By Marvin Kalb
Fox News got away with lying, and there is little reason to believe veteran Fox viewers will ever know the difference.
Let’s talk turkey for a moment, as some at Fox might consider any discussion of money. Fox was sued by Dominion for $1.6 billion. Fox faced six weeks of trial that would have dominated much of cable news and other media with embarrassing stories about how Fox lied (and continues to lie) about the nation’s politics and much else. At the last minute, thanks to a wizard of mediation or a back-of-the-envelope calculation, a deal was magically struck. No trial, case dismissed.
The cost, staggering to any other news organization, proved quickly to be acceptable to billionaire owner Rupert Murdoch’s Fox: the $787.5 million Fox must now pay Dominion, to put this in a financial context, is roughly one-fifth of Fox’s estimated quarterly revenue of $4.6 billion. Meaning four-fifths of that mountain of cash can still be banked for a rainy day in the Murdoch empire.
Can Fox afford the cost of momentary humiliation and move on, aware that its viewer base trusts only Fox’s alternative universe of facts, mindlessly dismissing any other version of reality as anti-Trump gibberish?
Absolutely.
Consider only a few statistics: Fox Corporation’s total assets are listed as $22.9 billion. Its lead anchor, Tucker Carlson, reportedly earns $35 million/year, not bad for a roaring conservative who “hates” Donald Trump. And then there is Sean Hannity, who loves Donald Trump. He reportedly earns $45 million/year, if you add radio to his TV earnings. (For comparison only, CNN’s Anderson Cooper earns a reported $12 million/year.) When you’re talking Fox, you’re talking big money. Lying pays. Twisting reality pays. Inflaming America’s political wars, diminishing its global standing, intensifying the nation’s cultural and racial tensions — that too, Fox has found, pays a goodly sum.
Sure, many viewers of CNN and MSNBC, many readers of the Post and the Times, might have yearned for Fox to pay much more in damages and to wallow in journalistic disgrace for months. Some might even have hoped for some sort of apology, perhaps on-air recognition of error, a promise to turn a new page in Fox’s version of “news,” a slight bow in the direction of accepting a shared set of facts and values that might be a step towards settling the nation’s anguishing political polarization. But, based just on Fox’s initial coverage of the news of its big deal settlement with Dominion, none of these hopes are likely to be satisfied. Everywhere else, even on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, also owned by Rupert Murdoch, the news was the big story of the day, among the biggest, hottest stories of the year. On Fox, if it was mentioned at all, it was, as a journalist would say, a quick “tell item,” a story mentioned in passing, like another crime in New York, another hearing on Capitol Hill or an unusual rainstorm in California.
The Fox/Dominion story, for a time, had the makings of history. It could have helped define the acceptable limits of journalistic expression at a time when many newsrooms are losing their way and social media is expanding its influence while breaking long established rules of the road. It could also have helped to educate millions on the gross failings of Fox news and perhaps (who knows, really?) on the advantages of a truly “fair and balanced” vision of reality, as presented by such media as the network news, the Sunday news shows, the Times, the Post and, yes, the Wall Street Journal. And finally, it could have opened the door to a possible change in our national dialogue about what’s good and bad for this troubled land.
But apparently not yet and not now, as the dollars continue to pile up in front of Fox headquarters on the Avenue of the Americas in New York City.