Dominion Suit’s Revelations Damage The Entire Fox Brand

A well-regarded mass communication theory, agenda-setting, suggests that media influence public opinion through their priority and placement of issues, setting the agenda for public discourse.

Political scientist Bernard Cohen said in 1963 that “[t]he press may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about.”

Obviously, the massive expansion of consumer options and the immediate measure of consumer participation through technology have shifted considerable influence to consumers, including leverage over the media’s own agenda.

But revelations from Dominion Voting System’s lawsuit against the Fox News Channel, settled for $787.5 million, suggest that the long-successful network actually was captive to a hard-core viewership, viewership that has brought Fox great success but also indifference to the truth.

Typically, news media do not elevate to serious discussion unsupported crackpot theories that have been laughed out of numerous courtrooms and for which their legal advocates have, on behalf of a ranting and vindictive former president, put their own careers at risk.

But when a fractured, fanatic and fickle audience seemed to threaten Fox News with abandonment to other outlets — outlets where the calendar somehow skipped Jan. 6; where all Donald Trump’s phone calls are “perfect” and where the reliably conservative Liz Cheney is a banished Republican in Name Only — it abandoned established journalism principles and gave its audience the misinformation it demanded.

A large audience for advertisers apparently — to paraphrase Daniel Moynihan — is entitled to its own facts.

According to internal Fox News communications revealed in the Dominion discovery process, key staffers and personalities actually complained when the network told the truth.

Some sought to fire reporters who brought forth facts and attempted to puncture the whining, baseless and bizarre conspiracies promoted by Trump, his lawyers and — cravenly — by the network itself. Key Fox people continued to treat seriously charges they acknowledged privately — often profanely — were false, “insane” and “offensive.”

Audiences have changed since the early days of television. Consider: In the 1950s, when demagogue Sen. Joseph McCarthy was exposed through media as a bully and a fabricator, he fell from power.

Donald Trump boasts of bullying. He boasts of adultery, serial molesting and being a peeping Tom with teenage beauty contestants. He lies constantly, and whines endlessly. He’s cheated not only his wives and other relatives, but also investors, students, creditors and contractors. And the outstanding accusations are worse.

And when all this was exposed over years of media attention, did Trump fall like McCarthy? Hardly. He was elected president of the United States.

Of course, Fox is hardly the first or the only network accused of bowing to public tastes. But in its reckless disregard for the truth, Fox pandered to viewers who enthusiastically pursued misinformation that fit their beliefs.

On Fox’s media show, commentator Howard Kurtz followed the prescribed network narrative and attempted to position Fox as victim, pointing out that many in the media were disappointed and wanted to see their rival “news” organization on trial. He cited commentary that called it “schadenfreude.”

He found it especially significant that Dominion lawyers thanked the media, while suggesting that Fox was fighting for the First Amendment. But trying to evoke sympathy — beyond the audience that welcomed Fox’s misinformation — may be a tougher challenge for Fox than overcoming the trove of evidence of Fox’s amplifying the lies of Trump and his pathetic band of on-air surrogates.

What emerged from that trove is that some at Fox see their job as pleasing their audience, not necessarily informing it. And unlike broadcast networks using publicly owned airwaves, there’s no social contract.

Information about the 2020 election became an obstacle to Fox and other networks fearful of offending Trump or his followers who long ago bought all that Trump was selling. Truth and accuracy rarely show up at MAGA rallies.

There are laws, of course, that discourage airing hateful and hate-filled lies and treating an earnest business — and sometimes truth — as collateral damage.

Fox settled rather than risk court-ordered damages. But the network, which has earned enormous sums of money by knowing its audience and giving it what it needs, showed little, if any, signs of contrition or change. The network shamelessly — laughably — claimed this massive, historic settlement somehow “reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards.” The only commitment Fox has is to keep the Trump faithful tuning in so that it can continue to be tapped for cable/satellite affiliate fees and advertising.

By putting pandering before honest journalism, Fox News has sullied the Fox brand and harmed other journalists far removed from its demagoguery and slanted reporting.

They are the dedicated journalists working under the Fox logo in local newsrooms across the country. Some of the outlets are owned by Fox, some are simply affiliated with it.

They seek truth and report it, not because of any implied or expressed deal with the FCC, but because it is what they have chosen to with their lives. They accept the responsibility that comes with the First Amendment. They know the importance of their work and recognize how essential truthful and accurate information is to a functioning democracy. They do not actively promote lies and avoid truth.

And yet they must now labor under a brand that, in the wake of Dominion, stands for nothing other than pursuing a misguided and gullible audience wherever it may lead.

Longtime journalist Dan Trigoboff, Ph.D., J.D., is currently on the communications faculty at St. Augustine’s University in Raleigh, N.C.