I erred in this blog a month ago.
I had said readers should not be quick to hope Fox loses its lawsuit.
It can be financially dangerous for a publication to write something critical of others, including public figures. I was thinking like a publisher, not like a citizen, when I wrote on March 8 of this year:
The freedom to present a variety of ideas is a good thing for democracy. Readers ought not to be quick to hope Fox loses this. The next case may be the New York Times or the comment section of this blog.
That was wrong.
What was on my mind at the time was the vulnerability of people who write words that make powerful people unhappy. I have written about the poorly-run and self-destructive campaign for State Senate by the Medford mayor. He didn't like it. I have written about the campaign money that pours through the local Chamber of Commerce. They didn't like that. I published the obscene text messages of a local judge as she worked to undermine a colleague on the bench. She and her friends didn't like that.
I had written critically about the dishonest and abusive subscription policy of the Medford Mail Tribune, the century-old local newspaper. I published photographs of the wildly disparate billings they sent unknowing and trusting subscribers. My reports were unwelcome. The then-editor, Cathy Noah, threatened that they would be turning this over to their attorneys. The Mail Tribune publisher, Steven Saslow, had a well-deserved reputation for using million-dollar lawsuits to chill critics.
The editor is long gone, the publisher is gone, and the newspaper folded. The Mail Tribune debacle is a case-study in mismanagement and wealth destruction, but at the time it retained credibility from inertia. I took comfort in one thing. I knew I was reporting the truth about the newspaper's sleight of hand. The truth would be my defense against a million-dollar judgement. America's laws regarding free speech and defamation get some things right for balancing competing interests. One is that the truth is a defense against defamation. The New York Times v. Sullivan Supreme Court decision refines that by ruling that publishers can make errors in reporting on public figures, so long as the publisher was earnestly attempting to tell the truth and isn’t acting with malice.
At the time I wrote the blog post saying we should not be too eager to hope the lawsuit destroys Fox I was imagining myself and this blog in the position of being sued by a critic. I had the polarity of my thinking wrong in three ways. Fox was not the victim here; Dominion is. Fox is not the "little guy" in this dispute; Dominion is. And most important, Fox is not the truth-teller; Dominion is.
I hope Fox loses this suit. They weren't motivated by an effort to tell the truth about the Dominion's vote-tabulating machines. Fox was inaccurate and they knew it. There is a word for intentional inaccuracy. They were lying. They were bearing false witness. They had a motivation: Money They lied to satisfy their audience. Dominion was just collateral damage.
A devastating loss by Fox sends a message to politicians, to businesses, to media, and indeed to a political environment that is currently tolerating, indeed celebrating, cynicism. It treats bipartisanship as weak and disloyal to the highest priority, which is hurting the opposition. It is teaching cynicism. It is the opposite of patriotism.
It is past time to revive the schoolboy chant the kids in my neighborhood used when we called out unsportsmanlike play in our games: "Cheaters never prosper."
"Cheaters never prosper," is a fond hope of mine, as well--all experience to the contrary. It will be good for journalism and even better for our democracy if Fox suffers losses that actually sting. Or better, are financial capital punishment.
If so, I'll experience some schadenfreude, but, most importantly, all of us will enjoy a better society.
It's the price of the ticker sign FOX that is the best judge of our perception of this incident. The price of the stock indicates shareholder loyalty and expected profitability that is priced into the company's future. Looking at the stock chart one wouldn't think anything apocalyptic is about to happen to this company. What does Wall Street know that we don't?
It is obvious that FOX celebs are paid in stock options, Tucker was privately lamenting the drop in price of his of Fox stock in their cabal against the truth.