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   From: nowomr@protonmail.com   
      
   Fox Stars Privately Expressed Disbelief About Election Fraud Claims.   
   ‘Crazy Stuff.’   
      
   The comments, by Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and others, were released as   
   part of a defamation suit against Fox News by Dominion Voter Systems.   
      
      
   Tucker Carlson is leaving Fox News. Follow our live news updates here.   
      
   Newly disclosed messages and testimony from some of the biggest stars and   
   most senior executives at Fox News revealed that they privately expressed   
   disbelief about President Donald J. Trump’s false claims that the 2020   
   election was stolen from him, even though the network continued to promote   
   many of those lies on the air.   
      
   The hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, as well as   
   others at the company, repeatedly insulted and mocked Trump advisers,   
   including Sidney Powell and Rudolph W. Giuliani, in text messages with   
   each other in the weeks after the election, according to a legal filing on   
   Thursday by Dominion Voting Systems. Dominion is suing Fox for defamation   
   in a case that poses considerable financial and reputational risk for the   
   country’s most-watched cable news network.   
      
   “Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane,” Mr.   
   Carlson wrote to Ms. Ingraham on Nov. 18, 2020.   
      
   Ms. Ingraham responded: “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with   
   her. Ditto with Rudy.”   
      
   Mr. Carlson continued, “Our viewers are good people and they believe it,”   
      
   The messages also show that such doubts extended to the highest levels of   
   the Fox Corporation, with Rupert Murdoch, its chairman, calling Mr.   
   Trump’s voter fraud claims “really crazy stuff.”   
      
   On one occasion, as Mr. Murdoch watched Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell on   
   television, he told Suzanne Scott, chief executive of Fox News Media,   
   “Terrible stuff damaging everybody, I fear.”   
      
   Dominion’s brief depicts Ms. Scott, whom colleagues have described as   
   sharply attuned to the sensibilities of the Fox audience, as being well   
   aware that Mr. Trump’s claims were baseless. And when another Murdoch-   
   owned property, The New York Post, published an editorial urging Mr. Trump   
   to stop complaining that he had been cheated, Ms. Scott distributed it   
   widely among her staff. Mr. Murdoch then thanked her for doing so, the   
   brief says.   
   Image   
   Suzanne Scott holds a microphone and wearing a blue jacket with the Fox   
   News logo embroidered on the front.   
   Suzanne Scott, chief executive of Fox News Media, in December   
   2021.Credit...Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images   
   Suzanne Scott holds a microphone and wearing a blue jacket with the Fox   
   News logo embroidered on the front.   
      
   The filing, in state court in Delaware, contains the most vivid and   
   detailed picture yet of what went on behind the scenes at Fox News and its   
   corporate parent in the days and weeks after the 2020 election, when the   
   conservative cable network’s coverage took an abrupt turn.   
      
      
   Fox News stunned the Trump campaign on election night by becoming the   
   first news outlet to declare Joseph R. Biden Jr. the winner of Arizona —   
   effectively projecting that he would become the next president. Then, as   
   Fox’s ratings fell sharply after the election and the president refused to   
   concede, many of the network’s most popular hosts and shows began   
   promoting outlandish claims of a far-reaching voter fraud conspiracy   
   involving Dominion machines to deny Mr. Trump a second term.   
   Inside the Media Industry   
      
       ESPN: The sports network has been Disney’s financial engine for nearly   
   30 years. But with profits down and dwindling opportunities for growth, it   
   seems that those days are over.   
       The Washington Post: Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder who purchased the   
   newspaper for $250 million in 2013, has taken a more active role in The   
   Post’s operations this year.   
       BBC: A crisis at the British broadcaster over the conduct of a male   
   staff member deepened as a second person came forward with claims that the   
   man had sent abusive messages to the person. The male staff member was   
   later identified as Huw Edwards, a prominent BBC figure.   
      
   What was disclosed on Thursday was not the full glimpse of Dominion’s case   
   against Fox. The 192-page filing had multiple redactions that contain more   
   revelations about deliberations inside the network. Fox has sought to keep   
   much of the evidence against it under seal. The New York Times is   
   challenging the legality of those redactions in court.   
      
   In its defense, which was also filed with the court on Thursday, Fox   
   argued that by covering Mr. Trump’s fraud claims, the network was doing   
   what any media organization would: reporting and commenting on a matter of   
   undeniable newsworthiness. And it noted that many of its programs did not   
   endorse the claim that the election was stolen.   
      
   “In its coverage, Fox News fulfilled its commitment to inform fully and   
   comment fairly,” its brief said. “Some hosts viewed the president’s claims   
   skeptically; others viewed them hopefully; all recognized them as   
   profoundly newsworthy.”   
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   The law shields journalists from liability if they report on false   
   statements, but not if they promote them.   
   Image   
   Photos of Fox hosts displayed on the front of a building as yellow   
   taxicabs pass on the street.   
   After Fox’s ratings fell sharply after the election, many of its hosts and   
   shows began promoting claims of a voter-fraud conspiracy involving   
   Dominion machines.Credit...Drew Angerer/Getty Images   
   Photos of Fox hosts displayed on the front of a building as yellow   
   taxicabs pass on the street.   
      
   Dominion said in its filing that not a single Fox witness had testified   
   that he or she believed any of the allegations about Dominion.   
      
   In a statement on Thursday, a Fox spokeswoman said, “Dominion has   
   mischaracterized the record, cherry-picked quotes stripped of key context   
   and spilled considerable ink on facts that are irrelevant under black-   
   letter principles of defamation law.”   
      
   The brief shows that Fox News stars and executives were afraid of losing   
   their audience, which started to defect to the conservative cable news   
   alternatives Newsmax and OAN after Fox News called Arizona for Mr. Biden.   
   And they seemed concerned with the impact that would have on the network’s   
   profitability.   
      
   On Nov. 12, in a text chain with Ms. Ingraham and Mr. Hannity, Mr. Carlson   
   pointed to a tweet in which a Fox reporter, Jacqui Heinrich, fact-checked   
   a tweet from Mr. Trump referring to Fox broadcasts and said there was no   
   evidence of voter fraud from Dominion.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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