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Deport Murdoch

By James Moore

FOX Wins Again, America Loses.

I realise that’s a hell of a claim to make in the sub-heading, but just how much is FOX harmed? And does anyone think they won’t go right back to old practices?

Nothing will change. FOX will resume lying and misleading its audience on the air. Of course, the viewers might want to be misled. Even as intellectually depraved as much of the FOX audience appears to be, the majority has to know it is not being told the truth. The rigged election nonsense they were sold was so patently absurd and indefensible that even if a FOX viewer focused on avoiding the facts, they still had to be confronted. Joe Biden won in the Electoral College and the popular vote and Trump was not even close. These are the facts FOX could not accept.

The FOX settlement with Dominion Voting Systems is good for FOX and Dominion. But America got kind of screwed. We were served up parsed political statements that are about as funny as Trump without spray tan. The $787 million dollar settlement is a verification that the network lied on the air about our most sacred process in this old democracy, and only has to write a check to walk away and repeat the process. FOX can also pretend, which it is doing, that it really just doesn’t want to drag poor Americans, (see also, advertisers), through the muck of a long, drawn out trial.

Because they are all about good journalism.

“This settlement reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards,” the network’s statement said. “We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues.”

“Highest journalistic standards” is a laugh line for the ages.

And who the hell is moving forward? FOX will continue to distort and manufacture and outright lie if it serves their political purposes and those of the fiduciaries of companies that are their advertisers. There is no penance involved in this agreement, only absolution. Not even an apology was required and the originators of fake news had to do little more than admit there were falsehoods broadcast on their air.

“We acknowledge the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false,” was another one of their absurdist statements.

The number and total volume of lies and disinformation FOX spewed about Dominion and the election that made Mr. Biden president were enough to fill up all the data space offered by Amazon Web Services. It never stopped, and it may yet resume. The company has hardly been chastened. When you have billions to pay your bills, you have a kind of invulnerability. Sure, this will make a bit of dent in the network’s bottom line, but Hannity and Carlson and the morning flakes and every other cipher on their air is not likely to get a sudden case of the Truths.

America deserved a chance to hear Tucker Carlson and tiny Sean Hannity lie under oath. I have had dreams of those tubes of human sputum on the stand trying to avoid simple questions.

“Mr. Tucker, do you ever, or have you ever, lied on the air and reported something that you knew to be false or unproven?”

“Not to my knowledge, counselor.”

That’s evasive phrase to avoid admitting you knew you were dealing in fabrication. If you knew, the implication is you’d not have done it. But that’s horseshit. Carlson and Hannity in particular have done more harm to America than even Rupert Murdoch, who ought to be deported for being a grave threat to the republic. Everyone knows how this works at FOX, too. The network will hardly mention the settlement on air and in spite of the subject’s widespread news coverage, much, maybe most, of the people who watch FOX will never know they lost the case. In fact, FOX is likely to give the story only a few lines of copy a couple times in the broadcast day.

I don’t see how anyone views this as justice. Murdoch wrote a check to get out of jail. I am happy for Dominion because what they did was courageous and it saved their company, if not our democracy. But if there were true justice, the entirety of the network’s crimes against America would have been on display in the courtroom, and every taxpayer in the land would get a sense of lies and dirty dealing conducted by the network as it daily slings all across the country its total disregard for the truth and facts. That’s the profitable formula that makes it possible to write a check for $787 million dollars and then get back to the hard work of setting to rot the very foundations of our democracy.

Dominion is still going after Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, but their incompetence, as manifest as it is, appears more comical than dangerous. We may get to see them twist and sweat dark bullets down their foreheads, but they’ll both claim bankruptcy and neither of them has a reputation left to be destroyed. My hope now is that Smartmatic, which has the next defamation suit up, gets the empty suits of FOX News on the stand and we can get a better grasp of the horror show that is that network. If they take a big enough chunk of cash in a settlement from FOX, instead of pushing onto the courtroom at all costs, perhaps the double hits will do fatal harm to the network, or, even better, corporate advertisers will be embarrassed to be associated with determined liars.

Doesn’t seem like much to ask.

This article was originally published in Texas to the World.

James C. Moore is the New York Times bestselling author of “Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential,” three other books on Bush and former Texas Governor Rick Perry, as well as two novels, and a biography entitled, “Give Back the Light,” on a famed eye surgeon and inventor. His newest book will be released mid-2023. Mr. Moore has been honored with an Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for his documentary work and is a former TV news correspondent who has traveled extensively on every presidential campaign since 1976.

He has been a retained on-air political analyst for MSNBC and has appeared on Morning Edition on National Public Radio, NBC Nightly News, Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, CBS Evening News, CNN, Real Time with Bill Maher, and Hardball with Chris Matthews, among numerous other programs. Mr. Moore’s written political and media analyses have been published at CNN, Boston Globe, L.A. Times, Guardian of London, Sunday Independent of London, Salon, Financial Times of London, Huffington Post, and numerous other outlets. He also appeared as an expert on presidential politics in the highest-grossing documentary film of all time, Fahrenheit 911, (not related to the film’s producer Michael Moore).

His other honors include the Dartmouth College National Media Award for Economic Understanding, the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television News Directors’ Association, the Individual Broadcast Achievement Award from the Texas Headliners Foundation, and a Gold Medal for Script Writing from the Houston International Film Festival. He was frequently named best reporter in Texas by the AP, UPI, and the Houston Press Club. The film produced from his book “Bush’s Brain” premiered at The Cannes Film Festival prior to a successful 30-city theater run in the U.S.

Mr. Moore has reported on the major stories and historical events of our time, which have ranged from Iran-Contra to the Waco standoff, the Oklahoma City bombing, the border immigration crisis, and other headlining events. His journalism has put him in Cuba, Central America, Mexico, Australia, Canada, the UK, and most of Europe, interviewing figures as diverse as Fidel Castro and Willie Nelson. He has been writing about Texas politics, culture, and history since 1975, and continues with political opinion pieces for CNN and regularly at his Substack newsletter: “Texas to the World.”

 

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29 comments

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  1. Kerri

    Letting this much bad publicity go through to the keeper for Fox begs the question, why not settle earlier??
    Keith Olberman has some suggestions and shares James C Moore’s frustrations at the capitulation by Dominion.
    Mr Olberman’s podcast episode addressing his frustration can be found here. Earlier podcasts address Keith’s anger at various US judicial systems and his suspicions, that the settlement was to avoid the exposure of even more damning publicity for Murdoch can be found here.
    https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/countdown-with-keith-olbermann/id1633301179

    And yes he should be deported but as he now has sole US citizenship that seems unlikely.

  2. Phil Pryor

    Rupert Bladderov-Bullshit is the eternal scum and skinful of excrement, a blot on civilised behaviour and attitude. That old Fox Pox started off here, in Australia, and has endorsed horrible fellow liars since, eg, the Cronulla Creviceful. So the curse goes on, as Peter Duckwit-Futton, the leader/follower of the supposition, er, plopposition, er, crap position, is currently going through a fit of imbecility. How the hell can we and the world get essential good government about real issues for us all..? Meanwhile the abcessive, obsessive, regressive Pox Fox floats on, cesspit bound, the foul old plot reffo…

  3. Andrew Smith

    Unfortunately now Australia will be precluded from more details from the public domain via a court case, due to settlement (vs. US more liberal libel laws); bookending elites and power.

    Meanwhile, normal service will resume with protection being run by the media and influencers to ensure our (nominal) top people are subjected to neither scrutiny nor accountability.

    Unless there are more skeletons in the closet to emerge?

  4. Terence Mills

    While the Dominion case is now over, Fox News is still facing a second major defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic, another voting technology company that was allegedly smeared on Fox shows after the 2020 election : they are after $US2.7 Billion.

    FOX will have to lift their game or they will forever be tied up in defamation courts. They could start by telling the truth !!

  5. Rob Cross

    don’t send the bastard back here.

  6. RomeoCharlie29

    One wonders when the Fox and Newscorpse shareholders are going to start thinking that payments like $787 bn for tv lies and a reputed $1.6 billion (and continuing) damages for the phone hacking scandal are too big a price to pay for having on-air people spouting bullshit or scumbag reporters ( as distinct from journalists) using illegal methods to gather their barrel-bottom scrapings.

    Also one wonders how long the MAGA morons and republican dunderheads can continue to believe the bullshit these people propagate.

  7. GL

    Terence,

    I see the Smartmatic lawsuit going the same way with a last minute deal being made by Rupert/Fox.

  8. Harry Lime

    Deport Rumplestiltskin? Yeah, but not back to Oz…Sudan,or Russia,maybe the’ Democratic ‘Republic of Congo,where his style of democracy would be well regarded.

  9. Terence Mills

    GL

    What FOX have resisted so far is an on air apology from the talking heads – I’m surprised that wasn’t part of the Dominion agreement.

  10. Michael Taylor

    Colour me surprised on that bit too, Terry.

  11. GL

    Rupert/Fox apologise? That would be like Scummo standing up and saying sorry for the dictatorship he was attempting to set up. That would be like The Spud apologising for his gutter tactics…anyway, you get the picture.

  12. Roswell

    No matter where this man is; New York, Norfolk Island, Patagonia, Kathmandu or sitting on Halley’s Comet… he is to be considered unarmed and dangerous.

  13. Canguro

    Here’s an idea. On January 31, 1961, a chimp called Ham flew a suborbital flight on the Mercury-Redstone 2 mission, part of the U.S. space program’s Project Mercury. Time for a rerun.

    With advances in space technology and no shortage of those willing to cheer him on, strap the old prune into a capsule and with boosters in full throttle, send him off for the ride of his life. It’d be bound to be a ratings bonanza, the last gasps of the old bastard beamed back to earth as his ride sets him off towards the outer reaches of wherever, his kids back on land cheering him on… ‘Go Dad, way to go, old fella,’ Tucker Carlson and the gang of crooks & liars over at Fox solemnly intoning that rumours of Rupert Murdoch’s departing the planet are unfounded, kind of like an inversion of Major T. J. “King” Kong riding the H-bomb, yee hah!

  14. Canguro

    Hard to know where to park this comment, and it’s of no account anyway since we’re all too aware of the lunacy and deep madness that characterises America’s utter attachment to the so-called right to bear arms, a situation that has led to this massive upramping in the use of these arms – rifles, shotguns, pistols and god knows what else – by the significantly large minority of unwell sociopathic lunatics who vent their frustrations over their inadequacies by slaughtering their fellow citizens at the first instance of slight.

    But on reading that a six-year old girl was shot, along with her parents, after a stray ball ended up in her neighbour’s yard, topping off a recent couple of weeks that included a few of your everyday mass murders, a kid shot after mistakenly knocking on the wrong door, a young woman shot & killed after mistakenly driving up the wrong driveway, I just wanted to scream, ‘what the actual fuck is going on in that country?’ It seems like it’s on a fast track dive into the pits of hell. Maybe this is what karma looks like, after that country’s years and years of inflicting death, pain and suffering on so many other countries.

  15. GL

    Canguro, We’ve seen many weekly shootings, mass or otherwise, stories from the US that it has become like a never-ending tiring and mind numbing serial like Cops from Fox.

  16. leefe

    Canguro:

    Maybe put him on the next SpaceX test flight and hope for another “rapid unscheduled disassembly”?

  17. Clakka

    Let’s hope Smartmatic pulls their threadbare rug and sends ’em back to the primordial slime from whence they slithered. And that then Oz puts a constrictor hold on them.

  18. Cool Pete

    Trump called the UN and others “the elites” but the true elites are the Murdochs of this world who can afford to pay huge settlements. Murdoch didn’t want to see his company dragged through the courts, even though he can afford to pay huge legal bills, because he knew what would be exposed. The thing is, FOX uncritically reported Trump’s lies and presented them as facts.

  19. Terence Mills

    Re Crikey

    Rupert has made it a golden rule to stay out of the courts either as a plaintiff or a defendant : the eleventh hour settlement on the steps of the court in Delaware illustrated the point and, it cost the old prune dearly but at least he didn’t have to bare his soul and have yet another humble day.

    He would have been very annoyed that Lachlan decided to take Crikey to court : clearly the son and heir does not have the instincts of the old man.

  20. James K

    There are 2 possibilites, at least:
    1. FOX believes Smartmatic did not rig the election and paid costs to save further legal actions;
    2. FOX believes Smartmatic did rig but sees $787M as a bargain for nobbling Trump’s chances of re-election.
    No Trump means one less rogue cannon rolling around the deck of the long term agenda of media empires.

  21. Liam

    The dominion settlement cost 787 million, about 6 months of Fox Corp’s profit. The old codger probably made as much money in the manufactured conflict over the election as they handed over to avoid trial. Another billion dollar settlement might start eating into the cash reserves at Fox, but likely has nothing on what the Murdoch empire made by ordering around the orange man to make decisions favouring their investment holdings. For Rupert, the thrill of handing out orders to the “US president” is likely priceless.

  22. Terence Mills

    The Murdoch media news empire has totally ignored the momentous defamation payment to Dominion (James K the Smartmatic issue has not yet gone before the courts).

    I have followed the websites of the major outlets of the Murdoch news empire and unless they have hidden it away somewhere none of them have covered this defamation payment by FOX to Dominion. If you think they have learned anything from this issue think again the order not to cover it clearly came from the top: they have filtered the news for their own benefit and to our detriment.

    FOX News site https://www.foxnews.com/,

    the News.com site https://www.news.com.au/

    the Sky News site : https://www.skynews.com.au

    The Australian : https://www.theaustralian.com.au/

    The New York Post : https://nypost.com/

    The Times London : https://www.thetimes.co.uk/

    The Wall Street Journal as a business newspaper did report the settlement : https://www.wsj.com/

  23. Michael Taylor

    Sorry about the comment got caught up for moderation, Terry.

    The system does that sometimes if there are a number of links in the comment.

  24. Andrew Smith

    Terry on media reporting of Dominion vs. Fox, it did not appear on the ABC website and one had to search to find several related reports, but dropped/published late evening or very early a.m. to miss most eyeballs…. running protection for elites, normal service resumes.

  25. Terence Mills

    Tucker Carlson has now been sacked by FOX ; according to reports directly on the orders of Rupert Murdoch possibly due to the fact that Carlson was not prepared to do an on screen apology on behalf of the pay TV channel for consistently lying to their audience.

  26. GL

    Terence,

    “…orders of Rupert Murdoch possibly due to the fact that Carlson was not prepared to do an on screen apology…” and more likely the fact that he’s scared shitless that News/Fox is on the hook for untold hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits and doesn’t want Carlson inflaming the problems any further.

  27. Phil Pryor

    Carlson gone, a sop to the world, for the stinking head turd of Pox will infest and move on, sacrificing anyone to survive and grind on his profiteering, coercions, domineering, imfestation.. It is galactic utless greedy garbage,

  28. Canguro

    There’s no direct accusation of sexual shenanigans wrt Tucker Carlson but there is/was a lot of swirl around misogynistic and bullying behaviour in the Fox bunker and some of that pointed in Carlson’s direction. Given the earlier scandal that led to the sacking of the poisonous toad Roger Ailes, it may well be that the Wrinkled Prune acted preemptively to avoid even further scandal given Fox News is currently on the ropes, ala Garcia vs Davis.

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