Fox News faces political scandal as its executives seek to preserve its profits

The network has moved further and further to the right to appease Donald Trump and his base, and to maintain its ratings, but its actions and those of its hosts are coming under sustained fire

Texts between Fox host Sean Hannity (right) and Trump allies have emerged as part of the Capitol riot investigation (AP)

Has Fox News outfoxed itself over the 6 January US Capitol insurrection? And Rupert Murdoch with it?

The conservative cable news network has brazened out scandals before, not least the battery of sexual harassment allegations levelled at its late former CEO Roger Ailes, which became the subject of the Charlize Theron film Bombshell, and those faced by some of its now departed anchors and personnel.

But it is a political scandal that has engulfed the network this time. It comes courtesy of the publication by the congressional committee investigating the ugly events in Washington DC last year of texts between Fox primetime anchor Sean Hannity and Trump administration personnel, including chief of staff Mark Meadows.

In one, sent on 5 January 2021, Hannity told Meadows he was “very worried about the next 48 hours”. He was right to be. But on his show he sang a very different tune.

Rival network CNN put together a compare and contrast featuring Hannity’s texts to Trump administration officials, allies and members of Congress, and clips from his show. “We report, you decide,” anchor Brianna Keilar said, referencing an old Fox News Channel slogan. Which was all it needed.

Last week the committee sought Hannity’s voluntary cooperation with its inquiries in the wake of the texts’ publication. A subpoena could follow if that is not forthcoming. If Hannity refuses to comply with it, he could face spell in jail. Will he be willing to accept that as the price of being a martyr and hero to the American right?

It puts Fox, which has had little to say about the matter, in a notably tight spot.

The network suffered another setback in December when a judge in Delaware put an end to its hopes of a quick end to the $1.6bn (£1.2bn) defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems, over the baseless claims that it was involved in voter fraud which aired on the network.

Another lawsuit, this time seeking $2.7bn, has been filed by another election tech company, Smartmatic.

Defamation lawsuits in the US have a much higher bar to clear than in the UK.

Fox is seeking to use the US constitution’s fabled first amendment guaranteeing free speech as a key part of its defence. Its opponents will have to prove Fox knew the claims were false but maliciously aired them anyway, damaging their businesses in the process.

The problem with the Delaware decision is that Fox will likely have to go through a discovery process, which could make still more embarrassing communications between its executives, anchors, and others, public, if a settlement isn’t reached.

There’s long been a debate in the UK about whether its fiercely partisan press influences elections and opinions or whether news outlets are primarily guided by and follow their readerships.

The reality probably lies somewhere in the middle. There’s a mutual interaction between audiences and the media they consume. A push-pull in which one influences the other.

This has played out at Fox. It helped to set up the conditions for Donald’s Trump takeover of the Republican Party, with its indulgence of conspiracy theories, its embrace of conservative victimhood, its culture war posturing. It helped push the Grand Old Party (GOP) and its base in a rightward direction.

But Fox has lately been experiencing a pull.

During and after the 2020 presidential election, a defeated Donald Trump railed against his formerly favourite network for being insufficiently loyal. To his mind, it didn’t push his baseless claims of voter fraud fiercely enough. And then there was the problem of Fox being the first network to call Arizona for Joe Biden.

Trump urged his army of Twitter followers to defect to rival Newsmax, or One America News, a pair of low-rent Fox wannabes which showed that it was indeed possible to outflank the network on the right.

Newsmax, in particular, enjoyed a notable jump in viewership while Fox’s long ascendancy in the cable news ratings battle looked to be under threat. It was briefly knocked off its pre-eminent perch by CNN.

The message was heard by its executives. Since then the news gathering operation has lost reporters, notably one of those behind that (correct) Arizona call. Relatively even-handed hosts like Chris Wallace, prepared to ask hard questions of Republicans as well as Democrats, have also left.

Meanwhile the opinion hosts like Hannity, and particularly Tucker Carlson, have doubled down on their hardline, conspiracy-mongering rhetoric, cranking it up to fever pitch. It arguably reached its nadir with the latter’s Patriot Purge, allegedly a documentary, which aired on the Fox Nation subscription service and not the Fox News network, something the latter’s PR people were at pains to stress.

It was ultimately a business rather than a political decision that led to this, a move designed to preserve Fox’s position and profitability. And it has proved to be successful. The ratings have recovered. Fox is back at the top of the cable news big three, which also includes the left-leaning MSNBC as well as the news-focused CNN. Its pair of right-wing rivals – which are also being sued by the voting tech companies – have meanwhile fallen back.

But Fox’s following of them into a far-right wing swamp may yet come at a cost, and not just to the thin credibility it enjoyed prior to the election. Those with the interest of American democracy at heart must hope it will, because their nation is also paying a price for Fox’s activities.