Newsmax

Tensions have long simmered between the cable channel and Cortes, a diehard Trump loyalist whose public criticism of Newsmax’s vaccine policy may have been the last straw.

The cable news outlet appears to be backing off the fringe ledge just a tad after high-profile embarrassments, hiring two longtime Fox News producers — and may add reporting vet James Rosen.

Smartmatic, an election technology company that faced baseless accusations of rigging the 2020 election, earlier filed a similar lawsuit against Fox News.

A new national poll from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) published on Monday shows that 31% of Americans believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. That figure includes an overwhelming 82% of Americans who trust Fox News more than any other media outlet, 97% of those who trust One America News Network and Newsmax, and two-thirds of Republicans generally.

Dominion Voting Systems has filed defamation lawsuits against Newsmax, One America News Network and Patrick Byrne, the former CEO of Overstock, over their advancement of conspiracy theories that company had a role in rigging the results of the 2020 presidential election. The lawsuits against One America, Newsmax and Byrne each seek more than $1.6 billion in damages.

New jobs posted to TVNewsCheck’s Media Job Center include openings for an executive producer, a senior producer and an associate producer for Newsmax.

The conservative news network, in a statement published on its website and to be read on TV, said that while it aired accusations of voter machine manipulation against Dominion Voting Systems Security Director Eric Coomer made by Donald Trump’s lawyers and supporters, it found no evidence that they were true.

Dominion Voting Systems is adding a new team of lawyers as it prepares for its current lawsuits — and another potential round. Cable networks Newsmax and One American News Network, which aired post election conspiracy theories, are among the top targets for Dominion’s next round of lawsuits, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Andrew Giuliani, who was an adviser to President Donald Trump and is the son of his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, has joined Newsmax TV as a contributor. He is a former professional golfer and was special assistant to the president and association director of the Office of Public Liaison at the White House.

Erik Wemple: “The insertion of Congress into the contractual relationships of video providers with particular news/propaganda outlets is frightening. Asking questions is a protected activity, of course — one that lawmakers use all the time. Yet these questions feel a lot like coercion by government officials, an incursion into the cultural promise of the First Amendment.”

Forgoing any appeals for healing or reflection, right-wing media organizations that spread former President Donald J. Trump’s distortions about the 2020 election continued on Wednesday to push conspiracy theories about large-scale fraud, with some predicting more political conflict in the months ahead.

For One America News Network and Newsmax, the Georgia runoffs present an opportunity to capitalize on post-presidential election audience gains, which they’ve boosted thanks to promotion from President Donald Trump. For weeks, the outlets pushed baseless theories about election fraud in an effort to be No. 2 behind dominant cable news channel Fox News.

There has been a quantifiable shift in the number of people who watch Newsmax, a much-smaller, would-be Fox News competitor that has seen a dramatic uptick in viewers in the weeks since the election by capitalizing on conservative frustration with Fox, and, some say, a desire from President Trump’s fans to keep alive the flailing narrative that he will ultimately serve a second term, despite Biden’s coming inauguration.

Eric Coomer, security director at the Colorado-based Dominion Voting Systems, said he wants his life back after being named in false charges as a key actor in “rigging” the election for President-elect Joe Biden. There has been no evidence that the election was rigged. His lawsuit, filed Tuesday in district court in Denver County, Colorado, names the Trump campaign, lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, conservative columnist Michelle Malkin, the website Gateway Pundit, Colorado conservative activist Joseph Oltmann, and conservative media outlets Newsmax and One America News Network.

Voting machine companies, including Antonio Mugica’s Smartmatic, threaten defamation lawsuits against Fox, Newsmax and OAN.

The challenges are unlikely to knock Fox News from its perch as the cable news ratings giant. Fox has spent billions investing in its around-the-clock news division and its primetime lineup draws millions of viewers every night. But fledgling conservative outlets such as Newsmax and One America News see an opportunity to challenge Fox by providing unabashed pro-Trump news and commentary.

With his claims rejected by courts and dismissed by state officials, America’s most powerful cable news junkie has expanded his diet beyond Fox News, relying more on networks that are willing to parrot and feed his unfounded claims of an electoral conspiracy. His support, in person and via an increasing number of tweets, has bolstered these networks’ viewership and aided their upstart effort to compete with Fox News.

Chris Ruddy, the CEO of Newsmax, has found a business opportunity in feeding Trump supporters the fantasy that the president could still win the election.

Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy on Tuesday sought to quell speculation that it would become a Trump-branded network after President Donald Trump leaves the White House. While telling CNBC he’s friends with Trump, Ruddy said, “I think they’re reading into it a little too much.”

Newsmax may be focused on conservative audiences, but it has very liberal views of where its business can go in the future as an independent news operation. The top executive of the news outlet said the company intends to move forward on its own, and noted Newsmax has little desire to turn the network, which has seen its ratings pop since the presidential election, into a TV outlet focused largely on a forum for a post-White House Donald Trump.

Newsmax, which wants to draw viewers away from Fox News, has played up conservative criticisms of the network. An anchor said Fox is “jumping right into the tank for the left.”

On Monday before his rally in Sanford, Fla., President Trump ramped up his attacks on Fox News and promoted some competitors including  C-SPAN and conservative outlets One America News Network and Newsmax. “@FoxNews allows more negative ads on me than practically all of the other networks combined. Not like the old days, but we will win even bigger than 2016. Roger Ailes was the GREATEST!,” the president tweeted.