Port: Fox News sells lies, yes, but the real problem is the people who want them
MINOT, N.D. — Fox News lies to its viewers.
We know this unequivocally, thanks to evidence gathered in the lawsuit against Fox News by Dominion, a voting machine company included in many of the 2020 election conspiracy theories Fox News hosts and their guests promoted.
“Shame on Fox News” is the most typical response to this revelation, and, well, yes. Shame on Fox News. But the egregious, amoral cupidity from the Fox crowd isn’t the biggest concern.
Fox, after all, was just responding to market forces. When Fox journalists correctly projected that disgraced former President Donald Trump wouldn’t win Arizona, the reaction internally among Fox stars and executives wasn’t that they’d done a good job but that the reported truth would drive viewers unhappy with that truth to other right-wing media outlets .
“It’s measurably hurting the company,” prime time host Tucker Carlson wrote in a text message in which he called for a Fox reporter, who was accurately debunking election conspiracy theories about Dominion, to be fired. “The stock price is down.”
