Fox staff having personal cell phones seized in Dominion lawsuit 'sent a chill' through the network: reporter

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06 March 2023

A shocking slate of documents has been dropping over the past weeks in Dominion Voting Systems' defamation lawsuit against Fox News.

New York Times has been covering the new details about the case, including Peter Baker's report of the revelations that inside the staff, there is a lot of "panic." Speaking to Jeremy Peters, MSNBC's Katy Tur asked about the decisions that were made after the exodus of viewers from the network as a result of the Arizona election night call.

"So, what happened in the weeks and days, correctly called Arizona for Joe Biden was a panic set in," said Peters. "And they realized that they were offending their viewers, and their journalistic obligation, to tell the truth, became secondary. 'Well, our viewers are in revolt.' The Trump campaign is harassing us, they are basically telling people to turn the channel, and that's what happened. People did turn the channel, and instead of doing its, you know, journalistically-sound duty of reporting the facts as they did initially."

"What the executives at Fox News decided is they would perpetuate rumors that were entirely false of voter fraud at the hands of Dominion machines. That's how we get to this point. That's why you have this $1.6 billion lawsuit, which is going against Fox News because Fox decided, in the interest of profits and ratings, that it would recklessly pursue these utterly fantastical and false theories about Dominion machines supposedly at the center of this non-existent plot to defraud Donald Trump of the presidency."

Tur cited the reports about panic among those working at Fox, and Peters explained that when people's cell phones and emails were sifted through, the situation became serious, whereas before it was nothing more than another headline.

"At this moment, I would say there's definitely panic, whether it's risen to the level right now of, you know, the same degree, like are we losing audience, I don't know," said Peters. "I will tell you, Katy, as you can imagine, the people who work there have been telling me that, you know, having their personal cell phones seized, their e-mails sifted through by lawyers, looking for evidence in this case that proves Dominion's point has been incredibly demoralizing."

"And like — that goes from the bottom, like the mid-level producer level all the way up to the top to Rupert Murdoch. Rupert Murdoch and his son, his chief legal officer, the chief executive of Fox, Suzanne Scott, they have all been deposed. That doesn't usually happen. It's really extraordinary. Usually, you would see companies settling the case far earlier than the point we've gotten to now. So, I just think it really sent a chill through the entire organization."

See the full discussion in the video below or at the link here.

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