NEW YORK, USA - July 10, 2019: Signboard Fox News Channel at the News Corporation headquarters building in Manhattan, New York City. Mass media corporation. (c) – Stock.Adobe.com

Here There be Witches

April 30, 2023

I suspect sometimes that those who view certain network news view my ‘backyard’ like the New Kensington riverscape and see their own like Grand Teton National Park. Neither tells a whole story. Or even an accurate story in context.

It is easy and natural to have a bias for our own opinions, preferences, etc. It is easy to fall prey to an inclination to dismiss or demean those of others.

I’ve been watching this tendency for a lot of years in news reporting. I try to be balanced; To reject the extremes. I see Fox, CNN, OAN, TYT, NewsMax, etc. as extremes. Fox has been getting a lion’s share of the news lately due to several lawsuits against them. One, that of Dominion, has been settled with a $787.5 BILLION settlement in favor of Dominion making a huge splash and a Fox acknowledgment that there was some fibbing involved in its reporting/commentary.

I have been watching this lawsuit for quite a long time now. As the actual trial approached, there was a drip.driP.drIP.dRIP of revelation about internal texts and emails, withheld information during discovery, etc. It was all quite damaging and really built an appetite for the trial. I was really looking forward to hearing the testimony that would come out. The revelations were already splashing on-air talent with taint. I don’t watch Fox News so I can’t say how much of this actually saw the light of day for that network’s viewers. I know where I live. I know that Fox is on most televisions in places I go that run television news. It is the main/only source of news for many.

That takes me back to the Grand Teton National Park. The Snake River tableau is famous for its beauty and serenity. I feel good just looking at it. I have never been there. If there are dead fish just outside the famous landscape, I do not see or smell them. I only see what the photograph reveals. I consider myself smarter than the average bear, so I know there are things that crawl and slither over and under that landscape even though I can’t actually see them. I can only see what the photographer shows me. There are certainly dead fish in the area. Nature often smells of dead fish. It doesn’t make the whole picture a lie. The picture just conceals some realities. I can’t speak for the effect the picture and the reality have on others. I’m sure there are people who see the picture and dismiss the possibility of larger realities. A picture obscures a thousand smells. Some love the picture but deny any smells.

This recent three-quarter-billion dollar settlement by Fox should, for reasonable, intelligent people, reveal that there is indeed a smell lurking in a beautiful picture. Pictures can be painted in many ways, and Fox can present this whole experience as a win but if you are reasonable and intelligent, you have to know that no company would look at a potential trial, consider the likelihood of prevailing, and decide to settle by paying their antagonist almost a billion dollars. Any party who settles must have considered the possibility of an outcome even worse than what is at stake in the actual trial. Even worse than the settlement.

I have been following this case since it began. I’m not a lawyer. I’m not a Fox hater (or lover). I read a LOT of news from all sides. All political viewpoints. I also consider myself reasonable, and reasonably intelligent. I know what I expected. With a three-quarter billion dollar settlement, I believe I can see that Fox’s expectations were very similar to mine as far as risk going to trial in light of pre-trial evidence, rulings, etc.

There are still Dominion suits against OAN, NewsMax, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Mike Lindell. I’m not an expert, but I can’t imagine this Fox settlement bodes well for them. It is not even the end of things for Fox. Smartmatic, another election-related company, is also suing Fox for even more money than Dominion. And there are more lawsuits in the pipe. Each one will benefit from the Dominion settlement.

Shareholders may be suing. One has already initiated a suit against Rupert Murdoch and son Lachlan “alleging they breached their duties to the company by allowing Fox to perpetuate Trump’s false claims.”

Others are requesting evidence Fox is legally obligated to provide per corporate law in Delaware; Emails, board meeting minutes, texts, etc. Also, “Fox Corp shareholders are demanding company records that may show whether directors and executives properly oversaw Fox News’ coverage of former President Donald Trump’s election-rigging claims, sources told Reuters, in what could be a prelude to lawsuits seeking to make directors liable for costs.”

When it rains… And each drip.driP.drIP.dRIP adds to subsequent streams.

What I am wondering most is the effect this has on Fox going forward. It won’t have any effect on me because I will still not be relying on Fox for most of my news, and in no amount on their ‘entertainment’ side where most of this kerfuffle seems to have started. Will there be a titch more thought to what is said (guests or hosts) unchallenged? Or omissions unquestioned. Speaking only for myself, when someone’s word is found to be questionable, or false, it is like pee in a well. Drink at your own risk.

It is implied, when people use the phrase ‘witch hunt’, that there are no witches. We’ve been hearing this, or some variant, for the last few years. It is a mantra chanted and picked up and echoed by a strident group, nurtured in large part by Fox. There was no apology involved in the settlement, but there are three-quarter-billion reasons to intuitively infer that there was careless disregard of truth and reckoning was close at hand.

Sometimes a ‘witch hunt’ is a search where no witches are to be found. Abraham Lincoln said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time. You can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” In a trial with so much public evidence in plain sight, and a defendant agreeing to pay a plaintiff $787,500,000 and acknowledge there was some fibbing that plainly led from there to here, before even going to trial, there is only one reasonable, intelligent conclusion to be reached. Here there be witches.

         

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