OPINION
There always comes that moment in a person’s life when they discover there’s no such thing as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny is made up, there’s no such thing as a witch on Halloween, and there sure as hell isn’t a pony under the tree on Christmas morning.
Now it’s happening at Fox News. Now their big stars are being outed in a lawsuit filed by local election voting firm Dominion. At Fox News, hosts regularly featured election deniers in the weeks after Trump’s 2020 election defeat. And now under oath, the likes of a Sean Hannity said he never believed election lies despite pushing them on his show.
Fox viewers questioned the election because of what they saw on the network. Fox allowed election falsehoods on its air for what reasons? Did they fear their viewers like we at the Chronicle fear you readers? Fox denies any wrongdoing and accuses Dominion of cherry-picking quotes. Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch suggested firing the Fox News Washington Bureau chief shortly after the network projected Joe Biden the winner in Arizona, which caught everybody off guard. It’s almost some bizarre version of the French Revolution, where Robespierre, read here Rupert Murdoch, fears the mob. And so, what did they do? They lied.
I suffered two and half years of election deniers watching people now facing felony charges. Watching Jenna Ellis, after accepting a censure going outside the courtroom like a little kid in kindergarten sticking her tongue out and going, ‘Nanner nanner,’ I really didn’t mean it.”
The records we were able to read in the Fox defamation case show management put pressure on reporters. Tucker Carlson in an email, claims he hated Donald Trump; and now manufactures a total Riefenstahl version of the calm, minute and a half in the putsch, that took place on January 6th.
Now comes Smartmatic’s defamation suit filed in February of 2021, and Fox viewers were told and fake talk radio said Smartmatic was a Venezuelan company under the control of dead dictators and its election technology was used in six battle ground states. In fact, none of that was true. The only place Smartmatic was used was in LA county.
Sending votes to foreign countries for tabulation, the Supreme Court in New York said Fox News turned a blind eye to a litany of outrageous claims about plaintiffs unprecedented in the history of American elections so inherently problematic that it is a reckless disregard for the truth.
Now watch. Who will be next? The answer is fake talk radio is next. All the best to Dave Williams. The crown price of what’s left of the Republican Party in Colorado. Good luck, Dave. You’re going to need it.
— Peter Boyles