It's a Dominion accusation rather than a finding of fact, but I am kind of unexpectedly shocked at the claim (which I think they must have evidence for, given the degree to which they have Fox dead to rights on other things) that Fox leaked Biden's ads (to be run on Fox) to the Trump campaign. That seems... legally problematic in a way that I thought Murdoch would have been too smart for.

(Remember when Obama wouldn't answer Fox News reporters questions and everyone in the media threw a fit for a few days?)

Would that give Biden grounds to sue?

I don't know if it would give Biden grounds to sue, but a) it's a kind of impressively through breach of standards of behavior and b) Judd Ludgum got a quote from Brendan Fischer of the investigative group Documented suggesting that it's probably legally an undeclared in-kind donation to the Trump campaign, just as the catch-and-kill payment from American Media to Karen McDougal was. (Which, in a world where the attorney general was concerned about Trump, would allow federal prosecutors to start getting people under oath.) The defense for b is that legitimate news functions aren't colorable as a campaign contribution, but handing over ad strategies to a rival political campaign ain't that.

I'm assuming there's language about confidentiality of the ads before airing in the contract between Biden's campaign and the network.

"We paid you $x.x million under the terms of this contract which you violated, so we're suing for the return of those funds. "

I would think so, but I haven't seen it discussed.

Not particularly relevant to the thread except in the use of the same metaphor, but The Case For Shunning was going around the internet yesterday on Scott Adams and others:

We could talk about how so many people who insist that "sunlight is the best disinfectant" for bigotry--by which they mean that bigotry should be allowed to expose itself, and thus be shunned by a public that won't tolerate bigotry--also seem to insist that every instance of a bigot getting publicly shunned after exposing their bigotry represents a very dangerous trend for free speech, while simultaneously never seeming to object to any of the actual attacks on freedom--of speech, of movement, of bodily autonomy--that are happening across the country. At a certain point, it seems to me that we have to conclude that what such people are actually advocating for is not to use sunlight to expose and disinfect our society of bigotry, but simply to have a society in which bigotry is free to dance in the sun.

I don't actually know if "you're not to show our ads to anyone outside the publisher, certainly not our business rivals, before they're published" is boilerplate in ad sales contracts, but it seems like the sort of thing that probably is. If I'm buying a load of display ads for McDonalds in a magazine, I think I'd be annoyed if the magazine editor showed them all to Burger King before they appeared.

I've had a look at some standard ad sales T&Cs but they're almost entirely concerned with the obligations of the buyer to the publisher, not vice versa. Nothing in there about disclosing ads in advance.

I'm using a process of pure reason because I don't know anything at all about ad sales.

Is there anything more American than "it's OK to spread falsehoods to enhance your own profits, to promote a political party that will give you tax breaks, and even to undermine the American democratic system itself, but if you cut into the business model of a CORPORATION? If you hurt their bottom line? Buddy, you've gone too far and the justice system is going to come down on you now."

There's probably a breach of contract between Fox and the Biden campaign or Democratic National Committee,, but a lawsuit is unlikely, simply because the Democratic Party needs to advertise on in every election and a Murdoch properties and a lawsuit might give them an excuse to refuse to carry ads or otherwise retallate. TV stations are required by law to accept all political ads on equal terms, but that's hard to enforce, is potentially unconstitutional, and doesn't apply to cable, streaming services or newspapers, of which the Murdochs have many.

I assume we're talking about ads that Biden or the DNC ran on Fox network channels, right? Or were they so spendthrift as to place ads on Fox News?

Maybe this ties into the broken conversation, but I'm having trouble seeing how this doesn't end in us learning that the Framers or the Founders or whichever 18th century coterie of early US politicians is most convenient were supporters of Fox's tactics, indeed that lying to your audience is a fundamental feature of free expression that all democracies must support, and that Dominion software ran on Hunter Biden's laptop in Kiev.

11 and 14 are both right. When the founding fathers wrote the Bible, they had Fox News in mind.

For my own amusement, I collected from the Dominion filings the Fox folks' remarks on trust and credibility. Everyone in the organization understood, without a hint of irony, that Fox's credibility is rooted in its willingness to lie.

Regarding the correct call of Arizona for Biden, here's Tucker and the rest:

Carlson also texted his producer: Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we've lost with our audience? We're playing with fire, for real an alternative like newsmax could be devastating to us.

---------------------------------------------
Suzanne Scott, the chief executive of Fox News Media, and Lachlan Murdoch exchanged texts about the plan going forward:

Scott: Viewers going through the 5 stages of grief. It's a question of trust the AZ [call]was damaging but we will highlight our stars and plant flags letting the viewers know we hear them and respect them. Scott separately noted, The audience feels like we crapped on [them] and we have damaged their trust and belief in We can fix this but we cannot smirk at our viewers any longer.

--------------------------------------------

Carlson wrote his producer Alex Pfeiffer on November 5: We worked really hard to build what we have. Those fuckers are destroying our credibility. It enrages me."

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Scott discussed with Rupert the importance of keep[ing] the audience who loves and trusts we need to make sure they know we aren't abandoning them and still champions for them. Rupert responded : Thanks. All very true. Lots of sane Fox viewers still believe in Trump.

Raj Shah is a Fox senior VP:

On November 11, Shah shared YouGov data showing "more clear declines in favorability, especially with primetime viewers" with Irena Briganti, following up later that day to tell her that "on our current course if not already then by the weekend, opinions of Fox from our core viewers will be underwater." He told Briganti, shared my thoughts with Lachlan and Viet,that bold, clear and decisive action is needed for us to begin to regain the trust that we're losing with our core audience.

I mean, using control of media outlets to push your own political viewpoint without caring overly much about accuracy was very much a part of 18th-century political practice. Hamilton founded the New York Post!

At least he had the decency to go to New Jersey and get shot after that.

Does anyone, anywhere think Fox's credibility is damaged by the Dominion revelations? Everyone understands the deal that Fox News has with its viewers.

It's nearly time for Biden to do what Obama did (see 1.2) and see how the journalistic community reacts this time.

Bleach is better.

And you can't drink sunshine.

Hate to say it, but I agree that this likely won't matter. Most superficially, the timing of the senior official fake news based on what? secret intercepts of Chinese communication or something, not on data, leading to lab-leak conspiracy headlines means nobody but lefties will hear about this at all. More fundamentally, part of the flood the zone with shit strategy which has worked is to claim that everyone publishing is now also as corrupt as Murdoch and always has been.

The snippets in 16 about the past are alarm at viewers tuning out because of "bad news". To the extent that this news about Murdoch or the stars surfaces, that will be the reponse again. Maybe that will lead to right wing disengagement, opening the door to tactical wins, but that's a feeble and unstable path forward.

Maybe pushing the fraud angle would work, demonstrable personal dishonesty seems to resonate.

22: The Dominion revelations enhance Fox's credibility. A lot of viewers looked at Fox's coverage, starting with the accurate call of Arizona for Biden, and assumed the network was unduly influenced by the truth. Dominion has pulled back the curtain and shown that Fox is much more trustworthy than some people thought.

And literally everybody understands this in their bones. As best as I can reckon, nobody anywhere -- pro-Trump or con, Fox viewer or not -- is saying that this incident has damaged Fox's credibility. Plenty of what Murdoch calls "sane Fox viewers" are going to be quite aware of the Dominion suit, and are going to take heart that Fox is still on their side.

Nonetheless, I'm still really happy about the Dominion suit because I believe it's going to hit Murdoch hard in the wallet. And it opens the door for others to fuck with him and his network. (Maybe even Biden!)

I just can't believe Shaun Hannity was lying to us. He seemed like such a nice young man.

24: Shaun is a perfectly nice young man, and he doesn't appreciate being confused with the homophonic Sean.

Sorry, I guess I know too many Shauns

"Shawn Hannity" is probably a woman.

Its not a bad drag name.

"Shawn Bean" could go on stage and get stabbed much earlier in the performance than you were expecting.

And if you do it in thirteen days, the audience may even cry out, "Seize her!"

There's a vanishingly small audience for whom this kind of thing could make some kind of difference -- imagine some bit of self-respect emerging in this crowd: https://presswatchers.org/2023/03/the-washington-post-opinion-section-is-a-sad-toxic-wasteland/ -- there's zero reason for hope just right now, but one can imagine the faint possibility of some evolution.

(Read the link, people!)

My arrangement with them is that I pretend it doesn't exist.

Them = The Washington Post, It = Their editorial page. It is indeed awful.

31: Froomkin is always very good. I don't read him enough. In this case, I think the really novel insight isn't how-and-why the WaPo opeds suck so much. It's why nobody cares.

Beyond Sargent, I don't read any of the Post people, but at the NYT, Douthat has a very weird mind that I admit to find interesting occasionally, and Bretbug is at least a smart guy who lies cleverly. The Post people are pretty much all dopes.