'Rife with conspiracies and BS': Court docs reveal Fox News turmoil over 2020 election coverage

29 March 2023

The latest developments in Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News unfolded in a New York City courtroom on Wednesday. Media Matters for America senior fellow Matthew Gertz obtained copies of slides containing previously unseen conversations between Fox employees about the network's hosts, who despite management's misgivings were permitted to peddle former President Donald Trump's bogus allegations about the 2020 election.

Gertz live-tweeted the drama.

For example, Fox Chief Executive Officer Suzanne Scott reportedly wrote in an email to anchor Eric Shawn in December 2020 that "this has to stop now... this is bad business... the audience is furious and we are just feeding them material." Scott also stated that November that "I can't keep defending these reporters who don't understand our viewers and how to handle stories... We lost 25k subs from FOX NATION."

One personality, "Judge" Jeanine Pirro, was railed against by production staff in November 2020 over her militant defense of Trump's baseless claims that the contest was "rigged and stolen" by President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.

Pirro's scheduled monologue was "rife w conspiracy theories and bs and is yet another example why this woman should never be on live television," her executive producer complained to Fox's top brass.

Gertz noted that "Fox subsequently promoted Pirro, making her a co-host of the LIVE panel show The Five."

He added that according to Dominion's legal filings, David Clark, Fox's senior vice president of Weekend News, "did not believe Jeanine Pirro was actually a 'credible source of news,' even as he understood that 'viewers rely on' Pirro 'to be a credible source.'"

Gertz's thread is available at this link.

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