I posted in the other thread this article from Slate arguing that an on-air apology wouldn’t have made a difference. They made the point that when Fox called Arizona (and therefore the election) for Biden in 2020, it didn’t make Fox viewers think “huh, I guess Biden did win.” Instead it just made them switch to more fringe sources.
Ii think that is different, you’d change channels to see if other stations agree or not. Just as I changed websites when starship exploded, to see if anyone had more information.
Any on-air apology would’ve been filled with winks and air quotes as they read it off.
I don’t think you are representative of the typical Fox News viewer.
Again, an apology would not be new info to anyone with an open mind. This info has all been out since discovery.
I think that if you got MTG or any one of the vast majority of her supporters into a quiet place, and had a conversation, you would find that they do know the difference, and might even recognize the irrationality of her tweet if given time to reflect on it. I do not believe the problem is abject stupidity, but rather that nobody stops to think because of 2 things: 1) Tribalism and 2) Twitter does not promote rational or nuanced thought.
The average supporter reading this tweet is not going to stop and think about it at all. They are going to get that little hit of dopamine from reading what feels at first glance like a pithy attack on “the enemy” and then maybe a second rush from retweeting and so being part of the war. Twitter is explicitly designed to reward this behavior, both for the poster and for the consumer.
I can’t definitively say whether MTG is actually as stupid as she is pretending to be, but as to the MAGAt base that she is appealing to, have you seen any of the on-the-street interviews with these assholes? Or the stuff they cheer and applaud at Trump rallies? There’s no “pretending” going on here; these people are dumb as rocks. They’re not trying to dupe anyone since they’re at the bottom of the food chain; they’re not disseminating disinformation for personal gain, they’re the victims of it. Why do you think these pathetic idiots spend their lives glued to Fox News, believing it to be the only “reliable” source of news?
I see it as Fox having essentially won. Sure, they’re paying out $787 million, but a good chunk of it is tax deductible.
According to a review by Lever, the company could deduct up to $213 million from their income taxes under provisions in the American tax code that allow companies to write off legal bills as “ordinary and necessary” business expenses. Since the dispute was settled between two companies, and not with the government, Fox can claim tax benefits on the payment
Add to that the fact that on-air personalities don’t have to apologize or explain to their viewers just what happened, and for all intents and purposes, they get away scot-free.
Color me disappointed.
A financial analysis that I read said that for every $500m, it would cost them about $1 of stock value. To get turned into a penny stock, they’d need to be hit with $17b of penalties.
But, to get the company to pay attention and reform probably requires less than that. If we assume that a 20% loss is sufficient for the board of directors to take notice, then they need to be hit with about $3.5b in penalties.
$787m is a reasonably good start towards that. Add in Smartmatic and Robert Schwarz’s suits and you start getting into that territory.
I’d also note that it seems fairly clear that Fox News was illegally acting as a PAC by working in coordination with the Trump campaign, to advise him on how to campaign, and working with his team to sell their message. That’s not allowed. If the Attorney General isn’t pursuing that, he’s being silly. And if no one has sent a letter in to report Fox as an illegal PAC, then CREW and them all have been derelict.
ETA: Looks like someone did: Fox Corp. and Trump campaign hit with FEC complaint
Thank you, TroutMan.
The information is out there, yes. But someone who gets their information from Fox News would have missed most of it. The purpose of the apology would be to be sure they hear it, and the wording would be more about PR, about forcing them to admit they lied and show that they’d lost to a superior opponent. They aren’t the alphas they act like, thus helping people to accept they may not be able to trust them.
Sure, the monetary damages mean Fox (and other news) is unlikely to try anything like this again. But having to admit culpability would have been a lot better. And it seems dubious that Dominion’s only choice was to take the offer or go to trial. Fox very clearly did not want to go to trial, putting them in a very weak position. It seems to me like Dominion should have been able to get Fox to do nearly anything they wanted.
So I have to conclude they didn’t think that having them repudiate their error on air was all that important.
… to Dominion.
It would have been yuge to the United States. Totally yuge. But Dominion’s owners & attorneys weren’t interested in that topic. Not their problem.
A disappointing, but hardly surprising turn for them to take. They might well have been able to “buy” a series of unequivocal full-throated public on-air and on-web apologies by settling for $500M less. But it was not in their own interests to do that.
This is one of the problems with outsourcing the promotion of virtue and punishment of vice to the civil court system. The plaintiff’s interests and society’s interests are not necessarily aligned. In fact they’re very rarely aligned.
More likely that it was an unobtainable goal. Fox can’t directly admit wrongdoing with the Smartmatic suit still pending. There’s no way a repudiation would be ever be part of the settlement.
We’ll, I’ll dispute “rarely.” The vast majority of civil cases do benefit society, at least indirectly. Safer products, more careful drivers, more careful doctors, more careful engineers and safer construction sites.
And at what time of day do you think such a revelation would be forthcoming?
Jordan Klepper to the rescue.
https://youtu.be/SamK4rhtjDQ?t=100