MRC’s Reaction To Fox News-Dominion Settlement: A Lot Of Whataboutism

As the trial date for Dominion’s defamation lawsuit against Fox News drew ever nearer, the Media Research Center still insisted on playing whataboutism. Tim Graham did exactly that for his April 17 podcast:

CBS’s Sunday Morning spent nine minutes promoting the dangers Dominion’s lawsuit posed to Fox News. It sounded quite similar to a 60 Minutes piece on the same theme last October. But would CBS find it just as newsworthy when Dan Rather sued CBS in 2007 over his phony-documents story? Would anyone be interested in the juicy documents exposing CBS as “corrosive”? Back then, the liberal media professed no interest in this, and the suit was dismissed. Rather wasn’t the scapegoat. He was responsible for his mess.

Graham continued that whataboutism by whining that NPR’s David Folkenflik creating an information silo and “building a business on serving an ideological base, as if that’s not the model for NPR.” There was apparently no mention of the fact that Fox News was doing that very same siloing by trying to censor news about the Dominion lawsuit on its own channel.

When Fox News decided the next day — the day the trial was to start — to settle with Dominion for a whopping 787.5 million, the MRC suggested this was a victory of sorts and complained when others suggested Fox News hadn’t suffered enough. Kevin Tober whined in an April 18 post:

On Tuesday, CNN Tonight co-host Alisyn Camerota took to the airwaves during The Lead With Jake Tapper to bemoan that Fox News Channel was able to settle out of court in the Dominion lawsuit for about half of the original $1.6 billion lawsuit without publicly apologizing. She declared that this was a “victory for Fox” and that this was “the best outcome that Fox could ever have hoped for.” 

Discussing Fox’s settlement shortly after the news broke, Tapper asked Camerota if she was surprised by the outcome. “I haven’t been surprised by any of this. Nor am I surprised by the settlement. I predicted there would be a settlement all along because Fox doesn’t want to air its dirty laundry in a court case,” Camerota exclaimed.

She then huffed that the settlement was “half of what Dominion asked for.” Camerota wasn’t satisfied with Fox having to cough up the better part a billion dollars to Dominion, because “It’s chump change for Fox. They make more than a billion dollars a year.”

Tober then personally attacked Camerota, followed by a fit of whataboutism:

It’s obvious that Camerota and the rest of CNN was extremely bitter because in their eyes, Fox wad now saved from embarrassing details that could come out if the lawsuit went to trial. 

As a former Fox News host, Camerota clearly has a grudge against her former employer. Wouldn’t you feel the same if you ended up at a low rated network like CNN after working at a ratings powerhouse like Fox? 

On top of that, CNN was also being extremely hypocritical. You’ll recall that the network settled with Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann after smearing him as a racist for out of context footage taken during the 2019 March for Life rally. CNN pretended that they never botched the story despite settling.

As we’ve noted, it’s entirely likely that Sandmann received little more than going-away money from CNN, which did not have to issue an apology under the settlement. He also didn’t mention that Sandmann’s lawyer was L. Lin Wood, who went on to prove his incompetence by going full QAnon and spouting election fraud conspiracy theories.

Mark Finkelstein complained that MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough brought up his own history of being defamed in the media:

Joe Scarborough is notorious for dragging his background as a former Congressman into the Morning Joe conversation at every opportunity. So much so, that his self-centered obsession has become something of a running joke on the show. 

In a variation on his solipsism, Scarborough turned much of Morning Joe‘s discussion today of the settlement of Dominion’s defamation case against Fox News into yet another chance to air his grievance against Donald Trump for having suggested that Scarborough could be responsible for the death of a former congressional aide of his.

[…]

Perhaps Scarborough’s account is accurate. But could it also be that the various lawyers informed Scarborough that he’d be subjected to intense cross-examination about his personal life — in particular, the circumstances that led to his sudden resignation from Congress.

Finkelstein didn’t elaborate on what kind of scandal Scarborough is purportedly hiding. Perhaps he should in order to avoid a defamation lawsuit of his own.

Bill D’Agostino also groused that it was argued that Fox News didn’t suffer enough (with added whataboutism, of course):

On Tuesday Dominion Voting Systems settled its lawsuit against Fox News, sparing the media company from six very uncomfortable weeks in court. The settlement was a heartbreaking development for the leftwing media, who had been preparing eagerly to cover every moment of the court proceedings.

Talking heads complained that in agreeing to settle out of court, Dominion had cost Americans an opportunity to learn the full extent of Fox’s alleged malfeasance. They also griped that the terms did not require Fox to formally apologize to Dominion.

[…]

Over the last 24 hours we’ve heard many impassioned statements about the importance of truth in journalism. And obviously, yes, the truth is the cornerstone of proper journalism. But when those statements come from CNN and MSNBC, it winds up looking like a bunch of TV personalities crammed in a glass room, flinging stones at the walls.

D’Agostino provided no evidence that CNN or MSNBC engaged in a systematic campaign to lie to its viewers the way Fox News did.

When the co-hosts of “The View” raised concern about how Fox News’ lies might affect members of the military who watch the channel, Nicholas Fondacaro flew into a rage:

In the wake of Fox News’s defamation settlement with Dominion Voting Systems on Wednesday, the vicious liberals of ABC’s The View lashed out and bashed America’s brave men and women in the armed services for daring to watch Fox News on base, even going so far as the call them “racialized” dangers to the country.

During their opening segment where the cast whined about the settlement and said the $787.5 million payout was not enough, co-host Joy Behar proclaimed that “If Rupert [Murdoch] wanted to maintain any integrity, he would fire Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson – what’s his name, Sean Hannity.”

Specifically targeting Carlson, Behar called him “a sick pathological liar that cannot be controlled.” And rhetorically sneered at his viewers, suggesting, “His audience likes to be lied to.” “You know that song; tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies,” she began to crudely sing.

Shifting her ire to our service members, Behar warned that “Fox is broadcasted on military bases.” She tried to couch her demand to censor Fox News on military bases by repeatedly shouting: “Those are tax-funded facilities. They should not be broadcasting lies to our military. We are paying for that.”

“Those boys and girls are going out there, defending this country, risking their lives, and they’re being fed lies on a regular basis! That needs to be changed immediately!” she insisted, urging the elimination of their right to watch what they want.

Fondacaro didn’t explain why Fox News must be allowed to feed lies to people, nor did he explain that members of the military are subjected to military policy, which does not necessarily include the ability to be able to watch channels that feed them lies. Instead, there was even more whataboutism with Fondacaro huffing that the show “continued to proudly be a home for 2016 election lies.”