The fundamental story of Fox Information and the 2020 election is properly understood. Fox’s comparatively small information operation lined the vote rely precisely; this protection infuriated President Donald Trump, the MAGA base, and Fox’s opinion stars; some viewers quickly flipped to further-right shops, equivalent to Newsmax; and Fox panicked.

However due to Dominion Voting Techniques, which is pursuing a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit in opposition to Fox, we now know that the community’s sense of disaster was much more intense than it appeared from outdoors. With the case careening towards trial, a courtroom submitting yesterday revealed a few of what Dominion discovered in the course of the discovery course of, together with eye-popping messages from Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Fox’s senior administration. “Getting creamed by CNN!” Fox’s proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, wrote to its high govt after seeing the in a single day rankings on November 8. “Guess our viewers don’t wish to watch it.”

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He was proper. A few of Fox’s high reveals started broadcasting a greater story, one which its viewers did wish to watch: a conspiracy-laden story about crooked Democrats stealing an election. Dominion is arguing that Fox knew full properly that Trumpworld’s voter-fraud allegations had been bunk however promoted the lies anyway. Whether or not or not Dominion prevails in courtroom, and lots of consultants consider it’ll, the lawsuit is already forcing an moral reckoning over Fox’s disrespect of its viewers. Hour after hour, day after day, Fox stars stored signaling to viewers that Trump may nonetheless win the election not as a result of they thought he would, however as a result of they had been frightened about their rankings. And all of us witnessed the implications on January 6.

On November 12, 2020, practically every week after Joe Biden clinched the presidency, Trump sought refuge in Fox’s different actuality—and, as at all times, the community delivered.

On the high of the 9 p.m. hour, Trump’s good friend Hannity pretended that the end result was nonetheless doubtful. He stated the election was not honest. He cited “excellent votes which have but to be counted” and “extra studies of useless folks voting from past the grave.” And, crucially, he talked at size about Dominion.

Trump was livid with the small variety of journalists at Fox who stored calling Biden the winner of the election, however Hannity was nonetheless on his good aspect. So, in typical Trump vogue, he flip-flopped. Twelve hours after tweeting his revulsion with the community, Trump tweeted, “Should see @seanhannity takedown of the horrible, inaccurate and something however safe Dominion Voting System which is utilized in States the place tens of hundreds of votes had been stolen from us and given to Biden. Likewise, the Nice @LouDobbs has a confirming and highly effective piece!”

Now it was practically 11 p.m. japanese time. The Fox Information correspondent Jacqui Heinrich noticed Trump’s election-denying submit and had the audacity to tweet the reality. She wrote that “high election infrastructure officers”—together with some in Trump’s administration—had issued a press release saying “there is no such thing as a proof that any voting system deleted or misplaced votes, modified votes, or was in any method compromised.”

Heinrich, a proficient younger correspondent at Fox, was a minnow, and the prime-time sharks had been hungry. The three hosts—Hannity, Carlson, and Laura Ingraham—had been in a textual content chain collectively, the place they’d been commiserating in regards to the insanity of the postelection interval. Carlson flagged Heinrich’s tweet and instructed Hannity, “Please get her fired.” Why? As a result of her minor Twitter fact-check of an out-of-control president was precisely the kind of factor that Fox’s fan base couldn’t stand to see.

“It must cease instantly, like tonight,” Carlson wrote. “It’s measurably hurting the corporate. The inventory worth is down. Not a joke.”

Hannity replied and stated he had already despatched the correct and thus offending tweet to Fox Information Media CEO Suzanne Scott.

“Sean texted me,” Scott wrote to 2 colleagues. Apparently, Hannity had threatened to tweet again at Heinrich. “He’s standing down on responding,” Scott wrote, “however not completely satisfied about this and doesn’t perceive how that is allowed to occur from anybody in information.” Scott was bothered too. She frightened that reporters at different shops would discover Heinrich’s tweet: “She has critical nerve doing this and if this will get picked up, viewers are going to be additional disgusted.”

Disgusted by what? By a reporter fact-checking Trump’s fictions.

This excessive stress between the newsroom and the a lot bigger opinion operation got here up in nearly each interview I carried out for Hoax, my e book in regards to the disturbing relationship between Fox and Trump. One Wednesday morning in late 2019, I turned on Fox & Mates, pressed the “Mute” button, and dialed up a producer who used to work on the present. It was clear from the tone of his voice that he had profound regrets about his time engaged on the morning present, and that’s why he needed to be a confidential supply.

The previous producer stated he sensed himself being brainwashed whereas consuming the entire right-wing content material from the Fox & Mates hosts and friends. He felt himself reworking into one of many hundreds of thousands of Fox addicts throughout America. “Individuals don’t care if it’s proper; they only need their aspect to win. That’s who this present is for,” he stated. “It’s unhappy.”

It could be unhappy, however additionally it is enormously profitable. Different sources at Fox instructed me to think about it not as a community per se, however as a revenue machine. They feared doing something that will disrupt the machine. “I really feel like Fox is being held hostage by its viewers,” a veteran staffer instructed me, maybe justifying his personal participation by portraying himself as a sufferer.

After I printed these confessions in Hoax, I wrote that everybody at Fox was “profoundly afraid of dropping the viewers and the ensuing piles of money.” I cited the previous morning-show producer, who instructed me, “We had been deathly afraid of our viewers leaving, deathly afraid of pissing them off.”

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These quotes had been evocative, I assumed, however they suffered from all the constraints that include anonymity. And the quotes had not come from Fox’s high tier of millionaire stars and executives. That’s why the brand new authorized submitting by Dominion is such a showstopper. We will learn precisely what the leaders and stars of Fox Information actually assume. That is my greatest takeaway: Within the days after Biden gained the election, whereas Trump tried to begin the steal by shouting “Cease the Steal,” probably the most highly effective folks at Fox Information weren’t involved in regards to the well being of U.S. democracy. They had been involved about Fox’s model and their very own backside line.

On November 7, Fox had fallen consistent with the opposite main networks and referred to as the election for Biden. There have been spontaneous celebrations in main cities and lengthy faces throughout Fox’s airwaves. The consensus view each inside and outdoors the community was that Fox’s acknowledgment of actuality—and particularly its early projection that Biden had gained Arizona—had turned the viewers in opposition to the community.

I used to be working at CNN on the time, so I studied the rankings spreadsheets that arrived within the late afternoon. Newsmax, a tiny Fox wannabe, was abruptly surging by catering to MAGA viewers and refusing to name Biden the president-elect. On November 8, I interviewed Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy and aired clips of election deniers talking on his community. “Your commentators are selling bogus voter-fraud lies,” I stated. He tried to show the interview right into a gross sales pitch. “Don’t consider you, don’t consider me, simply watch Newsmax,” he stated, “and make your individual judgment about how honest we’re.”

Ruddy, in different phrases, was capitalizing on the enterprise alternative earlier than him. He was welcoming viewers to Newsmax with a pledge to inform them what they needed to listen to. Fox’s high expertise knew it—and freaked out. In accordance with the Dominion submitting, Carlson texted his producer that weekend and stated, “Do the executives perceive how a lot credibility and belief we’ve misplaced with our viewers? We’re taking part in with fireplace, for actual….another like newsmax may very well be devastating to us.”

On November 9, Carlson wrote to Scott, “I’ve by no means seen a response like this, to any media firm. Kills me to look at it.” Scott shared the message with Rupert’s son Lachlan, the CEO of the Fox Company and a Carlson ally. On that day, Dominion alleges, “Fox executives made an specific determination to push narratives to entice their viewers again.” One snippet of texts reveals Scott telling Lachlan that viewers had been “going by way of the 5 phases of grief.” Angling to impress her boss, she stated that the Arizona projection was damaging, “however we are going to spotlight our stars and plant flags letting the viewers know we hear them and respect them.”

What a curious phrase—respect. Journalists are taught that to respect the viewers means to report the reality clearly and thoroughly. However inside Fox, which is before everything a supplier of leisure, respect meant one thing else. Studying the texts and emails, I used to be reminded of one other factor the Fox & Mates producer had stated. “We had been deathly afraid” of the viewers, he admitted, “however we additionally laughed at them. We disrespected them. We weren’t training what we preached.”

That’s what Dominion is arguing within the authorized realm—that Fox’s leaders had been saying one factor privately and one other factor publicly.

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Lachlan Murdoch affirmed Scott’s plan to “respect” the viewers and stated that the community’s relationship with its viewers “wants fixed rebuilding with none missteps.” Quickly, messages had been going forwards and backwards about threats to the “model.” Correct reporting by Fox journalists, equivalent to Heinrich’s tweet, was a kind of perceived threats. Carlson texted his fellow hosts that he “went loopy on Meade over it,” which means that he had lashed out at Meade Cooper, Fox’s govt vp of prime-time programming, who reported to Scott. By the following morning, Heinrich’s tweet was gone, as Dominion’s submitting notes.

The Trump tweet Heinrich referenced included each Hannity and Dobbs by identify, so by fact-checking it, she had technically run afoul of an organization coverage in opposition to intramural warfare, I discovered by way of my reporting. “No taking pictures within the tent,” the previous Fox govt Roger Ailes used to say, though the coverage was erratically enforced. So Heinrich took down her first tweet however shortly posted a brand new one on November 13, additionally fact-checking Trump and noting a whole dearth of proof for the anti-Dominion conspiracy theories that had been airing all throughout right-wing TV.

Hannity’s election-doubting monologue, in the meantime, remained on-line. Fox’s web site payments it as “a deep dive into the voting machines at middle of controversy.” And Carlson was proper in regards to the inventory worth that November day—Fox Company dropped 2.6 p.c. Whereas the remainder of us had been worrying about how Trump’s antidemocratic conduct was going to undermine our democracy, he was frightened about his checking account.

The opposite essential metric Fox leaders had been watching, after all, was the Nielsen rankings chart. The Dominion submitting incorporates snippets of conversations from later in November that showcase Hannity’s alarm. “The community is being rejected,” he texted Carlson and Ingraham, to which Carlson responded, “I’ve heard from offended viewers each hour of the day all weekend, together with at dinner tonight.” In order that they every discovered methods to wink and nod to voting irregularities and unfair techniques—exhibiting “respect” to viewers by actively misinforming them.

In a separate thread, on November 24, one among Hannity’s producers cited minute-by-minute rankings from the prior week’s episodes and stated, “Our greatest minutes from final week had been on the voting irregularities.” The conspiracy-laden segments continued on Fox by way of December, the rankings improved, and the nation’s political divide deepened.

Not lengthy after the election and the rebel, I went again to sources at Fox to listen to in regards to the aftermath, gathering mere scraps compared to Dominion’s discovery-aided buffet. Sources instructed me that the stress from the viewers was debilitating within the postelection interval. A senior staffer at Fox railed in opposition to the community’s journalists and math wizards who had referred to as Arizona for Biden, calling them “boastful fucks” who “are rubbing it in our viewers’ faces.”

Rubbing what? “Biden. They’re rubbing Biden in our faces.”

I by no means totally understood that objection till I learn the brand new Dominion submitting. Someplace round web page 157, it clicked. Inside Fox, the prime-time stars and senior executives raged in opposition to the community’s reporters not as a result of they doubted that Biden had gained, however as a result of the reality was too disturbing to the viewers that had made them wealthy. Fox’s postelection technique, the texts and emails counsel, was to cease rubbing Biden in its viewers’ faces. However of their effort to point out their viewers “respect,” they in the end disrespected each their viewers and the American experiment they declare to guard.