't say these things on the air. Don't insult the audience. to kind of call the election for Biden. But talk to me more about the viewers and how they were reacting to this story and how, you know, talk to me more about the viewers.

They were starting to leave. They were looking for alternatives. They wanted to hear these lies. They were desperate to hear them. And they moved on to places like Right Side Broadcasting Network and One America News and Newsmax. And we know that the people at Fox News were panicked about this. They were way more worried about this than about offending or getting sued by Dominion Voting Systems.

Tucker Carlson refers at one point in an email to the share price, the stock price of the Fox Corporation dropping. And he's right. uh the share price the stock price of the fox corporation dropping and he's right um at one point in response to a trump tweet trump had tweeted that he was he was fed up with fox and that he was moving on to newsmax uh that day uh fox news's share price for fox corporation share price fell six percent and it ultimately recovered and that's what fox news is worried about about being supplanted in a multi-billion dollar business permanently by upstart competitors. And, you know, it made me think of an anecdote about Rupert Murdoch. You know, 50 years ago, exactly 50 years ago this year, he bought his first U.S. newspaper in San Antonio, Texas.

And he espoused this simple credo that would make him a world-shaping media baron. He said, we're not here to pass ourselves off as intellectuals. He said, we're here to give the public what they want. He gave them crime at this newspaper, sensationalism. And it's been his mantra ever since. And his managing editor at that newspaper was famous for saying, this isn't journalism.

This is showbiz. You got to give the people what they want. And 50 years later, Fox News is now paying a massive, massive penalty for giving its people exactly what they wanted. Right. It's kind of like the extension of the strategy that he's employed for five decades. And as you said earlier, he called Giuliani's conspiracy mongering about the machine stupid and damaging and terrible and yet we have no evidence that he ever intervened or or tried to stop what was happening on the air on the airwaves In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection.

Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income. That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen

to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I want to talk about the bar that Dominion would have had to have met here if they were going to win the case in court. Because defamation is a hard thing to, it's hard to win a defamation case, particularly in the U.S., right? And so what would they have had to have proven? I know you've been writing about a much older case that was quite central to that question here. And take me through that case connected to Martin Luther King Jr. and why it was so important here. Well, yeah, I wound up junking my story because of the settlement. A piece about how Fox News was going to wrap itself in a defense that dates back to Martin Luther King and a case involving or connected to Martin Luther King. In 1960, New York Times runs an ad, page 25, And friends of Martin Luther King placed this ad in the Times, and it contains some factual errors. They say some things about the Alabama police that didn't happen, and that a civic official in Montgomery, Alabama, sues the New York Times for $500,000, which is a huge sum back then, right?

And he wins. But the case gets kicked up to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court ultimately sides with the Times and creates the modern bar for a libel case, which is to prove malice. It says if you allow people to sue news organizations for libel over innocent errors, things that they're not aware of, well, you're going to be able to harass and sue the free press into oblivion. It's the end of a free press in the United States if the bar is set too low. So they set the bar a little higher at intentional malice, at intentionally telling lies, at failing to try to find the truth. And what Dominion was going to attempt to prove in this case was that Fox News' emails, them talking about the share price and not antagonizing their their listeners and talking about how crazy sydney powell and rudy giuliani uh were well that that proves that fox news is being malicious here fox news would have defended itself by saying uh you don't have emails proving that um mariromo. Sidney, we talked about the Dominion software.

I know that there were voting irregularities. Or Lou Dobbs. We have tremendous evidence already of fraud in this election. Didn't believe what they were saying. You have emails proving that some other people in the network thought that they were nutty. So they would have then said, you know, there's no malice on the part of the people who were most ardently pushing this stuff on the air. Right.

That those people actually believed the big lie. But I guess the implication here is that Fox believed that the case that Dominion was making was strong enough because they settled or that it was a real dice roll to go to a jury with it or or maybe they just just just didn't want to drag all of this uh into the public square even more than it already has been like you know why do you think they ultimately ended up settling here yeah i don't know one of two two possibilities. What you just mentioned, which is, you know, thinking that Dominion might actually win this massive sum, which, you know, I'd heard people very skeptical Dominion was going to get the money it was asking for because. Yeah, which was 1.6 billion, by the way, just for our listeners. 1.6 billion.

Yeah. Almost half. So it got almost half. So $1.6 billion. The company was only worth $80 million when it was sold five years ago. So Fox was also going to claim. So A, it was going to claim this wasn't malicious. The people who said this stuff on the air believed it. But the second thing it was going to claim was Dominion was only worth at most a couple hundred million. So why would it be entitled to $1.6 billion? So ultimately it decided that either was going to lose a tremendous amount of money, but the other factor I think that could be later used to undermine the credibility of the network in a way that the recent print news stories and radio news stories haven't, that the actual scenes of these personalities on the witness stand would have been devastating and, you know, worth, you know, the $787 million payout. The $787 million payout, I know you mentioned earlier Fox is worth more than this, but that's a lot of money. And so, you know, what could it mean for the future of Fox? Like, is it enough to hurt its operations? Like, will it affect Fox's coverage going forward, do you think? 4% of the annual revenues of the Fox's parent corporation.

Fox News is the crown jewel in its holdings. You know, 4%. We've already discussed how the share price could fluctuate more greatly based on a Trump tweet than as a result of this suit. That said, Fox faces additional legal threats. Another voting machine company, Smartmatic, is suing it for 2.7 billion uh the the dominion lawyers hinted at additional cases uh after the settlement so yeah these kinds of sums could start piling up but the other thing i think that uh that could uh change at fox is if there is another election like 2020, they might be more careful about what they say. They're not going to stop supporting Trump. They're not going to stop,

you know, parroting his lies, but they might throw in a countervailing viewpoint or, you know, say these are Trump's allegations, which we haven't verified or, um, or they might just not air the craziest stuff. So I wouldn't expect major changes, but I would expect, uh, you know, just a slight modification to sort of way some of this stuff gets handled in an effort to avoid future $787 million payout. Right. Because I mean, Trump is running or he says he's running in the next election. He has not let go of this big election lie. Like he is still very much parroting it.

And Fox has not dumped this guy at this time, right? No, as a matter of fact, you know, we know Rupert Murdoch kind of wanted to be rid of Trump based on these court filings. We know that Tucker Carlson, he called Trump demonic, said he couldn't wait to stop hearing about him. Well, look who's on the airwaves just a few days ago. You don't mention, I call it the N-word.

You have two N-words. You don't mention either one of them. The nuclear word you don't mention because the power is so destructive. Donald Trump was on Tucker Carlson's show. Tucker Carlson, you know, gave him a very soft interview, didn't push back on him at all. For a man who was caricatured as an extremist, we think you'll find what he has to say, moderate, sensible, and wise. You know, what does that tell you is that in 1973, Rupert Murdoch set up a business model in the United States saying the customer's always right. And the

customer remains right. And that no matter how much they might secretly, uh, loathe him or think he's a buffoon or want to be rid of him, they can't quit him because their audience can't quit him. Yeah. I, uh, you know, listening to you say that, I, I just want to pull up one quote that came from that huge cash documents, um, that came from that huge cash documents from Dana Perino, a Fox host. And she wrote it to a friend in November 2020. This day of reckoning was going to come at some point where the embrace of Trump became an albatross we can't shake right away, if ever. It feels pretty relevant to the conversation that we're having right now.

You know, final question, Alex. If we could just zoom out a little bit here. Do you think that this settlement will do anything to undo the millions of people who believe the big lie? Is it going to change the damage uh like is it is it going to change the damage that has been done i don't know i mean i i i could see this being a stain on the company that people will refer to it repeatedly for the rest of history uh when criticizing fox but you know one thing we encountered uh in 2020 was and fox encountered frankly was the realization that this wasn't just a supply issue it wasn't a you know question of what news outlets were putting into the market it's also a demand issue that that there's a market for um the wildest stuff and that it's

not going away and uh yeah i don't i don't see that changing as a result of this. As a matter of fact, you might even have people using it as proof of this vast conspiracy against Trump and Fox. They're trying to silence it. So, you know, count me as skeptical that anything significant is going to change. Okay. Alex Panetta, thank you very much. Thank you. Before we go today, I think it's worth us saying that one of the Dominion lawyers said Tuesday that they weren't quite done here. related to false claims about the 2020 election against Newsmax Media, One America News Network, former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, the attorney Sidney Powell, and others. All right, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson.

Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.