Fox News employees privately admit their content has made the country 'a worse place'

Private communications between rank-and-file employees at Fox News show that the conservative news network has a significant image problem — even among its own workforce.

In a series of posts to his X account on Tuesday, Guardian media reporter Jeremy Barr pointed out revealing details of Fox News' employees' emails that were recently made public as part of voting machine company Smartmatic's lawsuit against the company. Smartmatic's lawyers maintained that Fox employees demanded assurances from hosts and producers that they would "only tell viewers the truth ... rather than spin or reckless conjecture that causes harm to real people."

"The content we produce has made the world, and especially our country, a worse place," one employee said, according to Barr, who said the responses appear to come from a 2020 company survey.

Barr also discovered new messages from Fox executives warning that President Donald Trump would hold a grudge against the network for calling the 2020 election for then-President-elect Joe Biden. Lachlan Murdoch — who is the chairman of News Corp and son of Fox founder Rupert Murdoch — texted days after the election: "Problem is Trump is going to blame everyone for not winning, especially Fox." In another document, former Fox News managing editor Bill Sammon said in a sworn deposition that he felt he was fired for calling Arizona for Biden before any of the network's main competitors (Biden won Arizona by roughly 11,000 votes).

The documents also confirmed prior reporting that former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro's November 7, 2020 episode was cancelled over fears that she would repeat debunked claims about supposed election fraud. Earlier this year, internal emails showed former Fox News executive David Clark said Pirro was a "reckless maniac" who was "nuts." Pirro later left the network after Trump nominated her to be U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.

Smartmatic is suing Fox News for $2.7 billion, claiming its hosts made false and defamatory claims about its products alleging that its machines were designed to give Biden an edge. Smartmatic is also suing MyPillow CEO and far-right conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell for his claims about the 2020 election.

The voting machine company's litigation against Fox is still ongoing, and no trial date has yet been set. Fox settled a separate lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems in 2023 for $787 million.