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Tucker Carlson firestorm over Trump texts threatens to engulf Fox News The network is facing a $1.6bn false-claims lawsuit – and its top star’s private texts about the ex-president are causing anguishTucker Carlson was once seen as untouchable. Now the most popular TV host on American cable news is at the center of a firestorm threatening to engulf Fox News and also anger Donald Trump, whose conspiracy theory-laden political cause he has long championed and who his audience loves.Court filings attached to the $1.6bn Dominion Voting Systems defamation suit accuse Fox News of allowing its stars to broadcast false accusations about rigged voting machines in the 2020 presidential election.Donald Trump Access Hollywood tape can be used in civil rape trial, judge rulesRead moreThe documents contained numerous emails detailing the private views and concerns of senior Fox management and its stars, which often seemed at odds with what they were publicly broadcasting to their audience.While anchors Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo have been singled out for pushing false claims of a fraudulent election, the fallout has landed primarily on Carlson.In group chats obtained by Dominion, the network’s biggest names – Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity – appeared to doubt claims of election fraud that were featured prominently on the network. At the same time, Fox owner Rupert Murdoch said in a court deposition that anyone who knowingly allowed lies to be broadcast “should be reprimanded, maybe got rid of”.So far, Fox is standing by its stars. On Thursday, Lachlan Murdoch, Murdoch’s eldest son, heir apparent and executive chairman and chief executive of Fox Corporation, voiced support for management, its roster of stars and backed Fox New’s editorial standards.“A news organization has an obligation – and it is an obligation – to report news fulsomely, wholesomely and without fear or favor. That’s what Fox News has always done and that’s what Fox News will always do,” he said.That might not wash with many observers and media critics. But likely of equal concern, especially for Carlson, are some of the private opinions voiced about Trump. The Dominion lawsuit revealed a text from Carlson declaring: “I hate him passionately.”Nor is that the only political fight Carlson became mired in last week. Carlson was directly criticized by the White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates for describing the January 6 rioters as “orderly and meek … sightseers” as he began broadcasting footage from the insurrection handed to him by Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy.Ironically, news of Carlson’s antipathy for Trump broke around the same time the ex-president was praising Carlson as doing a “great job” in his presentation of Capitol security video.Many people – including some Republicans – reacted with outrage to Carlson’s broadcasts, with chimed with a broader far-right push in the US to recast the January 6 attack on the Capitol as an overly enthusiastic demonstration and the hundreds of people jailed for it as political prisoners.The White House, Bates said, “agrees with the chief of the Capitol police and the wide range of bipartisan lawmakers who have condemned this false depiction of the unprecedented, violent attack on our constitution and the rule of law – which cost police officers their lives.”The Guardian contacted Fox for comment but received no reply.Carlson, for his part, has been unapologetic. He claimed the clips offered “conclusive” evidence that Democrats and the select committee that organized last year’s January 6 hearings misinformed the public about what had taken place.Some experts see the current crises at the network as serious, as it seeks to keep a Trump-loving audience glued to its screens – no matter the cost, and no matter what its executives privately think.“They feel that they have to appease a certain audience they’ve trained to expect a certain kind of information flow. And at the same they see that if you take it too far, you risk serious legal and financial liability – to say nothing of embarrassment that comes when internal communications are exposed,” said Bill Grueskin, a faculty professor at Columbia Journalism School.The news-opinion formula worked for Fox News through the Trump presidency, but in the aftermath of Trump’s election fraud claims and the Capitol riot, it is starting to show signs of strain, Grueskin said.If Fox managers and anchors doubted Trump’s election fraud claims and went along with them to maintain ratings dominance, particularly over other emerging rightwing outlets, their anxieties were confirmed when Fox News viewers fled after it declared Arizona for Joe Biden.“The Murdochs think about this almost exclusively in terms of ratings, audience and money,” said Grueskin. “If they were concerned about Tucker Carlson’s truthfulness, they might have done something about this months or years ago.”And they might be right. After Dominion filed internal Fox News communications last month viewership rose by 2.4%, compared to total viewership for the first full week of February.More so, Carlson likes controversy. He remains hugely powerful, and may be beyond the reach or will of the organization to rein in. He has survived controversies over racist comments and his embracing of tenets of white nationalism.Fox News primetime anchors, particularly Carlson and Hannity, exert so much power in that organization that even the Murdochs have to dance around it, Grueskin said.“It goes beyond Tucker Carlson,” he says. “Rupert Murdoch may be the smartest media person in the world, but you can’t fix this problem they’ve created for themselves.”TopicsFox NewsDonald TrumpUS politicsUS elections 2024US elections 2020newsReuse this content More
ExplainerWhat did Fox News really think of Trump and the 2020 election?Revelations stem from evidence in $1.6bn defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against the networkFox News’s reputation as an unyielding backer of Donald Trump is in tatters after revelations that many of its top executives and on-air personalities never believed his lies about the 2020 election, and even personally disliked the former US president.Tucker Carlson, who ‘passionately hates’ Trump, shows more Capitol footageRead moreThe details stem from documents released as part of a $1.6bn defamation lawsuit brought against the network by Dominion Voting Systems, a voting machine firm Trump and Fox News singled out for unfounded allegations of rigging in the aftermath of the presidential race two years ago.The case is viewed as potentially the biggest financial threat to Fox News since it came on the air in 1996, but the details that have trickled out have already reshaped views of the network and shown a broad gulf between what its top personalities tell their viewers in public and what they privately believe.Here are the key things to know:When did the lawsuit begin?Dominion sells voting machines and tabulators and has headquarters in Denver, Colorado and Toronto, Ontario. It filed its lawsuit in March 2021, claiming Fox News spread lies about the 2020 election in an effort to stop viewers from switching to other networks.The firm’s complaint singled out some of Fox’s biggest personalities, such as Maria Bartiromo, Tucker Carlson, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro “and their chosen guests”, saying they plucked “defamatory falsehoods” from obscure far-right websites and broadcast them to their tens of millions of viewers. “Fox took a small flame and turned it into a forest fire,” Dominion said.When will the case go to trial?The trial is scheduled to begin on 17 April, and expected to last five weeks.Why do we know so much about behind-the-scenes happenings at Fox News?Dominion began making evidence in the case public in mid-February as part of court filings, which included emails and text messages exchanged between Fox News personalities and executives, as well as depositions made as part of the suit.What did Fox News hosts really think about the 2020 election?Even as they went on the air to cast doubt about whether the vote went off fairly, many Fox News personalities privately doubted Trump’s claims. “He’s acting like an insane person,” Hannity, one of the network’s best-known personalities, allegedly said of Trump, according to a Dominion court filing.They also released messages from the Fox News owner, Rupert Murdoch, in which he wrote that it was “very hard to credibly claim foul everywhere”, and the then president’s insistence on doing so was “terrible stuff damaging everybody”.Carlson, Fox’s most popular commentator, took aim at Sidney Powell, a top lawyer for Trump who repeatedly claimed on air that Dominion’s machines changed votes from Trump to his Democratic opponent Joe Biden. “Sidney Powell is lying,” Carlson wrote to a producer, later calling her “dangerous as hell”.Murdoch also said that several of the network’s top stars “endorsed” Trump’s false claims, and “I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it in hindsight,” according to a deposition in the case.What do we now know about their views of Donald Trump?Publicly, Trump has few friends like the personalities on Fox News. Privately, some of them loathe him. The case’s filings reveal that Carlson, for instance, wrote of Trump: “I hate him passionately … What he’s good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.”Murdoch felt that Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani were “both increasingly mad. The real danger is what he might do as president.” And on 4 January, two days before Trump riled up a crowd of supporters who went on to attack the US Capitol, Carlson wrote in a text, “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights.“I truly can’t wait.”Why did Fox News continue promoting election lies?With competitors like Newsmax and One America News Network waiting in the wings, Fox executives apparently feared losing their dominant place among America’s conservative viewership if they broke with Trump over the 2020 election.“We need to be careful about using the shows and pissing off the viewers,” Fox News’s chief executive, Suzanne Scott, told Murdoch the day before the January 6 attack.The network’s concern with maintaining advertising revenue also comes through in the documents. “It is not red or blue, it is green,” Murdoch said in his deposition, when asked why Fox allowed the conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell to run ads for his MyPillow product on the network.Fox has released its own evidence to argue against some of Dominion’s assertions, including comments from the Fox Corp co-chairman and CEO, Lachlan Murdoch, who said he was “concerned” but “not overly concerned” by a dip in the network’s ratings after the 2020 vote.TopicsFox NewsUS elections 2020TV newsTelevision industryUS politicsDonald TrumpexplainersReuse this content More
Murdoch feared Fox News hosts went ‘too far’ on Trump election lie, files showEmail from billionaire mogul among reams of new evidence unsealed in defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting SystemsRupert Murdoch said Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham maybe “went too far” in their coverage of Donald Trump’s voter fraud lie, according to an email submitted as evidence in a defamation lawsuit brought by an election operations company.Tucker Carlson, who ‘passionately hates’ Trump, shows more Capitol footageRead moreDominion Voting Systems is suing Fox News for $1.6bn, accusing the cable TV network of amplifying debunked allegations that their voting machines were used to rig the 2020 US presidential election against Trump, in favour of Joe Biden.Documents that became public on Tuesday offered a window into Fox’s internal deliberations. They show executives, producers and hosts discussing concerns about the network’s reputation and casting doubt on the plausibility of Trump’s claims.More than 6,500 pages were released. The full extent of the evidence is not clear as many filings are heavily redacted.In one exhibit, Murdoch, now 91 and chairman of Fox Corporation, emailed the Fox News president, Suzanne Scott, the day after Biden’s inauguration, asking: “Is it ‘unarguable that high-profile Fox voices fed the story that the election was stolen and that January 6th an important chance to have the result overturned’? Maybe Sean and Laura went too far. All very well for Sean to tell you he was in despair about Trump, but what did he tell his viewers?”In an earlier exchange, Murdoch wrote that it had been suggested that primetime hosts say something like “the election is over and Joe Biden won”. Murdoch told Scott some version of this would “go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election stolen” and reasoned that Trump would “concede eventually”.According to the Dominion filings, Murdoch emailed a friend that the notion state legislators could change the election outcome – an idea gaining traction on the right – “sound[s] ridiculous. There’d be riots like never before.”“Stupid and damaging,” Murdoch continues, referring to a news conference by the then Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. “The only one encouraging Trump and misleading him. Both increasingly mad. The real danger is what he might do as president.”In a text, Murdoch described the claims of election fraud as “really crazy stuff”.These exhibits and other material included in Dominion’s summary judgment motion are part of the company’s effort to prove Fox News either knew the statements it aired were false or recklessly disregarded their accuracy. That is the standard of “actual malice”, which public figures must prove in defamation cases.Federal and state election officials and Trump’s own attorney general found no fraud that could have changed the outcome of the election. Trump’s allegations have been rejected by dozens of courts, including by judges he appointed.The lawsuit has given a stunning insight into the gap between what Fox News presented to millions of viewers and what its top stars thought and said in private, as well as their dread of losing audience to competitors.Two days before the January 6 insurrection, the host Tucker Carlson texted a producer to say: “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait. I hate him passionately.”In an exchange more than a month earlier, Carlson said what Trump “is good at is destroy[ing] things. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.”Fox News argues claims by Trump and his lawyers were inherently newsworthy and protected by the constitution. The network said in a statement the newly released documents show Dominion using “distortions and misinformation” to “smear Fox News and trample on free speech”.Fox News has said that Dominion’s “extreme” interpretation of defamation law would chill press freedom.Its evidence includes more context of testimony and messages that it says Dominion “cherry-picked” and “misrepresented”.For example, Fox News cites additional testimony by the Fox Corp chief executive, Lachlan Murdoch, who said under oath he was “concerned” but “not overly concerned” by declining ratings after the election.In a reply brief, Dominion pushes back: “The charges Fox broadcast against Dominion are false. Fox does not spend a word of its brief arguing the truth of any accused statement.”“Finally, Fox has conceded what it knew all along,” the brief reads.The exhibits released on Tuesday had several references to accusations against Dominion made by the Trump lawyer Sidney Powell. In one email, the Fox News host Dana Perino referenced a Powell interview with another host, Maria Bartiromo, saying “this is nuts”. Carlson said in a text message: “Sidney Powell is lying.”In another exhibit, Hannity said he was giving Powell time to produce evidence but stopped having her appear on-air after she failed to deliver. Hannity has been quoted by Dominion during a deposition as saying he “did not believe” claims by Powell “for one second”.In his own deposition in January, Murdoch was asked by a lawyer for Dominion, “Do you believe that the 2020 presidential election was free and fair?”The media mogul replied: “Yes.”He added later: “The election was not stolen.”A Dominion spokesperson said the “emails, texts, and deposition testimony speak for themselves. We welcome all scrutiny of our evidence because it all leads to the same place – Fox knowingly spread lies causing enormous damage to an American company.”The trial, set to begin on 17 April, is slated to last five weeks. But there is little sign of it making an impact on the tone and tenor of Fox News coverage. Carlson has this week used footage of the deadly January 6 attack to falsely portray it as a largely peaceful gathering, earning rebukes from Democrats and Republicans in Congress.Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said: “It wasn’t about the country, it was about the ratings. It wasn’t about objective, honest journalism. It was about Maga [Make America great again, Trump’s slogan] propagandism.“It’s about further ingratiation of Fox and its cohorts, the folks on TV, being loyal to Trump to the point that they were so afraid of losing him. It is like the worst, most dependent relationship in history because the consequences go beyond Fox and Trump.”Reuters contributed reportingTopicsRupert MurdochUS politicsFox NewsUS television industrySean HannityUS elections 2020Joe BidennewsReuse this content More
Rupert Murdoch feared Fox hosts may have gone ‘too far’ on 2020 voter fraud claims, court files showEmail from Murdoch among reams of new evidence unsealed in defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against FoxRupert Murdoch said that Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham maybe “went too far” in their coverage of voter fraud claims, according to an email submitted as evidence in the defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox.Dominion is suing Fox News Networks for $1.6bn, accusing the cable TV network of amplifying debunked claims that their voting machines were used to rig the 2020 US presidential election against Donald Trump, in favor of his rival Joe Biden.The reams of documents that became public on Tuesday offer a window into Fox’s internal deliberations as it covered the election. They show top executives, producers and hosts discussing concerns about the network’s reputation and casting doubt on the plausibility of Trump’s claims of election fraud.Stunning Rupert Murdoch deposition leaves Fox News in a world of troubleRead moreMore than 6,500 pages were released on Tuesday, although the full extent of the evidence is not clear as many filings are heavily redacted.In one exhibit, Murdoch, chairman of the Fox Corporation, emails Fox News president Suzanne Scott the day after Joe Biden’s inauguration, asking: “Is it ‘unarguable that high profile Fox voices fed the story that the election was stolen and that January 6th an important chance to have the result overturned’? Maybe Sean and Laura went too far. All very well for Sean to tell you he was in despair about Trump but what did he tell his viewers?”In an earlier exchange with Scott, Murdoch wrote that it had been suggested to him that the network’s primetime hosts say something like “the election is over and Joe Biden won.” Murdoch told Scott that some version of this would “go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election stolen.”According to Dominion’s unsealed filings, Murdoch emailed a friend that the notion state legislators could change the election outcome – an idea that had been gaining traction on the right – “sound ridiculous. There’d be riots like never before.”“Stupid and damaging,” Murdoch continued, referring to a news conference by then-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. “The only one encouraging Trump and misleading him. Both increasingly mad. The real danger is what he might do as president.”These exhibits and other material included in Dominion’s summary judgment motion are part of the voting machine company’s effort to prove the network either knew the statements it aired were false or recklessly disregarded their accuracy. That is the standard of “actual malice,” which public figures must prove to prevail in a defamation case.Fox has defended its coverage, arguing claims by Trump and his lawyers were inherently newsworthy and protected by the first amendment of the US constitution. The network said in a statement the newly released documents show Dominion using “distortions and misinformation” to “smear Fox News and trample on free speech.”Fox has said that Dominion’s “extreme” interpretation of defamation law would “stop the media in its tracks” and chill freedom of the press.Fox’s evidence includes more context of testimony and messages that it says Dominion “cherry-picked” and “misrepresented” in its summary judgment filing.For example, Fox cites additional testimony by Fox Corp co-chairman and CEO Lachlan Murdoch, who said under oath that he was “concerned” but “not overly concerned” by declining ratings after the election.Dominion has alleged Fox continued to push the stolen election narrative because it was losing viewers to right-wing outlets that embraced it.In another exhibit, Fox News host Hannity said that during an interview with Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, he was giving her time to produce evidence but stopped having her appear on-air after she failed to deliver. Hannity has been quoted by Dominion during a deposition as saying he “did not believe” claims by Trump’s lawyer “for one second.”A Dominion spokesperson said in a statement that the “emails, texts, and deposition testimony speak for themselves. We welcome all scrutiny of our evidence because it all leads to the same place – Fox knowingly spread lies causing enormous damage to an American company.”The trial, set to begin on 17 April, is slated to last five weeks.TopicsRupert MurdochUS politicsFox NewsUS television industrySean HannityReuse this content More
‘Sleaze-slinging’ Fox News denounced by family of January 6 officer who diedCondemnation of ‘so-called new network’ comes after Tucker Carlson shares footage from attack courtesy of Kevin McCarthyThe family of Brian Sicknick, the US Capitol police officer who died the day after the January 6 attack on Congress, condemned Tucker Carlson and Fox News as “unscrupulous and outright sleazy”, after the primetime host made first use of security footage from the riot bestowed by Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House speaker.Fox News hit with election complaint after Biden ad given to Trump son-in-lawRead moreA statement on Tuesday said: “The Sicknick family is outraged at the ongoing attack on our family by the unscrupulous and outright sleazy so-called news network of Fox News.”Fox and Carlson, the family said, “will do the bidding of [Donald] Trump or any of his sycophant followers, no matter what damage is done to the families of the fallen, the officers who put their lives on the line and all who suffered on January 6, due to the lie started by Trump and spread by sleaze-slinging outlets like Fox”.Nine deaths have been linked to the attack on the Capitol by supporters Trump told to “fight like hell” in service of his lie that his defeat by Joe Biden was the result of electoral fraud.Trump aimed to stop certification of Biden’s win. The process was only delayed but lawmakers including the vice-president, Mike Pence, were sent running for their lives.More than 1,000 people have been charged and hundreds convicted on charges including seditious conspiracy. Hundreds remain wanted by authorities.Trump was impeached for inciting the attack but acquitted when enough Senate Republicans stayed loyal. The House January 6 committee made four criminal referrals regarding Trump to the Department of Justice.Last month, to protests from Democrats and media groups, McCarthy made 41,000 hours of security footage available to Carlson and Fox News.Carlson had already claimed January 6 was a “false flag” attack, staged by authorities to entrap Trump supporters. On Monday night, he tried to portray those who stormed the Capitol as peaceful protesters.Saying the tapes showed “mostly peaceful chaos”, Carlson said: “Taken as a whole the video record does not support the claim that January 6 was an insurrection. In fact, it demolishes that claim.”In return, the Sicknick family lambasted Carlson and Fox News.Fox News, they said, “has shown time and time again that [it is] little more than the propaganda arm of the Republican party, and like Pravda will do whatever [it is] told to keep the hatred and the lies flowing while suppressing anything resembling the truth.“Fox does this not for any sense of morality as they have none but for the quest for every penny of advertising money they can get from those who buy airtime from them.”Recent revelations from filings in a $1.6n defamation suit from Dominion Voter Systems include Rupert Murdoch, Fox News’ owner, indicating he knew Trump’s claims were false but saying his motivation for accommodating election deniers was to stop viewers deserting.The Sicknick family also called McCarthy a “disgusting excuse for a House speaker”. Later on Tuesday, the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, was asked if McCarthy had made a mistake in giving Carlson the tapes.He said: “My concern is how [the riot] was depicted, which was a different issue. Clearly the chief of the Capitol police, in my view, correctly describes what most of us witnessed first-hand on January 6.”McConnell’s Democratic counterpart, Chuck Schumer, lamented “one of the most shameful hours we have ever seen on cable television” and said Carlson had shown “contempt for the facts [and] disregard of the risks [while] knowing full well he was lying to his audience”.Carlson, Schumer said, “told the bald-faced lie that the Capitol attack, which we all saw with our own eyes, somehow was not an attack at all”.Decrying efforts to make a martyr out of Ashley Babbitt, a Trump supporter shot dead by a police officer on January 6, the Sicknick family said Carlson was “downplaying the horrid situation faced by US Capitol police and DC Metro police who were incredibly outnumbered and were literally fighting for their very lives”.Sicknick, 42, was sprayed with chemicals, for which his attacker was jailed for nearly seven years. Sicknick died the day after the riot, after suffering two strokes. A medical examiner said he died of natural causes but his name remains linked to January 6. His body lay in state at the Capitol.Sicknick’s family said “his sense of duty and incredible work ethic were the driving force which sent him back in spite of his injuries and no doubt contributed to his succumbing to his injuries the following day.Stunning Rupert Murdoch deposition leaves Fox News in a world of troubleRead more“What will it take to silence the lies from people like Carlson? What will it take to convince people that the January 6 insurrection was very real, it was very violent, and that the event was orchestrated by a man [Trump] who is every bit as corrupt and evil as Vladimir Putin.“The Sicknick family would love nothing more than to have Brian back with us and to resume our normal lives. Fictitious news outlets like Fox and its rabid followers will not allow that. Every time the pain of that day seems to have ebbed a bit organisations like Fox rip our wounds wide open again and we are frankly sick of it.“Leave us the hell alone and instead of spreading more lies from Supreme Leader Trump, why don’t you focus on real news?”Fox News did not comment.TopicsUS Capitol attackFox NewsUS television industryTelevision industryWashington DCRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
Ron DeSantis has his next target in his sights: freedom of the pressTrevor TimmFlorida’s rightwing governor and legislature want to gut one of the United States’ most important first amendment rulingsRon DeSantis, the Florida governor, and his cronies, not content with destroying free speech in public schools, have set for themselves a new target: destroying press freedom and every Floridian’s right to criticize public officials. Along the way, they aim to overturn the most important first amendment US supreme court decision of the 20th century.The latest bill to raise eyebrows sounds like it’s made up by the opponents of Florida Republicans to make them sound ridiculous. Unfortunately, it’s real. The proposed law, authored by state legislator Jason Brodeur, would – I kid you not – compel “bloggers” who criticize the governor, other officers of the executive branch, or members of the legislature to register with the state of Florida. Under the bill, anyone paid to write on the internet would have to file monthly reports every time they utter a government official’s name in a critical manner. If not, they’d face potentially thousands of dollars in fines.Banning ideas and authors is not a ‘culture war’ – it’s fascism | Jason StanleyRead moreIt’s a policy so chilling that it would make Vladimir Putin proud, and I wish that was hyperbole. In 2014, Russia’s autocratic leader signed a very similar provision, then known as the “blogger’s law”. As the Verge explained at the time, “under it, any blogger with more than 3,000 readers is required to register with the Roskomnadzor, Russia’s media oversight agency”.As despotic as this proposed Florida blogger law may be, it’s also so laughably absurd, and so unconstitutional on its face, that it’s hard to imagine even DeSantis’s rubber-stamp legislature would pass it. As Charles C Cooke recently wrote, “Senator Jason Brodeur is a moron, but he’s a solo moron” with no apparent further support here. One would hope. But the blogger blacklist bill may be useful for another reason: as an attention-grabbing sideshow, to take heat off another free speech-destroying proposal that has DeSantis’s explicit backing – this one aimed at a bedrock principle of press freedom in the United States.For the past few weeks, while his new Orwellian higher education rules have been getting the lion’s share of attention, DeSantis has also been on the warpath against New York Times v Sullivan, the landmark supreme court decision from the early 1960s that set the bar for defamation law in this country – and gave newspapers and citizens alike wide latitude to investigate and criticize government officials.Many legal scholars consider it the most important first amendment decision of the last century. It is one of the primary reasons newspapers in the US can aggressively report on public officials and powerful wealthy individuals without the constant fear that they are going to be sued out of existence. And up until a few years ago, when Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch started criticizing it, everyone assumed it was settled law.Recently, DeSantis staged a dramatic “roundtable” discussion to present to the public that he was now invested in changing Florida defamation law for “the little guys”, “the run-of-the-mill citizens”, the ordinary folk who don’t have “thick skin” like his. He then proceeded to use the majority of the presentation to rail against New York Times v Sullivan, which of course doesn’t apply to “the little guys” at all – only to powerful public figures like him.A few days later, DeSantis’s allies in Florida’s legislature introduced bills that would fulfill his wish and directly violate the Sullivan supreme court ruling. In their original draft, the law’s authors made no attempt to hide their disdain for the bedrock first amendment decision either. They called it out directly in the bill’s preamble, bizarrely stating that the unanimous decision from almost 60 years ago “bears no relation to the text, structure, or history of the first amendment to the United States constitution”. (That sentence was later deleted in the next version.)While the Florida house and senate version vary slightly in specifics, even the “tamer” senate version – introduced by the very same state senator Brodeur – guts almost every aspect of journalists’ rights. Here’s just a partial list of what the bills aim to do:
Kill off a large part of Florida’s journalist “shield bill”, which protects reporters from being forced to testify in court.
Presume any news report written with anonymous sources is defamation.
Roll back Florida’s anti-Slapp law, which ironically protects “little guys” like independent newspapers when they are sued by wealthy individuals for the primary purpose of bankrupting them.
Weaken the “actual malice” standard from Sullivan, to make it easier for public officials to sue newspapers or critics.
Now, can states just pass laws that blatantly ignore supreme court precedent? Of course not. Any responsible judge would strike this down as unconstitutional right away. But DeSantis may be hoping for a friendly appeals court ruling from a Trump-appointed judge or supreme court showdown to revisit the Sullivan ruling – following the same decades-long Republican strategy that finally overturned Roe v Wade. And in the meantime, DeSantis can burnish his anti-media bona fides for his presidential run, and Republican legislatures around the country can use the opportunity to copy the bill or one-up him.Whether the bill survives in the long term doesn’t change the fact that it would destroy all media in Florida – the traditional and mainstream, but also the independent and alternative, including all the conservative publications that have sprouted up all over the state in recent years.DeSantis has turned Florida into a national laboratory for speech suppression. And every American – Republican or Democrat – should be horrified.TopicsUS politicsOpinionRon DeSantisFreedom of speechJournalism booksFloridaUS supreme courtcommentReuse this content More
Fox News reportedly imposes ‘soft ban’ on Donald TrumpThe former president has not made a weekday showing on the channel since appearing on Sean Hannity’s show in SeptemberFox News has imposed a “soft ban” on Donald Trump appearing on the channel, his inner circle is reportedly complaining, even as the broadcaster extends a warm invitation to other Republican hopefuls in next year’s presidential election.Trump not entitled to immunity from civil suits over Capitol attack, says DoJRead moreThe news startup Semafor reports that the cooling of relations between the former president and his once-beloved cable news channel has gone so far that a “soft ban” or “silent ban” is now holding Trump at arm’s length. The former US president has not made a weekday showing on Fox News since he chatted with his closest friend among the network’s star hosts, Sean Hannity, in September.Meanwhile, Trump’s rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination are currently frequent guests on Fox. Media Matters for America, a watchdog that keeps a close eye on the network’s output, has counted seven weekday appearances by the former governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley since she launched her presidential bid last month.Even the lesser known right-wing activist and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who threw his hat into the ring last week, has appeared four times on Fox. Florida’s rightwing governor, Ron DeSantis, who is widely expected to compete with Trump though he has yet to declare, is also repeatedly seen on the network.Semafor said it based its story on information supplied by four members of Trump’s circle. It quoted an unnamed individual “close to Trump” saying: “Everyone knows that there’s this ‘soft ban’ or ‘silent ban’. It’s certainly – however you want to say, quiet ban, soft ban, whatever it is – indicative of how the Murdochs feel about Trump in this particular moment.”The Guardian asked Fox News to confirm or deny the existence of such a ban, but did not immediately receive a reply.The undeniable tailing off of Trump’s exposure on Fox comes at a tense moment for the network, which is battling a $1.6bn lawsuit from the voting machines company Dominion. The suit claims that Fox News Network, with the complicit approval of its parent company Fox Corp, allowed wild defamatory conspiracy theories to proliferate on its platform, falsely accusing Dominion machines of stealing the 2020 presidential election from Trump by flipping votes from him to Joe Biden.In excerpts of a deposition given in the case by Rupert Murdoch in January, the owner and chair of Fox Corp admitted that he knew that several Fox hosts were endorsing lies about the election being stolen from Trump yet he chose not to stop them. Legal and media experts have suggested that the admission places Murdoch’s empire in considerable legal and financial peril.During Trump’s rise to the White House in 2015-16, and his ensuing years in office, he was virtually inseparable from Fox News. He regularly made impromptu calls into his favourite shows, and in the single year 2019 posted 657 tweets responding to content aired by the channel or its sister outlet Fox Business.In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s defeat in the November 2020 election, Fox hosts were permitted to continue broadcasting lies about massive voter fraud. But since the stolen election campaign reached its nadir on 6 January 2021, with the insurrection at the US Capitol, followed later that year by the lodging of lawsuits by Dominion and another voting machine company, Fox has gradually backed away.In turn, Trump has increasingly vented his anger towards his former media friend. This week he posted a rant on his social media platform Truth Social in which he accused Murdoch himself of peddling “fake news” after the Fox chief was revealed to have said in a deposition that he did not believe the stolen election lie from the beginning.“If Rupert Murdoch honestly believes that the presidential election of 2020, despite massive amounts of proof to the contrary, was not rigged & stolen, then he & his group of Maga hating globalist Rinos [Republicans in name only] should get out of the news business as soon as possible,” Trump said.There is no evidence that the election was rigged, as numerous top officials, including Trump’s own former US attorney general Bill Barr, have attested.TopicsDonald TrumpRupert MurdochFox NewsFoxUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
