Commentary

Murdoch Outs Fox News Hosts Over Election Lies: Fox TV Advertisers On The Outs?

The drama of Fox News Channel and the fake story of widespread election fraud continues to be part procedural crime stuff, part governmental intrigue. And all a lie. An easy-to-digest storyline can keep viewers riveted to their seats.

When it comes to the Presidential election circa 2020, Fox created, sweated over and laid into its own intrigue over continuing efforts to promote falsehoods about the widespread theft of a Presidential election.

Rupert Murdoch, chairman of Fox Corp., said as much in a deposition with regard to a $1.6 billion defamation case brought on Fox News Channel by Dominion Voting Systems. “Some of our commentators were endorsing it,” Murdoch said.

These included Jeanine Pirro, Maria Bartiromo, former host Lou Dobbs, and Sean Hannity who backed claims  the Presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. It also turns out Murdoch said he could have done something about it beforehand, "but didn't." This last part could be key.

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This follows up on prime-time hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham -- who, it was revealed, were frantically off-air via messaging that the widespread election theft story was garbage and that viewers were seeking this continuing but fake storyline on other new channels.

There were other worries. Fox business executives were concerned a revisionist approach to the story might ruffle even more feathers among those TV advertisers who, for example, sell pillows for TV's restless, head-banging viewers -- you know, from promoter and on-air personality Mike Lindell of My Pillow fame, the network's biggest advertiser.

According to Dominion attorneys, "Murdoch agreed that 'It's not red or blue -- it is green.'" For My Pillow that amounts to $105.6 million, according to iSpot.tv, over the last 12 months, the network's biggest paid-advertiser.

So it wasn't about conservative politics -- it was about money and TV advertising revenues.

In that regard, who doesn’t love a storyline that can reach high levels of viewer engagement? Maybe this still works for Balance of Nature, Nutrisystem, WeatherTech, Safelite Auto Glass, Ideal Agent, LeafFilter, Liberty Mutual, SelectQuote, Ozempic, and ADT.

The trouble is, Fox News is not selling the behind-the-scenes drama of news TV network hosts and producers running around and screaming at each other. But others might.

For sure, TV news journalists make mistakes. And the good ones make corrections -- quickly..

But indications are that Fox News hosts and producers had knowledge beforehand, and said little about it.

Carlson and Ingraham were frantic they would be losing loyal viewers to far-right, extreme news operations like Newsmax and One America News.

Defamation cases are rarely successful because much depends on proving the news organization knew beforehand that it was airing bad intel -- and then went ahead with it anyway. For many, this gives Dominion Voting Systems -- a major voting machine company in the U.S. -- a strong chance of succeeding.

And if they win, what will national TV advertisers do to find other alternative, high-level, engaging content to grab maximum viewers?

A good storyline is always hard to find in big numbers.

You get that news picture, yes?

This story has been updated.

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