Eighteen of the top 26 conservative news networks have refrained from reporting a legal filing in which Fox News hosts and executives cast doubt on the conspiracy theory that Democrats stole the 2020 election, according to a New York Times report Is.
NY Times examined those networks’ response to private messages made public in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News. According to the NY Times’ findings, only four publications — Gateway Pundit, Newsmax, The Washington Examiner and Western Journal — mentioned the suit in some way. However, none of them included personal comments from Fox employees in their coverage.
Any mentions by the other 18 outlets came from wire stories, such as those written by the Associated Press. Those companies include all of Fox’s brands (Fox News, Fox Business Channel, Fox News Sunday), OAN, The Daily Wire and InfoWars.
Dominion’s lawsuit that includes text, email and other communications exchanged by prominent conservative media figures such as Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Fox owner Rupert Murdoch. Included in those texts were some Fox News stars vilifying Donald Trump’s attorney, Sidney Powell:
“Sydney Powell is lying,” Tucker Carlson texted his producer, Alex Pfeiffer, on Nov. 16, less than two weeks after the election. “Sydney Powell is a little crazy. Sorry but she is,” Laura Ingraham texted Carlson and Hannity the day before. “The whole narrative that Sidney was pushing,” Hannity texted later that month, “I didn’t believe for a second.”
On February 27, Murdoch testified that the story of a stolen election constantly confirmed by Fox News hosts was a lie.
“I would like us to be stronger looking back at this,” he said in the filing.
As a result, many people who were fed conspiracy theories by those networks were never made aware that the Fox News personalities didn’t believe for a minute what they were saying on-air.
Murdoch’s statement marks a major victory for Dominion, which is suing News Corporation for deliberately airing false statements that their voting machines played a part in voting fraud that occurred during the 2020 election. The company is seeking a jury trial in Delaware in April.
You can read the full report Here,
