On MSNBC, Angelo Carusone explains how the Dominion filings show a keyhole view of what Fox is like on the inside
Published
Citation
From the February 19, 2023, edition of MSNBC's Yasmin Vossoughian Reports
YASMIN VOSSOUGHIAN (MSNBC HOST): Joining me now to discuss, Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters. I'm going to bet you are not necessarily surprised. I can not tell you how many folks have asked me, as if I know, how many whether or not some of the host on Fox News actually believe what they are putting out there. Now we know the answer from these text messages that they don't. Were you surprised at all from these revelations?
ANGELO CARUSONE (PRESIDENT OF MEDIA MATTERS): No. I mean wasn't. The one thing that was surprised about was that they wrote so much of it down. If you are going to engage in several months of deception, hundreds of news segments where you are basically manufacturing conspiracy theories, smearing companies, despite the fact that the company is telling you these things are not true and then they sue you, and you are going to continue to do it, that maybe you wouldn't write it down. And I think my big takeaway was that it is such a part of their culture that it's a reflex. There was some casualness to it. It wasn't even weird for them to be talking like this amongst each other. I mean there is a moment where Rupert Murdoch tells the president of Fox News to start to help out in Georgia to make sure that Republicans win because that is their last stand. There is no engagement like, hey, that's an unusual thing for me to tell me that we should be working to elect Republicans all of a sudden. It seemed like we got sort of a keyhole view of what Fox News is like on the inside and it's basically everything that we all kind of thought.
YASMIN VOSSOUGHIAN Here's what Fox News is saying. We put up some of their statement from Kelly O'Donnell's piece. They also say that they stand by their 2020 election coverage and that its broadcasts are protected by the first amendment. What do you make of that, Angelo?
ANGELO CARUSONE: I find this to be a very interesting argument for a few reasons. Number one, sure, they are protected by the first amendment. But we all know that defamation is not protected right. That's not protected. That's why there are standards. In this case, it is a very, very, very high threshold to engage in defamation especially against a company. But it can be achieved. That is the nature of this. The second thing I find somewhat surprising is that, while all of this is going on and the Murdoch's defense is free speech, they are simultaneously suing one of the few independent news outlets in Australia for writing one article about January 6th that says that the Murdochs were irresponsible in their news coverage leading up to the insurrection. And that they had a hand in it because they allowed these lies to perpetuate. They are trying to shut down an independent news outlet in Australia for writing an article that literally just connects the dots. And yet at the same time, their defense is going to be free speech. I don't think it's not only legally sound, it's a pretty weak defense when you think about it. But it also is stunningly hypocritical given the litigation that Lachlan Murdoch himself initiated in Australia.