{"id":10816,"date":"2023-05-30T11:46:14","date_gmt":"2023-05-30T11:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=10816"},"modified":"2023-05-30T11:46:14","modified_gmt":"2023-05-30T11:46:14","slug":"fox-news-won-dominion-won-the-rest-of-us-lost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=10816","title":{"rendered":"Fox News won. Dominion won. The rest of us lost."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“The embarrassment angle is the easiest to dismiss: Remember all those headlines<\/a>, generated by damning admissions and documents from the likes of Tucker Carlson<\/a> and Rupert Murdoch, that showed how Fox\u2019s on-air talent and their managers knew they were peddling untruths to their audience about the supposed 2020 election fraud<\/a>? You probably read those because you consume Actual News. (And, let\u2019s be clear: If you\u2019d thought about this at all, you weren\u2019t surprised to see the deep cynicism that powers Fox spelled out in writing.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But on Fox, the lawsuit was barely covered at all, and Fox\u2019s media correspondent even said he was prevented from reporting on it<\/a>. That\u2019s not surprising, given the channel\u2019s consistent commitment to presenting alternative facts<\/a>, a practice which long predated the Trump era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may recall that in an effort to stave off lawsuits like the one Dominion filed, Fox grudgingly offered some non-apology clarifications<\/a> in late 2020, then went right back to making things up. A few months later, they were providing cover for the January 6 rioters.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Yes, the $787.5 million settlement is much less than the $1.6 billion the company initially asked for in damages. But it is a giant windfall<\/a> for the small company and its private equity owners. It would be crazy not to take a deal like that, and let media critics worry about what happens to Fox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yes, $787.5 million is a lot of money, even for a big company like Fox: It represents about 20 percent of Fox\u2019s $4 billion in cash, which means it could impact Fox\u2019s ability to buy things or pay out dividends to its shareholders. On the other hand, Fox posted profits of $321 million in the last three months of 2022, which means it can build back up its cash pile pretty quickly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That seems to be Wall Street\u2019s take: 21st Century Fox stock opened down a few points the day after the settlement was announced, but as of this writing it has almost completely rebounded; the company remains worth about $17.5 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words: Even after Fox agreed to pay nearly $788 million in a settlement (on top of the legal fees it has already spent), investors have decided the payout will have no impact on Fox\u2019s operations.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The most plausible threat to Fox News is the same threat facing every TV network in 2023: that its viewership erodes as TV viewers migrate to the internet. But Fox\u2019s viewers, like other cable TV news operations<\/a>, skew old, and that means they\u2019re the ones least likely to give up their cable boxes. They\u2019re also incredibly loyal, which is why Fox can charge cable TV operators \u2014 who pass the fees on to you, if you\u2019re paying for cable TV \u2014 more money than anyone else in TV<\/a>, with the exception of sports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So until that audience, along with the revenue and clout it generates for its owner, dwindles, don\u2019t expect Fox to budge at all.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/technology\/2023\/4\/19\/23689909\/fox-news-dominion-lawsuit-settlement-peter-kafka-media-column<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The embarrassment angle is the easiest to dismiss: Remember all those headlines, generated by damning admissions and documents from the likes of Tucker Carlson and Rupert Murdoch, that showed how Fox\u2019s on-air talent and their managers knew they were peddling untruths to their audience about the supposed 2020 election fraud? You probably read those because you consume Actual News. (And, let\u2019s be clear: If you\u2019d thought about this at all, you weren\u2019t surprised to see the deep cynicism that powers Fox spelled out in writing.)
\nBut on Fox, the lawsuit was barely covered at all, and Fox\u2019s media correspondent even said he was prevented from reporting on it. That\u2019s not surprising, given the channel\u2019s consistent commitment to presenting alternative facts, a practice which long predated the Trump era.<\/p>\n

You may recall that in an effort to stave off lawsuits like the one Dominion filed, Fox grudgingly offered some non-apology clarifications in late 2020, then went right back to making things up. A few months later, they were providing cover for the January 6 rioters.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Yes, the $787.5 million settlement is much less than the $1.6 billion the company initially asked for in damages. But it is a giant windfall for the small company and its private equity owners. It would be crazy not to take a deal like that, and let media critics worry about what happens to Fox.<\/p>\n

And yes, $787.5 million is a lot of money, even for a big company like Fox: It represents about 20 percent of Fox\u2019s $4 billion in cash, which means it could impact Fox\u2019s ability to buy things or pay out dividends to its shareholders. On the other hand, Fox posted profits of $321 million in the last three months of 2022, which means it can build back up its cash pile pretty quickly. <\/p>\n

That seems to be Wall Street\u2019s take: 21st Century Fox stock opened down a few points the day after the settlement was announced, but as of this writing it has almost completely rebounded; the company remains worth about $17.5 billion.<\/p>\n

In other words: Even after Fox agreed to pay nearly $788 million in a settlement (on top of the legal fees it has already spent), investors have decided the payout will have no impact on Fox\u2019s operations.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“The most plausible threat to Fox News is the same threat facing every TV network in 2023: that its viewership erodes as TV viewers migrate to the internet. But Fox\u2019s viewers, like other cable TV news operations, skew old, and that means they\u2019re the ones least likely to give up their cable boxes. They\u2019re also incredibly loyal, which is why Fox can charge cable TV operators \u2014 who pass the fees on to you, if you\u2019re paying for cable TV \u2014 more money than anyone else in TV, with the exception of sports.<\/p>\n

So until that audience, along with the revenue and clout it generates for its owner, dwindles, don\u2019t expect Fox to budge at all.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[372,198,322,1619,171,132,323,714,479],"class_list":["post-10816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-election","tag-elections","tag-fox-news","tag-lawsuit","tag-lie","tag-lies","tag-misleading","tag-voter-fraud","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10816"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10817,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10816\/revisions\/10817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}