Now that there is a preponderance of evidence that Fox News deliberately lied to their audience in order to stop the hemorrhaging of viewers—who didn’t want to hear the unbearable news that their favorite Orange Turd had lost the election—there’s a lot of talk going around about the infamous cable network going bankrupt from this Dominion lawsuit and a similar one by Smartmatic alleging defamation with intent. The former is looking for $1.6b in damages but with a punitive award the sky’s the limit.
“This will finally break Fox.”
“They’re gonna go bankrupt.”
“Fox News will disappear.”
Nope. I don’t think so.
To be completely honest I’m basing this on my ever growing cynicism. I mean, if you’ve lived in this country, or have been observing it closely, you know that in the last few years, in particular, the lack of accountability is breathtaking, even by Third World standards. I mean, if any of us had committed a mere fraction of the crimes #TRE45ON is guilty of, we’d be wearing orange jumpsuits at Guantanamo already. And yet…
Meanwhile, there are traitors to this country who supported the January 6 insurrection currently seated in the halls of Congress, and on investigative committees, who should be, as they say in mob parlance, “guests of the government”—behind bars not grandstanding on TV.
Alas…
Yes, I believe Fox will lose the Dominion defamation case and pay $2 billion or $3 billion or whatever the amount ends up being—the company coffers are deep and Rupert Murdoch is worth tens of billions if I’m not mistaken, so that’s covered—but the Fox audience isn’t going anywhere and those who think that advertisers are going to leave the network on principle because they lied to the audience, are delusional. Advertisers aren’t going to walk away because the eyeballs are going to be there: as long as they keep bashing Dems, PoC, LGBTQ folks and celebrate the likes of Putin and Ordan, the Fox faithful will tune in. They won’t care that they were lied to about the 2020 election or Dominion, etc. or even care about the contempt that Fucker Klansman has for them and their Mango Mussolini. As long as they’re being fed red poisonous meat every day they won’t care and tune in as usual.
Don’t get me wrong: Fox •should• be destroyed and not a moment too soon. But I think people are making a much bigger deal about this than it actually is in terms of consequences for Fox. The greater consequence, in my humble estimation, is that a hugely popular, well-established TV network blatantly lied for ratings while showing a huge disregard for what the propagation of those lies would mean in terms of further polarizing a deeply divided nation, but isn’t losing their license and being shut down.
