Here’s how we can stop Fox News from peddling more lies on air
The FCC's powers must be expanded
The evidence revealed in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News makes it clear that Fox executives and hosts knew the claims they were broadcasting about the 2020 election being filled with fraud were a lie. Want to make sure this does not happen again? Simple, Congress needs to expand the powers of the Federal Communications Commission so that the agency can sanction cable news outlets for intentionally peddling lies on air the exact same way they can currently sanction network news outlets for doing the same.
What Fox News did was dangerous for our democracy. As the media watchdog organization Media Matters documented: “In the two-week period after Fox News declared Joe Biden the president-elect, the network questioned the results of the election or pushed conspiracy theories about it almost 800 times, including by using Dominion as a scapegoat.”
For example, the emails and texts produced in the lawsuit prove that Fox’s hosts and executives knew the claims being peddled by Donald Trump’s lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell weren’t true — with some employees privately described them as “ludicrous” and “mind blowingly nuts.” But Fox kept airing those lies.
Add to that, when Fox News journalists (and there are a few) did fact check Trump and his ally’s election lies they, were pressured by Fox executives to stop. One example came after White House correspondent Kristen Fisher fact-checked Giuliani and Powell’s press conference. She then received a call from her boss, Bryan Boughton where he “emphasized that higher-ups at Fox News were also unhappy with it,” and said that Fisher “needed to do a better job of…—this is a quote—‘respecting our audience.’”
Why did Fox News do this? To make their viewers happy who wanted to hear that their beloved Donald Trump had actually won the 2020 election—even if it meant broadcasting lies.
Put more simply, Fox News intentionally lied to viewers about the 2020 election results—thus destabilizing our democracy and helping radicalize people who went on to attack our capitol on Jan 6—all for the sake of making more money. And apparently the Fox News’ lying to their audience business is booming given their annual revenue increased in 2021 to nearly $13 billion in revenue and climbed again in 2022 to nearly $14 billion. That means since Fox News KNOWINGLY and INTENTIONALLY lied to the public about the 2020 election, they have raked in nearly $30 billion dollars in revenue.
And worse, Fox News could knowingly lie like that every single day going forward because there is currently no federal agency empowered to punish a news outlet for such misconduct.
That is why the most effective way to ensure Fox News does not repeat this is by Congress—and it would take an act of Congress—expanding the powers of the FCC. Currently, the FCC does have the power to sanction network news outlets—CBS, NBC, etc.—if they engage in “news distortion.” As the agency website explains, “The Commission has a policy against "news distortion," which dates back more than 50 years to the era when broadcast stations were the only form of electronic news.” However, they continue, “the FCC has no power to enforce it against cable news networks.”
But the days of network news being the primary source of news are long gone. And the FCC’s powers must be expanded to reflect this reality. That is why the FCC must be empowered to regulate cable news outlets the exact same way they are able to police network news outlets when it comes to “news distortion.”
Just so it’s clear, proving news distortion is a high bar—which it should be to ensure we have a free press. “Broadcasters are subject to sanction only if they can be proven to have deliberately distorted a factual news report,” the FCC explains. The FCC website continues on to note, “Errors stemming from mistakes are not actionable, nor are expressions of opinion.”
The key is the FCC will ONLY sanction a network if it can be shown they “deliberately distorted” a news story. As the FCC website notes: “Accordingly, the FCC will investigate a claim only if it first receives evidence…that makes a "substantial showing" that a broadcast news report was deliberately intended to mislead viewers or listeners.” They add, “Examples of such evidence include written or oral instructions from station management, outtakes, or evidence of bribery.” Given this high bar, the last time the FCC found a network news outlet violated this policy was in 1999.
However, we have that very evidence here with Fox News. The emails, texts, etc. prove that Fox News executives and even some hosts “deliberately distorted” reporting of the 2020 election because they feared viewers would turn off their channel and switch over to Newsmax or other right-wing outlets.
To be clear, I am in no way advocating that the FCC’s powers should be expanded to prevent opinions airing on Fox News or any cable news outlet that I disagree with. In fact, I will 100% defend those opinions because a free press and robust discussions are vital to a functioning democratic Republic.
But what Fox News did—as the evidence supports—is intentionally LIE to the American people. If a network news outlet did this, they would be sanctioned by the FCC from fines to even threats of broadcast license suspensions. But with the cable news, while there are no broadcast licenses, the threat of massive fines should be used to ensure cable news outlets engage in the same robust fact checking that network news outlets do. (And many already do that.)
What I’m advocating would apply of course to all cable news outlets. Meaning that if it can be shown that CNN or MSNBC did exactly what Fox News did here, they, too, should suffer sanctions.
Our criminal justice system is predicated upon the idea of punishment and deterrence. The state punishes criminals to deter them and others from engaging in the exact same conduct in the future. What we have now with Fox News--and all cable news outlets--is abject lawlessness where they can knowingly lie about news stories for profit. That has to change. Congress should expand the FCC’s mandate so that the agency can sanction cable news outlets just as they are currently empowered to punish network news outlets for “deliberately” lying on air.
The American public deserves the truth—not lies peddled to increase the profits of a cable news outlet.