Eventually, justice does come

Rupert Murdoch and his locus of evil in the world are in a bit of a pickle.

Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the conservative media empire that owns Fox News, acknowledged in a deposition that several hosts for his networks promoted the false narrative that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald J. Trump, and that he could have stopped them but didn’t, court documents released on Monday showed.

“They endorsed,” Mr. Murdoch said under oath in response to direct questions about the Fox hosts Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo, according to a legal filing by Dominion Voting Systems. “I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it in hindsight,” he added, while also disclosing that he was always dubious of Mr. Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

Asked whether he doubted Mr. Trump, Mr. Murdoch responded: “Yes. I mean, we thought everything was on the up-and-up.” At the same time, he rejected the accusation that Fox News as a whole had endorsed the stolen election narrative. “Not Fox,” he said. “No. Not Fox.”

Now, old Palpatine can try to spin this any way he wants, but this admission that his hosts were parroting the Big Lie is not going to help him in the case brought by Dominion, from which this deposition has been released in a court filing by the voting system manufacturer.

Fox News likes to consider itself to be one of the big boys. It gets star billing at White House press conferences. It's useless White House correspondent, Peter Doocy, gets to travel with President Joe Biden to Ukraine. The other great and good of the media world rushed to defend it when former president Barack Obama was thinking of knocking the right wing network down a peg. But this, really, is what it's all about:

The new documents and a similar batch released this month provide a dramatic account from inside the network, depicting a frantic scramble as Fox tried to woo back its large conservative audience after ratings collapsed in the wake of Mr. Trump’s loss. Fox had been the first network to call Arizona for Joseph R. Biden on election night — essentially declaring him the next president. When Mr. Trump refused to concede and started attacking Fox as disloyal and dishonest, viewers began to change the channel.

Fox's audience was migrating to more hardcore outlets like One America News Network, Newsmax, and others you can find only on YouTube. It had been branded as disloyal to MAGA when it called Arizona for Pres. Biden. It would do anything to hold onto that audience. And what it did was to parrot Trump's Big Lie about the election having been stolen with the help of Dominion.

The First Amendment reigns supreme in the United States, and there's a very high bar to clear to prove defamation. The fact that Murdoch knew that the feces his nighttime hosts were spewing about election fraud was, well, feces, will go a long way to hurdle over that bar. 

Murdoch was in a no-win position. If he lied, he'd be liable not only to a civil judgment, but be subjected to perjury. Rupert isn't going to jail for anyone. So, he told the truth, and hoped that the Constitution would protect his baby. But the Constitution doesn't protect libel and defamation, and in his deposition Murdoch basically proved Dominion's case. 

Now, News Corp, the parent of Fox News and Murdoch's other "news" properties, is a huge company. But Fox News is the jewel in the crown. There is now a non-zero chance that Dominion's lawsuit will have the effect of bankrupting Fox News. But not only that: it will have the effect of destroying any waning credibility the network ever had. Sure, hosts on MSNBC regularly tear into Fox. But that's nothing compared to having a court declare a news organization responsible for spreading lies. Those great and good in the media complex who went to bat for Fox News out of a sense of solidarity will have to explain why they did so. Cable and satellite providers will find it easier to tell Rupert that bundling Fox News in with his entertainment and sport properties will no longer be possible, meaning that Murdoch will be forced to decouple Fox News from his other ventures if he wants them to be carried. Without the payouts from cable and satellite carriers, Fox News is dead, as advertisers have largely shunned it over the past few years due to consumer pressure. Roger Ailes' bastard creation may finally die. And Murdoch's malign influence on American politics will be slashed. 

I don't want to get ahead of myself. The trial isn't until April. But if this is any indication, Fox News is not in a good position. All of the nighttime hosts knew they were parroting falsehoods, but did so anyway to preserve market share. If Dominion wins this case, it can then go after the likes of Sean Hannity for individual damages. And Dominion seems in no mood to play.

Settle in, kids. This is going to get better.