TheVoiceOfJoyce Fox News anchors lied about the 2020 election results to preserve ratings and profits. If the Dominion lawsuit prevails,they’ll pay $1.6 Billion in damages. Is that enough? I don’t think so. Fox News was given a larger % of the News than any other media outlet. If they’re found guilty of perpetrating lies, from Murdock down, they should lose their license to broadcast news. They’re not a news outlet, they don’t talk facts or present a fair and balanced position on the news. They’ve incited hatred and violence to maintain their profits. Can’t the FCC penalize them by curtailing their sphere of influence? They’re not a newspaper or a news channel, they don’t adhere to industry standards, why continue to reward Fox? Another corporate entity without accountability? Why can’t everyone injured by their false reporting, hold Fox liable? They’re not above the Law. #PoliticsAffectsUs

Posted on by jaslvr

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/24/fox-news-spreading-lies-16bn-dominion-lawsuit

In one instance, Murdoch messaged CEO Suzanne Scott (“Everything at stake here”) with seeming panic about the growing anger of the core viewership. Those Trump loyalists were enraged after the network accurately predicted on election night that Biden had won Arizona, a key battleground state. Fox’s ratings were sliding radically as Maga Nation moved toward smaller outlets that were even more unhinged from the facts.

In another example, the network’s most influential star, Tucker Carlson – who clearly knew that there was no significant election fraud – told colleague Sean Hannity that he wanted a Fox reporter fired after she tweeted a fact-check of Trump’s voting conspiracy theories.

And although Fox’s defense attorneys claim such examples are handpicked to create a false impression, the cherry harvest certainly is abundant. (They also insist that the network merely was engaging in free speech, protected by the first amendment and codified in longstanding case law.)

The suit has excavated an ugly reality: that the corporate culture at Fox is less about the truth than about protecting profits and market position.

And it matters. The election lies that swirled on Fox News and throughout rightwing media during and after the 2020 presidential election have caused destruction.

The violent assault on the US Capitol might never have happened without this propaganda in the service of profits. And the deep political divisions in the United States can be laid to an alarming degree at the feet of this single media organization, which is the most popular and richest of the cable news networks.

But a vexing question arises: what’s to be done about it?

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