Fox News CEO Called Trump FactChecking ‘Bad For Business, Email Shows

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Fox News CEO Susan Scott cited the network's investigation into then-President Donald Trump's alleged vote fraud as "bad for business" in an email after the 2020 presidential election. Fox News describes itself as a network that survived the post-election turmoil and a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit.

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In a Dec. 2, 2020 email, Scott told primetime programming director Med Cooper that fact-checking "must stop now" and that it showed a "misunderstanding" of what Fox's audience wants in the news.

The announcement came after Fox News reporter Eric Schoen appeared on The Martha McCallum Show and delayed criticism that a truck driver had engaged in "dumping" during a fairly uncritical interview with Sean Hannity, according to a Fox News spokesperson. Fact Check: The problem is one owner yelling at the other.

The email comes just weeks after Scott said he couldn't defend those journalists who didn't understand our audience and how they should handle stories, who were personally responsible for the service's loss of 25,000 subscribers. Kombi, press officer. He later attributed the exchange to the reporter's "tone and message."

Dominion Voting Systems reportedly showed the messages to the court last week as the April 17th date of the Fox News defamation lawsuit approaches.

In a statement, Fox News accused Dominion of "continuing to rely on carefully selected quotes without context to create headlines to distract from the facts of this case," calling the lawsuit an attack on the free press.

Important quote

Scott wrote on Nov 19, 2020 “We can still edit, but we can't smile at our audience.”

A wonderful fact

Dominion's approach has reportedly been that Tucker Carlson employees have been privately calling MyPillow founder and frequent guest Mike Lindell "crazy." The Post went on to defend Lindel's appearance on the show as "the biggest advertiser".

Key background

In the year Dominion, which operated voting machines in dozens of states during the 2020 election, filed a high-profile lawsuit in 2021 against Fox News, accusing it of spreading unsubstantiated conspiracy theories suggesting that public comments from the car company were somehow rigged against Trump, causing significant damage to its brand. Dominion said the popular premiere shows, hosted by Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingram and Hannity, were instrumental in promoting conspiracy theories, even though the hosts personally doubted Trump's fraud claims. In a speech in January, Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said he believed Fox News should have denied the fraud allegations, saying, "I wish we had been stronger in condemning this in retrospect." Also agreeing with the statement "it's not red or blue, it's green", Lindell's permission to advertise on the network is more financial than political.

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Last month, Dominion posted a series of text messages in which Fox News hosts poked fun at guests promoting conspiracy theories, including former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell. Carlson called her "crazy" and "incredibly reckless" when she brought the fraud allegations to Dominion, while Ingram called her "absolutely insane."