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      Fox Files Motion to Dismiss Smartmatic’s $2.7 Billion Lawsuit

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFox Files Motion to Dismiss Smartmatic’s $2.7 Billion Defamation SuitIn a court filing, Rupert Murdoch’s media company says it had the right to broadcast the debunked claims of election fraud promoted by President Donald Trump’s legal team on Fox News and Fox Business.The Manhattan headquarters for Rupert Murdoch’s American media companies Fox Corporation, home of Fox News and Fox Business, and News Corp.Credit…Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesMichael M. Grynbaum and Feb. 8, 2021Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corporation on Monday filed a motion to dismiss the $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit brought against it last week by the election technology company Smartmatic, which has accused Mr. Murdoch’s cable networks and three Fox anchors of spreading falsehoods that the company tried to rig the presidential race against Donald J. Trump.The lawsuit has roiled right-wing news media outlets whose star personalities repeatedly cast doubt on Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the wake of the election and raised the specter of a significant financial penalty for Fox. On Friday, the day after the lawsuit was filed, Fox canceled the nightly Fox Business program hosted by Lou Dobbs, who is named in the suit along with the Fox anchors Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro.In its 44-page response filed in New York State Supreme Court, Fox argues that the claims of electoral fraud made on its channels by Mr. Trump’s lawyers — including Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sidney Powell, who are also named in the defamation suit — were matters of significant interest to viewers and handled fairly.“This lawsuit strikes at the heart of the news media’s First Amendment mission to inform on matters of public concern,” Fox says in the motion, adding, “An attempt by a sitting president to challenge the result of an election is objectively newsworthy.”Paul D. Clement, a partner in the Washington office of the law firm Kirkland & Ellis who served as solicitor general under President George W. Bush, is leading Fox’s defense. “Smartmatic’s theory is fundamentally incompatible with the reality of the modern news network and deeply rooted principles of free speech law,” Mr. Clement said in a statement.A spokesman for Smartmatic did not immediately reply to a request for comment.“It’s a strong move on their part to try to come out and dismiss the claim,” said Timothy Zick, a professor at William & Mary Law School who specializes in First Amendment law.Mr. Zick said that Fox was making use of the concept of “neutral reportage,” arguing that it could not be sued for defamation while covering the news. “They’re arguing that shields Fox News as an organization for simply reporting on the controversy, which is a matter of public interest,” he said.A key to Fox’s defense is the argument that it cannot be held responsible for statements made on its programs by Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell, given their roles as Mr. Trump’s legal representatives.“The public had a right to know, and Fox had a right to cover, that the president and his allies were accusing Smartmatic (and others) of manipulating the election results, regardless of the ultimate truth or accuracy of those allegations,” the motion reads. It also asserts that Smartmatic’s suit does not identify defamatory statements by television hosts employed by Mr. Murdoch’s company.Fox also argues that Smartmatic should be considered a public figure. That argument, which is likely to be contested by the tech company, means that Smartmatic must meet a high bar to prove that it was defamed: demonstrating that the defendants knew their statements were false, or at least had serious doubts about them.Smartmatic’s 276-page lawsuit alleges that Mr. Trump’s lawyers used Fox’s platform, and its sympathetic anchors, to spin conspiracies about the company that damaged its reputation and commercial prospects. The suit has been applauded by those seeking to curb the flow of disinformation from right-wing news outlets, but it has also raised questions about the limits of speech in a changing media landscape.Fox’s argument in its motion — that it provided a forum for newsworthy interviews — may cut into the conceptual heart of Smartmatic’s case, which groups Fox, its hosts and their guests as defendants who collaborated to spread falsehoods.The defamation lawsuit cites exchanges on Fox programs that, Smartmatic said, helped spread the false claim that it was the owner of a rival election tech company, Dominion Voting System, and that it provided its services to districts in multiple contested states. In fact, Smartmatic was used in the 2020 election only by Los Angeles County.And Smartmatic offers vivid examples of Fox programming that spread bizarre falsehoods, like a claim by Ms. Powell made on Mr. Dobbs’s show that the former president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, had assisted the company in creating software that could covertly alter votes. (Mr. Chávez died in 2013 and had nothing to do with Smartmatic.)In other exchanges cited by Smartmatic, Fox anchors alternately expressed support and astonishment as Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell spun out their claims. In one case, a phrase used by Ms. Powell — “cyber Pearl Harbor” — was later invoked by Mr. Dobbs on his show and on social media.Fox’s response on Monday included a 14-page appendix under the title “Fox’s Evenhanded Coverage of Smartmatic,” documenting instances from Fox News and Fox Business that the company believes showed skepticism toward the Trump team’s claims.Among the examples are three identical, pretaped fact-checking segments that ran in mid-December on programs hosted by Ms. Bartiromo, Mr. Dobbs and Ms. Pirro and that featured Eddie Perez, an election expert who debunked a number of false claims about Smartmatic.The segments were broadcast after Smartmatic sent a letter to Fox demanding retractions and threatening legal action.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Lawsuits Take the Lead in Fight Against Disinformation

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyLawsuits Take the Lead in Fight Against DisinformationDefamation cases have made waves across an uneasy right-wing media landscape, from Fox to Newsmax.Lou Dobbs, whose show on Fox Business was canceled on Friday, was one of several Fox anchors named in a defamation suit filed by the election technology company Smartmatic.Credit…Chester Higgins Jr./The New York TimesFeb. 6, 2021, 5:05 p.m. ETIn just a few weeks, lawsuits and legal threats from a pair of obscure election technology companies have achieved what years of advertising boycotts, public pressure campaigns and liberal outrage could not: curbing the flow of misinformation in right-wing media.Fox Business canceled its highest rated show, “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” on Friday after its host was sued as part of a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit. On Tuesday, the pro-Trump cable channel Newsmax cut off a guest’s rant about rigged voting machines. Fox News, which seldom bows to critics, has run fact-checking segments to debunk its own anchors’ false claims about electoral fraud.This is not the typical playbook for right-wing media, which prides itself on pugilism and delights in ignoring the liberals who have long complained about its content. But conservative outlets have rarely faced this level of direct assault on their economic lifeblood.Smartmatic, a voter technology firm swept up in conspiracies spread by former President Donald J. Trump and his allies, filed its defamation suit against Rupert Murdoch’s Fox empire on Thursday, citing Mr. Dobbs and two other Fox anchors, Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro, for harming its business and reputation.Antonio Mugica, Smartmatic’s chief executive.Credit…Henry Nicholls/ReutersDominion Voting Systems, another company that Mr. Trump has accused of rigging votes, filed defamation suits last month against two of the former president’s lawyers, Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sidney Powell, on similar grounds. Both firms have signaled that more lawsuits may be imminent.Litigation represents a new front in the war against misinformation, a scourge that has reshaped American politics, deprived citizens of common facts and paved the way for the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Fox News, for instance, paid millions last year to settle a claim from the family of a murdered Democratic National Committee staff member falsely accused by Fox hosts of leaking emails to WikiLeaks.But the use of defamation suits has also raised uneasy questions about how to police a news media that counts on First Amendment protections — even as some conservative outlets advanced Mr. Trump’s lies and eroded public faith in the democratic process.“If you had asked me 15 years, five years ago, whether I would ever have gotten involved in a defamation case, I would have told you no,” said Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer who is representing Mr. Trump’s niece, Mary L. Trump, and the writer E. Jean Carroll in defamation suits against the former president.The defamation suits raise the question of how news organizations should present public figures. Sidney Powell was a conspiracist but she was also a member of President Donald J. Trump’s legal team.Credit…Jonathan Ernst/ReutersLike other prominent liberals in her profession, Ms. Kaplan had long considered defamation suits a way for the wealthy and powerful to try to silence their critics. Last year, Mr. Trump’s campaign sued multiple news organizations for coverage that the president deemed unfavorable or unfair. The technology billionaire Peter Thiel bankrolled Hulk Hogan’s suit against the gossip blog Gawker that ultimately bankrupted the business.“What’s changed,” Ms. Kaplan said, “and we’ve all seen it happen before our eyes, is the fact that so many people out there, including people in positions of authority, are just willing to say anything, regardless of whether it has any relationship to the truth or not.”Some First Amendment lawyers say that an axiom — the best antidote to bad speech is more speech — may no longer apply in a media landscape where misinformation can flood public discourse via countless channels, from cable news to the Facebook pages of family and friends.“This shouldn’t be the way to govern speech in our country,” Ms. Kaplan said. “It’s not an efficient or productive way to promote truth-telling or quality journalistic standards through litigating in court. But I think it’s gotten to the point where the problem is so bad right now there’s virtually no other way to do it.”Mr. Trump’s rise is an inextricable part of this shift. His popularity boosted the profits and power of the right-wing commentators and media outlets that defended him. In November, when Mr. Trump cast doubt on the outcome of the presidential election despite no credible evidence, it made commercial and editorial sense for his media allies to follow his lead.The Newsmax anchor Greg Kelly refused to accept Joseph R. Biden Jr. as president-elect and was rewarded with a surge in ratings. Fox News was more cautious — the network declared Mr. Biden the next president on Nov. 7 — but some Fox stars, including Mr. Dobbs, Ms. Bartiromo and Ms. Pirro, offered significant airtime to his lawyers, Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell, and others who pushed the outlandish election-fraud narrative.In one example cited in the 276-page complaint filed by Smartmatic, Mr. Dobbs’s program broadcast a false claim by Ms. Powell that Hugo Chávez, the former president of Venezuela, had been involved in creating the company’s technology and installed software so that votes could be switched undetected. (Mr. Chávez, who died in 2013, did not have anything to do with Smartmatic.)Smartmatic also cited an episode of “Lou Dobbs Tonight” in which Mr. Giuliani falsely described the election as “stolen” and claimed that hundreds of thousands of “unlawful ballots” had been found. Mr. Dobbs described the election as the end to “a four-and-a-half-year-long effort to overthrow the president of the United States,” and raised the specter of outside interference.“It has the feeling of a cover-up in certain places, you know — putting the servers in foreign countries, private companies,” Mr. Dobbs said.Fox has promised to fight the litigation. “We are proud of our 2020 election coverage and will vigorously defend this meritless lawsuit in court,” the network said in a statement the day before it canceled Mr. Dobbs’s show.Executives in conservative media argue that the Smartmatic lawsuit raises uncomfortable questions about how news organizations should present public figures: Ms. Powell was a conspiracist, but she was also the president’s lawyer. Should a media outlet be allowed to broadcast her claims?“There’s a new standard created out of this that is very dangerous for all the cable channels,” Christopher Ruddy, the owner of Newsmax and a Trump confidant, said in an interview on Saturday. “You have to fact-check everything public figures say, and you could be held libelous for what they say.” Mr. Ruddy contends that Newsmax presented a fair view of the claims about election fraud and voting technology companies.Newsmax personnel, though, were made aware of the potential damage stemming from claims that appeared on their shows. In an extraordinary on-air moment on Tuesday, Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder and a staunch Trump ally, began attacking Dominion — and was promptly cut off by a Newsmax anchor, Bob Sellers, who read a formal statement that Newsmax had accepted the election results “as legal and final.”Fox executives revealed their own concerns in December, after Smartmatic sent a letter signaling that litigation was imminent. Fox News and Fox Business ran an unusually stilted segment in which an election expert, Edward Perez, debunked conspiracy theories about voter fraud that had recently been aired on the networks. The segment ran on three programs — those hosted by Mr. Dobbs, Ms. Bartiromo and Ms. Pirro. (Newsmax, which also received a letter from Smartmatic, aired its own clarifications.)This fear of liability has rippled into smaller corners of the right-wing media sphere. Mr. Giuliani, who hosts a show on the New York radio station WABC, was caught by surprise on Thursday when his employer aired a disclaimer during his show that distanced itself and its advertisers from Mr. Giuliani’s views.“They got to warn you about me?” Mr. Giuliani asked his listeners, sounding incredulous. “Putting that on without telling me — not the right thing to do. Not the right thing to do at all.”Yochai Benkler, a professor at Harvard Law School who studies disinformation and radicalization in American politics, said that the president’s lies about the election had pushed pro-Trump outlets beyond the relatively lax standards applied to on-air commentators.“The competitive dynamic in the right-wing outrage industry has forced them all over the rails,” Mr. Benkler said. “This is the first set of lawsuits that’s actually going to force them to internalize the cost of the damages they’re inflicting on democracy.”Mr. Benkler called the Smartmatic suit “a useful corrective” — “it’s a tap on the brakes” — but he also urged restraint. “We have to be very cautious in our celebration of these lawsuits, because the history of defamation is certainly one in which people in power try to slap down critics,” he said.Rudolph W. Giuliani was the public face of Mr. Trump’s effort to challenge the election results in the courts.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesMartin Garbus, a veteran First Amendment lawyer, said he was personally repelled by the lies about the election propagated by Mr. Trump and his allies, but he also called the Smartmatic suit “very complicated.”“Will lawsuits like this also be used in the future to attack groups whose politics I might be more sympathetic with?” he asked.Mr. Garbus, who made his reputation in part by defending the speech rights of neo-Nazis and other hate groups, said that the growth of online sources for news and disinformation had made him question whether he might take on such cases today. He offered an example of a local neo-Nazi march.Before social media, “it wouldn’t have made much of an echo,” Mr. Garbus said. “Now, if they say it, it’s all over the media, and somebody in Australia could blow up a mosque based on what somebody in New York says.“It seems to me you have to reconsider the consequence of things,” he added.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Fox Business Cancels ‘Lou Dobbs Tonight’

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyLou Dobbs’s Show Is Canceled by Fox BusinessMr. Dobbs, a loyal supporter of former President Donald J. Trump, was named in a $2.7 billion lawsuit filed on Thursday against the Fox Corporation and two other Fox anchors.Lou Dobbs had the top-rated show on Fox Business. It was canceled the day after he was one of three Fox anchors named in a lawsuit filed by Smartmatic, an election technology company.Credit…John Lamparski/Getty ImagesFeb. 5, 2021Updated 9:48 p.m. ETLou Dobbs, one of former President Donald J. Trump’s most loyal media supporters, abruptly lost his pulpit on Friday when Fox Business canceled his weekday television show, which had become a frequent clearinghouse for baseless theories of electoral fraud in the weeks after Mr. Trump lost the 2020 presidential race.Mr. Dobbs’s decade-long tenure at the network ended with little warning — a guest host filled in for his Friday slot — only a day after the election technology company Smartmatic filed a defamation lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corporation and Fox News.The suit, which seeks damages of at least $2.7 billion, also named Mr. Dobbs as an individual defendant along with two other Fox anchors, Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro. Smartmatic specifically cited Mr. Dobbs’s program, which by late last year had become so packed with falsehoods about Mr. Trump’s defeat that Fox Business was forced to run a fact-checking segment debunking some of its own anchor’s assertions.Executives at Fox did not elaborate on Friday about why they had canceled Mr. Dobbs’s program, which was the top-rated show on Fox Business and drew a bigger audience than its competition on CNBC. The network said in a statement that it regularly reviewed its programming lineup.“Plans have been in place to launch new formats as appropriate postelection, including on Fox Business,” the network said. “This is part of those planned changes.”A person familiar with Fox’s decision said the network’s concerns about Mr. Dobbs predated this week’s filing of the Smartmatic lawsuit. But the person, who requested anonymity to describe private personnel matters, conceded that Mr. Dobbs’s extreme and unrepentant endorsements of Mr. Trump’s false election claims had imperiled his position, as did other moments. For instance, on the day of siege at the U.S. Capitol, Mr. Dobbs described protesters as merely “walking between the rope lines.”The cancellation came as lawsuits and legal threats are rippling the landscape of media organizations popular with right-wing viewers. Dominion Voting Systems has sued two lawyers who represented Mr. Trump, Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sydney Powell, over false claims they made on Fox News and other outlets that the company aided President Biden’s victory, and it is considering additional litigation.Mr. Dobbs, 75, rose to fame as a CNN anchor, becoming a mainstay of television business news. He began hosting his Fox program in 2011, lured by the network’s co-founder Roger Ailes, and was watched by a soon-to-be-very influential fan: Mr. Trump, who shared Mr. Dobbs’s right-wing values, particularly the anchor’s hard-line stance against unchecked immigration.The men also shared an interest in questioning President Barack Obama’s birthplace, a canard that helped lead to Mr. Dobbs’s exit from CNN in 2009.At the White House, Mr. Trump came to see Mr. Dobbs’s program as required viewing; his allies learned that an appearance on “Lou Dobbs Tonight” would guarantee attention in the West Wing. The president even patched in the television host during some policy discussions with his White House staff.Mr. Trump, who was barred from Twitter last month, has been circumspect since leaving the White House in what subjects he comments on. But roughly an hour after the news of Mr. Dobbs’s departure broke, the former president issued a statement to The New York Times.“Lou Dobbs is and was great,” Mr. Trump said. “Nobody loves America more than Lou. He had a large and loyal following that will be watching closely for his next move, and that following includes me.”Mr. Dobbs and his wife, Debi Segura, at a state dinner at the White House in 2019. Former President Donald J. Trump considered Mr. Dobbs’s show required viewing.Credit…Pool photo by Ron SachsThe loyalty went both ways. As recently as Thursday, his final day on Fox Business, Mr. Dobbs spoke disparagingly of Republican Party leaders for, in his view, showing insufficient loyalty to Mr. Trump. He described Senator Mitch McConnell and Representative Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leaders in Congress, as “toadies for the Democratic Party.”Mr. Dobbs remains on contract with Fox, but the network has no plans to put him back on the air, according to a person briefed on its plans. For now, a rotating group of hosts will replace Mr. Dobbs in his 5 p.m. slot. The anchors Jackie DeAngelis and David Asman will sit in for him next week. (“Lou Dobbs Tonight” repeats at 7 p.m.) The cancellation was reported earlier by The Los Angeles Times.The Smartmatic lawsuit filed on Thursday cited a false claim from a November episode of “Lou Dobbs Tonight”: that Hugo Chávez, the former president of Venezuela, had a hand in the creation of Smartmatic technology, designing it so that the votes it processed could be changed undetected. (Mr. Chávez, who died in 2013, did not have anything to do with Smartmatic.)The Chávez claim was made by Ms. Powell, who worked as a lawyer for Mr. Trump and was a frequent guest on Mr. Dobbs’s program. She was also sued by Smartmatic on Thursday, along with Mr. Giuliani. Mr. Dobbs was also cited in the lawsuit for using the phrase “cyber Pearl Harbor” to describe a supposed vote-fraud conspiracy, borrowing language used by Ms. Powell.There are signs that the other hosts named in the suit, Ms. Bartiromo and Ms. Pirro, may be in a more favorable position with Fox management than Mr. Dobbs.It was clear weeks ago that defamation suits from Smartmatic and Dominion could be imminent. Since then, Ms. Bartiromo was picked to audition for a new 7 p.m. program on Fox News, and Ms. Pirro debuted a new travel program, “Castles USA,” on the Fox Nation streaming service, in which she visits castles around the country.Fox has pledged to fight the Smartmatic litigation, saying in a statement: “We are proud of our 2020 election coverage and will vigorously defend this meritless lawsuit in court.”Don Herzog, who teaches First Amendment and defamation law at the University of Michigan, said it was possible that canceling Mr. Dobbs could aid Fox in its defense of the lawsuit. If Mr. Dobbs had continued to discuss Smartmatic or promote election fraud on his program, the network could have been liable for each new claim, Mr. Herzog said.Fox officials could also argue that the lawsuit made them aware of untruths that Mr. Dobbs had helped spread. And in a trial atmosphere, the cancellation of Mr. Dobbs’s program might help persuade jurors that the network was acting in good faith.Mr. Herzog said a responsible judge would counter that sentiment: “A judge should instruct a jury that what Fox does later to try to show they’re acting in good faith doesn’t settle the question of whether they were acting in good faith at some earlier time.”Such was the sudden nature of Mr. Dobbs’s exit that even the anchor who filled in for him on Friday, Mr. Asman, did not appear to have been briefed on the news.At the end of the 5 p.m. broadcast, Mr. Asman smiled at the camera, wished his viewers a happy weekend, and added a parting note:“Lou will be back on Monday.”John Koblin More

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      The $2.7 Billion Case Against Fox News

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyThe DailySubscribe:Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsThe $2.7 Billion Case Against Fox NewsSmartmatic, an election technology company, filed a billion-dollar lawsuit against the network over what the company says are false claims about its role in the 2020 election. We hear from Smartmatic’s C.E.O. and lawyer.Hosted by Ben Smith; produced by Rachel Quester, Neena Pathak and Alix Spiegel; edited by Lisa Tobin and Mike Benoist; and engineered by Chris Wood.More episodes ofThe DailyFebruary 5, 2021  •  More

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      Smartmatic Files $2.7 Billion Lawsuit Against Fox News

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Campaign to Subvert the 2020 ElectionTrump’s RoleKey TakeawaysExtremist Wing of G.O.P.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFox News Is Sued by Election Technology Company for Over $2.7 BillionSmartmatic accused Rupert Murdoch’s network of promoting a false narrative about the 2020 election that damaged the company.A Smartmatic representative demonstrating the company’s vote-processing system in 2018.Credit…Bob Andres/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated PressJonah E. Bromwich and Feb. 4, 2021Updated 9:47 p.m. ETLeer en españolIn the latest volley in the battle over disinformation in the presidential election, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corporation has been sued by an obscure tech company that has accused his cable networks of defamation and contributing to the fervor that led to the siege of the Capitol.The suit pits Smartmatic, which provided election technology in one county, against Donald J. Trump’s longtime favorite news outlet and three Fox anchors, Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro, all ardent supporters of the former president. A trial could reveal how Mr. Trump’s media backers sought to cast doubt on an election that delivered a victory to Joseph R. Biden Jr. and a loss to an incumbent who refused to accept reality.Filed in New York State Supreme Court, Smartmatic’s suit seeks at least $2.7 billion in damages. In addition to Mr. Murdoch’s Fox Corporation, Fox News and the three star anchors, it targets Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sidney Powell, lawyers who made the case for election fraud as frequent guests on Fox programs while representing President Trump.In its 276-page complaint, Smartmatic, which has requested a jury trial, argues that Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell “created a story about Smartmatic” and that “Fox joined the conspiracy to defame and disparage Smartmatic and its election technology and software.”“The story turned neighbor against neighbor,” the complaint continues. “The story led a mob to attack the U.S. Capitol.”Smartmatic filed the suit three months after an election repeatedly described as rigged or stolen by Mr. Trump and his supporters. Fox and its upstart competitors Newsmax and OANN gave significant broadcast time to hosts and commentators who argued against the election’s integrity at a time of a rancorous political divide, when conspiratorial notions have moved into the mainstream.Smartmatic’s suit follows two others filed last month by Dominion Voting Systems: one against Mr. Giuliani, the other against Ms. Powell. Dominion, a Smartmatic competitor, is another company that has figured prominently in baseless election-fraud theories.Even after the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, a deadly riot led by Trump loyalists, the talk of fraud has not fully died down. In an appearance on Tuesday on Newsmax, Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder who has been one of Mr. Trump’s devoted supporters, began an attack on Dominion. In a sign that the threat of defamation lawsuits has deterred media outlets that have broadcast conspiracy theories, the Newsmax anchor Bob Sellers cut off Mr. Lindell and read a statement: “The election results in every state were certified. Newsmax accepts the results as legal and final. The courts have also supported that view.”Lou Dobbs of the Fox Business Network is one of three Fox anchors named in the lawsuit.Credit…John Lamparski/Getty ImagesIn its complaint, Smartmatic said Fox programs became a venue for a number of falsehoods about the company in the weeks after the election, a time when powerful Republicans in Congress were sowing doubts about the vote’s outcome and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, then the majority leader, had yet to congratulate Joseph R. Biden Jr. on his victory.The suit cites a false claim, made by Ms. Powell on a November episode of Mr. Dobbs’s show on Fox Business, that Hugo Chávez, the deceased president of Venezuela, had a hand in the creation of Smartmatic technology, designing it so that the votes it processed could be changed undetected. (Mr. Chávez, who died in 2013, did not have anything to do with Smartmatic.)The lawsuit also cites exchanges on Fox programs that it says helped spread the claim that it was the owner of Dominion (it is not) and that it had provided its services to districts in contested states. (In fact, Smartmatic was used in the 2020 election only by Los Angeles County.) The lawsuit also says that Fox helped promote the false notion that the company had sent votes to other countries to be manipulated.Smartmatic added in its complaint that Fox’s broadcasting of the false claims “jeopardized” its “multibillion-dollar pipeline of business”; damaged its election technology and software businesses; and made it difficult for the company to get new business in the United States, where it had made inroads after years of servicing elections in other nations.A Fox spokeswoman disputed the claims in Smartmatic’s lawsuit, saying in a statement: “Fox News Media is committed to providing the full context of every story with in-depth reporting and clear opinion. We are proud of our 2020 election coverage and will vigorously defend this meritless lawsuit in court.”Ms. Powell, who said she had not seen or received notice of the suit, said: “Your characterization of the claims shows that this is just another political maneuver motivated by the radical left that has no basis in fact or law.”Ms. Bartiromo, Mr. Dobbs, Ms. Pirro and Mr. Giuliani did not immediately reply to requests for comment.In its frontal attack on Mr. Murdoch’s company, Smartmatic argues that Fox cast it as a villain in a fictitious narrative meant to help win back viewers from Newsmax and OANN. Those two networks saw ratings surges in the weeks after the election, thanks to their embrace of the fiction that Mr. Biden was not the rightful victor. The Smartmatic suit also argues that Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell sought to enrich themselves and improve their standing with Mr. Trump’s supporters by making claims that were damaging to the company.After Smartmatic sent a letter to Fox requesting a retraction for what it called “false and misleading statements” about the company and threatening legal action, each of the shows led by the three Fox anchors aired a segment in which an election expert, Eddie Perez, debunked a number of false claims about Smartmatic. The prerecorded segment, broadcast in December, showed Mr. Perez responding to questions from an off-camera voice. In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Perez said that the finished product “almost looked like a deposition.”Smartmatic’s complaint described not only the reputational and financial damage the company said it had suffered, but also the harm done to the United States by the claims promoted by Mr. Trump’s allies and the Murdoch-controlled networks he had long favored.Fox Corporation, with about 9,000 employees, is run by Mr. Murdoch, 89, and his elder son, Lachlan, its chief executive. A penalty of $2.7 billion would be hefty. Fox Corporation made $3 billion in pretax profit on $12.3 billion in revenue from September 2019 to September of last year. The company is valued at about $17.8 billion.Ms. Bartiromo, the host of shows on Fox Business and Fox News, conducted an interview with Mr. Trump on Nov. 29, his first lengthy TV interview after the election. Ms. Pirro, a onetime prosecutor whose “Justice with Judge Jeanine” is a staple of Fox News’s Saturday night lineup, has been friends with Mr. Trump for decades.Don Herzog, who teaches First Amendment and defamation law at the University of Michigan, said that the suit’s main argument made sense. “You can’t just make false stuff up about people,” he said. He expressed doubt about the suit’s linking the false statements on Fox to the Capitol attack, however, saying the events of Jan. 6 had no bearing on whether the defendants had harmed Smartmatic.The suit’s success would depend on a variety of factors, Mr. Herzog added, including whether Smartmatic can persuade a jury that the company did not have the standing of a public figure before Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell made it better known.If the court determines that Smartmatic was a public figure, the burden of proof for its claims will be higher. The company will have to show that the defendants knew that their statements were false or that they had serious doubts about them. In its complaint, Smartmatic argues that Mr. Giuliani, Ms. Powell and the three Fox anchors acted with “actual malice” and “recklessly disregarded” the veracity of their statements.While it may be difficult to persuade jurors that Fox is responsible for what guests say on its programs, Timothy Zick, a William & Mary Law School professor who specializes in First Amendment law, said the company could be held responsible for the content of its broadcasts.“If they knew that the segment was going to include these false statements, then I don’t think that relieves them of liability,” he said.At times, the language of the Fox hosts echoed that of Mr. Trump’s lawyers. The lawsuit cites Ms. Powell referring to the supposed vote-fraud conspiracy as a “cyber Pearl Harbor,” a phrase repeated by Mr. Dobbs on his show and on Twitter.Antonio Mugica, chief executive of Smartmatic, in London. While there, he said, he received a kidnapping threat.Credit…Henry Nicholls/ReutersWhen Smartmatic started in April 2000, it offered its services to banks. The shift to election security came after Antonio Mugica, a company founder and its chief executive, was in Palm Beach County during the contested 2000 election. “We were in the first row watching that circus,” he said. “And it really caused an impact on all of us.”The company had success providing its electronic voting machines, online voting platforms and software products for elections around the world. It was also used in the 2016 Republican presidential caucus in Utah. In 2018, Los Angeles County chose Smartmatic to develop a new election system, and its technology was used there in the March presidential primary and again in the general election.After Election Day, the company’s name, along with that of Dominion, became integral to the baseless theories promoted by right-wing media outlets. Smartmatic employees and their family members received threats, including death threats, some of which were noted in the complaint.“I had one in which I was told they were going to actually come kidnap me in London, where I was at the time,” Mr. Mugica said. “They were sending three people. ‘Plane is landing tomorrow.’”Edmund Lee contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Demanda millonaria a Fox News: una empresa de tecnología electoral acusa a la cadena de difamación

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Campaign to Subvert the 2020 ElectionTrump’s RoleKey TakeawaysExtremist Wing of G.O.P.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDemanda millonaria a Fox News: una empresa de tecnología electoral acusa a la cadena de difamaciónSmartmatic demandó a la corporación de Rupert Murdoch por promover una narrativa falsa sobre las elecciones de Estados Unidos de 2020 que perjudicó a la empresa.Un representante de Smartmatic demuestra el sistema de procesamiento de votos de la compañía en 2018.Credit…Bob Andres/Atlanta Journal-Constitution vía Associated PressJonah E. Bromwich y 4 de febrero de 2021Actualizado 18:06 ETRead in EnglishLa corporación Fox de Rupert Murdoch y tres de sus populares presentadores son el objetivo de una demanda por difamación por 2700 millones de dólares presentada el jueves por una empresa que se convirtió en objeto destacado de las desacreditadas teorías sobre fraude generalizado en las elecciones presidenciales de Estados Unidos de 2020.Smartmatic, una empresa de tecnología electoral, presentó el jueves la demanda en la Corte Suprema del Estado de Nueva York contra la Corporación Fox, Fox News y los presentadores Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo y Jeanine Pirro. Como parte de la misma acción, la compañía demanda a Rudolph W. Giuliani y Sidney Powell, quienes presentaron el caso de fraude electoral como invitados en los programas de Fox mientras representaban al expresidente Donald Trump.En su demanda de 276 páginas, Smartmatic argumenta que Giuliani y Powell “inventaron una historia sobre Smartmatic” y que “Fox se unió a la conspiración para difamar y desprestigiar a Smartmatic y su tecnología y software electoral”.“La historia puso a vecinos contra vecinos”, continúa la denuncia. “La historia llevó a una turba a atacar el Capitolio de Estados Unidos”.Smartmatic, que prestó servicios para las elecciones de 2020 en un solo condado, presentó su demanda en las tensas postrimerías de una votación que Trump y sus partidarios han descrito repetida y falsamente como amañada o robada. Los medios de derecha, incluyendo a Fox y sus competidores emergentes Newsmax y OANN, han dado un tiempo de difusión significativo a aquellos que buscan subvertir el resultado de las elecciones en un momento de rencorosa desavenencia política, cuando las teorías e ideas conspiratorias se han trasladado a la cultura dominante.Smartmatic pide una indemnización por daños y perjuicios de “no menos de 2700 millones de dólares”, según la demanda, y solicita un proceso con jurado. Su acción contra Fox sigue después de dos demandas presentadas el mes pasado por Dominion Voting Systems: una contra Giuliani, la otra contra Powell. Dominion es otra empresa nombrada por los teóricos de la conspiración que alegan que hubo fraude electoral.Incluso después del asalto al Capitolio el 6 de enero, un disturbio mortal que fue dirigido por partidarios de Trump, las conversaciones sobre fraude no se han acabado del todo. En una aparición el martes en Newsmax, Mike Lindell, el fundador de MyPillow y uno de los más fervientes defensores de Trump, lanzó un ataque verbal contra Dominion. En una señal de que las demandas de Dominion han tenido efecto en los medios de comunicación de la derecha, el copresentador de Newsmax, Bob Sellers, cortó a Lindell y leyó una declaración: “Los resultados de las elecciones en todos los estados fueron certificados. Newsmax acepta los resultados como legales y definitivos. Los tribunales también han apoyado esa opinión”.El presentador de Fox Business Network, Lou Dobbs, durante una emisión de 2019Credit…John Lamparski/Getty ImagesGiuliani y Powell argumentaron repetidamente que hubo fraude electoral cuando aparecieron como invitados en los programas de Fox conducidos por Bartiromo, Dobbs y Pirro en las semanas posteriores a las elecciones, un momento en el que los poderosos republicanos del Congreso sembraban dudas sobre el resultado de las elecciones y Mitch McConnell, senador por Kentucky y entonces líder de la mayoría del Senado, aún no había felicitado a Joe Biden por su victoria.Smartmatic dijo en la demanda que la promoción de las afirmaciones falsas en Fox “puso en peligro” su “cartera de negocios multimillonaria”: dañó sus negocios de tecnología y software electoral; y dificultó que la empresa consiguiera nuevos negocios en Estados Unidos, donde había hecho incursiones después de años de prestar servicios electorales en otras naciones.Fox declinó hacer comentarios antes de ver la demanda. Bartiromo, Dobbs, Pirro, Giuliani y Powell no respondieron inmediatamente a la solicitud de comentarios.En su ataque frontal contra el imperio mediático de Murdoch, Smartmatic argumenta que Fox lo presentó como villano en una narrativa ficticia destinada a ayudar a atraer espectadores de Newsmax y OANN. Cada una de ellas experimentó un aumento de la audiencia en las semanas posteriores a las elecciones, gracias a su adopción de la ficción de que Biden no era el vencedor legítimo. La demanda de Smartmatic también argumenta que Giuliani y Powell trataron de enriquecerse y mejorar su posición ante los partidarios de Trump al hacer declaraciones que eran prejudiciales para la empresa.Fox Corporation, con unos 9000 empleados, está dirigida por Murdoch, de 89 años, y su hijo mayor, Lachlan, su director ejecutivo. Para la empresa, 2700 millones de dólares sería una multa considerable. Fox Corporation obtuvo 3000 millones de dólares de utilidades antes de impuestos, con unos ingresos de 12.300 millones de dólares entre septiembre de 2019 y septiembre del año pasado. Está valorada en unos 17.800 millones de dólares.La queja de Smartmatic no solo considera el daño reputacional y económico que la compañía dijo haber sufrido, sino también el daño causado a Estados Unidos por las afirmaciones promovidas por los aliados de Trump y las cadenas controladas por Murdoch que Trump favoreció por mucho tiempo.Dobbs, presentador de Fox Business Network, y Bartiromo, quien presenta programas en Fox Business y Fox News, han sido partidarios incondicionales del expresidente. El 29 de noviembre, Bartiromo realizó la primera entrevista televisiva larga de Trump después de las elecciones. Pirro, quien fue fiscal y cuyo programa Justice with Judge Jeanine es un básico de la programación de los sábados por la noche de Fox News, ha sido amiga de Trump desde hace décadas.Entre las conversaciones al aire que destaca la demanda de Smartmatic está una entre Powell y Dobbs el 16 de noviembre. Powell afirmó en el programa de Dobbs que Hugo Chávez, el fallecido presidente de Venezuela, había participado en la creación de la tecnología de Smartmatic, diseñándola para que los votos que procesaba pudieran cambiarse sin ser detectados. (Chávez, quien murió en 2013, no tuvo nada que ver con Smartmatic).“El software de Smartmatic está en el ADN de todos los programas y sistemas de las empresas de tabulación de votos”, dijo Powell más adelante en el programa.Dobbs añadió: “Ni siquiera sabemos quién demonios es realmente el dueño de estas empresas, al menos de la mayoría de ellas”.Después de que Smartmatic envió una carta en diciembre pidiendo una rectificación y amenazando con acciones legales, los programas dirigidos por los tres presentadores de Fox emitieron un segmento en el que un experto en elecciones, Eddie Pérez, desacreditaba una serie de afirmaciones falsas sobre Smartmatic. El segmento pregrabado mostraba a Pérez respondiendo a preguntas de una voz fuera de cámara. En una entrevista el miércoles, Pérez dijo que el producto final “casi parecía una declaración” legal.La demanda argumenta que las afirmaciones hechas en Fox eran demostrablemente falsas, dado que la tecnología de Smartmatic se utilizó solo en el condado de Los Ángeles y no en ninguno de los estados disputados durante las elecciones de 2020.Don Herzog, un profesor que enseña sobre la Primera Enmienda y las leyes sobre difamación en la Universidad de Michigan, dijo que la esencia de la demanda tenía sentido. “No se pueden inventar cosas falsas sobre la gente”, dijo. Sin embargo, expresó sus dudas sobre la conexión de la demanda de las declaraciones falsas de Fox con el ataque al Capitolio, al decir que los acontecimientos del 6 de enero no tenían relación con que los acusados hubieran perjudicado a Smartmatic.El éxito de la demanda dependerá de varios factores, añadió Herzog, entre ellos si Smartmatic puede convencer a un jurado de que la empresa no tenía la categoría de figura pública antes de que Giuliani y Powell la hicieran más conocida.Si la corte determina que Smartmatic era una figura pública, entonces la carga de la prueba de sus alegatos será mayor. La empresa deberá mostrar que Giuliani, Powell y otros de los acusados sabían que sus aseveraciones eran falsas o que tenían serias dudas sobre su veracidad. (“No creo que la corte determinará que es una figura pública”, dijo Herzog). En su demanda, Smartmatic alega que los presentadores de Fox y los dos invitados actuaron con “verdadero dolo” y “desestimaron temerariamente” la veracidad de sus declaraciones.Aunque puede ser difícil persuadir a un jurado que Fox es responsable por lo que los invitados dicen en sus programas, Timothy Zick, profesor de la Escuela de Derecho William & Mary que está especializado en la Primera Enmienda, dijo que la compañía podía ser responsabilizada por el contenido de sus emisiones.“Si sabían que el segmento iba a incluir estas declaraciones falsas, entonces no creo que eso los exima de responsabilidad” dijo. “Republicar las declaraciones falsas de otros también resulta difamatorio en circunstancias como esta”.En ocasiones, el vocabulario de los presentadores de Fox simulaba al de los abogados de Trump. En la demanda se cita a Powell refiriéndose a la supuesta conspiración como “ciber Pearl Harbor”, una frase que Dobbs repitió en su programa y en Twitter.Roberta A. Kaplan, una abogada que representa a la escritora E. Jean Carroll en su demanda de difamación contra Trump, dijo que era notable la abundancia de casos de difamación relacionados con el expresidente, dado que dichos casos desde hace mucho se consideran difíciles de ganar.“Lo que ha cambiado y la razón por la que estamos viendo muchos más casos de difamación ahora más que antes es porque, francamente, vivimos en un mundo en el que las personas con legitimidad y autoridad parecen no sentir ningún tipo de reparo en decir mentiras categóricas”, dijo.Antonio Mugica, director ejecutivo de Smartmatic, en Londres en diciembreCredit…Henry Nicholls/ReutersCuando Smartmatic iniciaba en abril de 2000, ofreció sus servicios a los bancos. El cambio hacia los servicios de seguridad electoral se dio luego de que Antonio Mugica, uno de los fundadores de la compañía y su director ejecutivo, estuvo en el condado de Palm Beach durante la disputada elección de 2000. “Estábamos en primera fila viendo el circo”, dijo. “Y verdaderamente a todos nosotros nos impactó”.La empresa tuvo éxito en todo el mundo al ofrecer sus máquinas de votación electrónica, plataformas de voto en línea y productos de software relacionados con elecciones. También fue empleada en el caucus presidencial de los republicanos de 2016, celebrado en Utah. En 2018, el condado de Los Ángeles eligió a Smartmatic para implementar un nuevo sistema de elecciones y su tecnología se utilizó ahí en la primaria presidencial de marzo y una vez más en la elección general.Luego del día de las elecciones, el nombre de la empresa, junto con el de Dominion, se convirtió en parte integral de las conspiraciones de fraude que promovieron los medios de la derecha. Los empleados de Smartmatic y sus familiares recibieron amenazas, incluidas amenazas de muerte, que se describen en la denuncia.“Recibí una en la que me dijeron que iban a venir a secuestrarme a Londres, donde me encontraba en ese momento”, dijo Mugica. “Iban a mandar a tres personas. ‘El avión aterriza mañana’”.Otra amenaza, dijo, estaba dirigida al hijo adolescente de otro fundador de la empresa, Roger Piñate. “Lograron encontrar su número celular, lo que ya de por sí asusta”, dijo Mugica. “Y llamaron y lo amenazaron por teléfono”.La denuncia de Smartmatic incluye el argumento de que la promoción de teorías desacreditadas sobre la elección perjudicó a la democracia.“Uno no solo considera el efecto de la conducta en el denunciante, sino el impacto más amplio que puede tener el mensaje, y ese es un efecto más amplio de esto”, dijo J. Erik Connolly, un abogado que representa a Smartmatic. “Si estás adjudicando indemnización punitiva, que en gran parte está diseñada para decir ‘No vuelvas a hacer esto’, es un mensaje más amplio. Que es relevante para el mensaje más amplio que una corte o el jurado deberían enviar aquí”.Edmund Lee More

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      Rupert Murdoch, Accepting Award, Condemns ‘Awful Woke Orthodoxy’

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutVisual TimelineInside the SiegeNotable ArrestsCapitol Police in CrisisThe Global Far RightAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRupert Murdoch, Accepting Award, Condemns ‘Awful Woke Orthodoxy’Mr. Murdoch of News Corp, who spoke in a video, has been relatively quiet publicly in recent years. He called conformity on social media “a straitjacket on sensibility.” Rupert Murdoch, the executive chairman of News Corp, said his long career “is still in motion.”Credit…Mike Segar/ReutersJan. 25, 2021Updated 3:06 p.m. ETThe media mogul Rupert Murdoch denounced an “awful woke orthodoxy” and declared, “I’m far from done,” while accepting a lifetime achievement award this weekend.Mr. Murdoch, 89, made the remarks in a prerecorded video shown on Saturday during a virtual event for the United Kingdom nonprofit that honored him, the Australia Day Foundation. The video was shared on the website of The Herald Sun, a newspaper in Melbourne owned by Mr. Murdoch.The video is noteworthy because Mr. Murdoch, despite exerting enormous influence over the global media landscape as the executive chairman of News Corp, has been relatively quiet publicly in recent years. He has been weathering the pandemic in his home in the Cotswolds in England, and received a Covid-19 vaccination in December.In the video, Mr. Murdoch, standing next to a bottle of Australian red wine and wearing a medal, thanked the foundation for the award in the video but said his career “that began in a smoke-filled Adelaide newsroom is still in motion.”He also took the opportunity to condemn “cancel culture.”“For those of us in media,” he said, “there’s a real challenge to confront: a wave of censorship that seeks to silence conversation, to stifle debate, to ultimately stop individuals and societies from realizing their potential.”He continued: “This rigidly enforced conformity, aided and abetted by so-called social media, is a straitjacket on sensibility. Too many people have fought too hard in too many places for freedom of speech to be suppressed by this awful woke orthodoxy.”It seems Mr. Murdoch’s beliefs have been noted by the editors of his publications. On Monday, The New York Post published an op-ed by Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, on the front page of the paper with the headline “Time to take a stand against the muzzling of America.”Mr. Hawley, who has been widely condemned for his role in trying to overturn the result of the presidential election even after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, echoed Mr. Murdoch in denouncing “woke orthodoxy.”Credit…New York PostMr. Hawley also used his front-page column in one of the most widely circulated newspapers in the country to bemoan the revoking of his book deal and the canceling of events he had scheduled. Mr. Hawley’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, dropped his book after the Jan. 6 siege, though it was quickly picked up by the conservative publishing house Regnery Publishing.The New York Post declined to comment.Mr. Murdoch’s media empire, which includes The Post and Fox News, is trying to navigate a tense political moment. It is attempting to maintain conservative viewers who, unhappy with some of the straight news reporting on Fox, tuned in to Newsmax and One America News, which embraced former President Donald J. Trump’s false claims about election fraud. Fox News executives this month fired the politics editor Chris Stirewalt, who was an on-screen face of the network’s election night projections, and introduced more right-wing opinion programming.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Fox News Fires a Key Player in Its Election Night Coverage

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutLatest UpdatesInside the SiegeVisual TimelineNotable ArrestsCapitol Police in CrisisAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFox News Fires a Key Player in Its Election Night CoverageThe politics editor who defended the network’s accurate projection that Biden had won Arizona is out after a backlash from viewers, including President Trump.Fox News is making staffing changes and emphasizing its right-wing opinion programming after a ratings slump that has lasted two months.Credit…Dina Litovsky for The New York TimesRachel Abrams and Jan. 19, 2021, 8:21 p.m. ETTwo senior leaders of Fox News’s reporting division are exiting the network as the cable channel replaces some news programming with right-wing opinion shows and tries to lure back viewers who balked at its coverage of the 2020 election and its aftermath.On Tuesday morning, Fox News fired Chris Stirewalt, the veteran politics editor who was an onscreen face of the network’s election night projection that Joseph R. Biden Jr. had defeated President Trump in Arizona, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.Fox News was the first news outlet to call Arizona for Mr. Biden, a move that infuriated many of its regular viewers — including Mr. Trump, who denounced the network as insufficiently loyal and urged fans to watch Newsmax and One America News instead.On Monday, Bill Sammon, Fox News’s longtime Washington bureau chief, told staff members that he would retire at the end of January. Three people with knowledge of internal discussions said that Mr. Sammon, who had editorial oversight of the network’s Decision Desk, had faced criticism from network executives over his handling of election coverage, despite the Arizona call ultimately being accurate.Fox News declined to comment on the departures; Mr. Sammon’s retirement was previously reported by The Hill. In addition to their exits, roughly 20 Fox News digital journalists were laid off on Tuesday. The network attributed the layoffs in a statement to a realignment of “business and reporting structure to meet the demands of this new era.”Executives at Fox News — the profit center of Rupert Murdoch’s American media empire — have been concerned by a postelection drop in ratings, a slump that has persisted for two months as upstart rivals like Newsmax gained viewers by featuring fringier fare that embraced Mr. Trump’s baseless theories about electoral fraud.Prominent conservative pundits at Fox News who supported Mr. Trump, like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, remain popular and are tied to the network under long-term contracts.Fox’s corporate leadership has been scrutinizing the news division, which is led by Jay Wallace, the president and executive editor of Fox News Media, according to a person with knowledge of internal discussions. Fox News’s daytime news programs, which often feature conservative guests but are helmed by anchors who do not report to the network’s opinion side, have experienced a sharp loss in viewership.Mr. Stirewalt appeared on Fox News several times on election night and the days afterward. He vigorously defended the network’s early call of Arizona, even as anchors like Martha MacCallum grilled him about the decision; other TV networks did not call Arizona for Mr. Biden until days later. On Nov. 4, asked on-air about the Trump campaign’s baseless claims of fraud, Mr. Stirewalt memorably replied, “Lawsuits, schmawsuits. We haven’t seen any evidence yet that there’s anything wrong.”Mr. Stirewalt’s analysis bore out: Mr. Trump did not win Arizona and his team produced no credible findings of fraud. But Mr. Stirewalt’s defense of the Arizona call drew condemnation from Trump fans, and he soon disappeared from the network’s coverage; his last on-air appearance at Fox News was Nov. 16. (Mr. Stirewalt continued to co-host a Fox News politics podcast with the anchor Dana Perino, an episode of which was published on Sunday.)Election coverage on Fox News on Nov. 3, 2020. Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the race in Arizona.Credit…Fox NewsExecutives at Fox News believe Mr. Stirewalt’s appearances turned off viewers who were dismayed to see Fox News, like every other mainstream media outlet, eventually declare Mr. Biden the president-elect on Nov. 7, said three people with knowledge of the network’s inner workings. On Monday, Fox News moved Ms. MacCallum, one of its lead news anchors, out of the early evening and into the less desirable 3 p.m. time slot. Ms. MacCallum’s previous 7 p.m. hour has shifted to an opinion-focused program with an anchor to be announced; Brian Kilmeade of the morning show “Fox & Friends” is temporarily in the role.One contender for the 7 p.m. slot is Maria Bartiromo, the veteran business journalist who is a prominent face of Fox Business and has been a loyal on-air ally to Mr. Trump. On her Tuesday show on Fox Business, Ms. Bartiromo stated that left-wing protesters had impersonated Trump supporters during the riot at the United States Capitol — a claim that has been thoroughly debunked.The network is also considering a late-night slot for the conservative pundit Greg Gutfeld, a co-host of “The Five” who also helms a popular Saturday night talk show for the network, according to two people familiar with the discussions.Emily Flitter and Ben Smith contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More