New York Times: “CNN said on Monday that it was parting ways with Mr. Lemon, a star anchor who was a fixture of the network’s prime-time lineup before enduring a short but controversial tenure as a morning show co-host.”
Lemon on Twitter: “I’m stunned.”
“Fox News said Monday that it was parting ways with Tucker Carlson, its most popular prime time host who was also the source of repeated controversies and headaches for the network because of his statements on everything from race relations to LBGTQ rights,” the New York Times reports.
“The network made the announcement less than a week after it agreed to pay $787.5 million in a defamation lawsuit in which Mr. Carlson’s show, one of the highest rated on Fox, figured prominently for its role in spreading misinformation after the 2020 election.”
Washington Post: “His last show was this past Friday, April 21. The network said that the 8 p.m. time slot, which Carlson has held since April 2017, will be filled on an interim basis by ‘rotating Fox News personalities until a new host is named.’”
Graydon Carter: “Fox News was in the dock for its relentless, inaccurate attacks against Dominion voting machines following the 2020 presidential election. The courtroom reckoning promised to be a highlight of the Twitterati/media season. Instead, the Fox-Dominion case ended like a sexual liaison with Trump—with gasps, an abrupt ending, and a check being written.”
“A top lawyer for Smartmatic, the voting technology company whose defamation lawsuit against Fox News is still pending, said Thursday that he won’t accept any settlement smaller than the $787 million Fox agreed to pay Dominion, and that his client needs a ‘full retraction’ from the right-wing network disavowing the lies it spread about the 2020 presidential election,” CNN reports.
Said the lawyer: “They need to get an apology. They need to get a full retraction.”
“BuzzFeed is shutting down its news division as part of an effort to cut 15 percent of its work force,” the New York Times reports.
“Dan Bongino, the pro-Trump firebrand who turned frequent Fox News appearances into a job hosting a weekend show on the network, is out at the outlet,” Mediaite reports.
Out next month: Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral by Ben Smith.
“The origin story of the Age of Disinformation: the candid inside tale of two online media rivals, Jonah Peretti of HuffPost and BuzzFeed and Nick Denton of Gawker Media, whose delirious pursuit of attention at scale helped release the dark forces that would overtake the internet and American society.”
Jonathan Last: “I would not blame Fox watchers for feeling used and disrespected by Fox. It’s clear that no one views Fox’s audience with greater contempt than the people who work at Fox. They believe that the people who watch their channel are foolish, irrational, and infantile. They believe that these people cannot grasp reality and that if they were confronted with reality, they would react with anger and petulance.”
“The people who run Fox believe that the people who watch Fox are dim, emotional, and unpatriotic bigots who must be coddled like particularly malevolent children.”
“And here’s the thing: Fox is right.”
“We know that they’re right because Fox’s audience hasn’t abandoned it even as the texts and emails from discovery piled up. Even as the network was forced to cough up one of the largest settlements in media history.”
Rick Hasen: “Not enough to save American democracy. But we never should have expected that a private defamation suit could have cured this country’s ongoing election panic anyways.”
Dominion Voting Systems CEO John Poulos told ABC News the settlement agreement between Fox News and his company amounted to a warning shot for other media companies that may spread falsehoods.
Said Poulos: “I think that it’s a big step forward in democracy if our system can send a signal that if media companies lie — whoever they are or whatever channel they’re on — and they do so knowingly, they will be prepared to pay a very high price.”
Charlie Sykes: “Maybe. But I can’t shake the feeling that even though Dominion has won the battle, the rest of us continue to lose the war.”
David French: “The settlement represents justice for Dominion but by no means does it cleanse Fox of its corruption. Liars must be fired. Viewers must be informed. The company must apologize.”
Harry Litman: “The money of course serves no public purpose. An apology would have been meaningful as part of national accounting for the Big Lie. That was a very big opportunity here, which now goes away. Not Dominion’s fault–it’s the adversary system for you– but a shame.”
Fox Corp shareholders are demanding company records that may show whether directors and executives properly oversaw Fox News’ coverage of Donald Trump’s election-rigging claims, Reuters reports.
“Fox News’s legal troubles related to the 2020 presidential election are far from over, despite its massive settlement with Dominion Voting Systems announced Tuesday afternoon,” the Washington Post reports.
“The media company also faces a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit filed by another voting technology company, Smartmatic, that alleges Fox broadcast lies that ‘decimated’ its business.”
“The judge in the Fox News defamation case said on Tuesday that the case was resolved, abruptly ending a long-running dispute over misinformation in the 2020 election just as a highly anticipated trial was about to begin,” the New York Times reports.
“It was a last-minute end to a case that began two years ago and after the disclosure of hundreds of thousands of pages of documents that peeled back the curtain on a media company that has long resisted outside scrutiny.”
“Details of the settlement were not yet known. Dominion had initially demanded $1.6 billion in damages.”
“Opening statements are expected to begin Tuesday now that a jury has been selected in Dominion Voting System’s $1.6 billion defamation case against Fox News,” the Washington Post reports.
“Ex-Fox News producer Abby Grossberg said she recently found more evidence relevant to Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against her former employer and plans to turn it over to the court,” NBC News reports.
“Grossberg, who worked as a senior producer for hosts Maria Bartiromo and Tucker Carlson, alleged in a new sworn statement obtained by NBC News that Fox lawyers ignored repeated reminders about an additional cellphone in her possession and did not search it during court-ordered discovery.”
A Moscow court upheld the detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich at the prison where he has been held since his arrest last month, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Washington Post: “It’s a long-game wager that the drift of Latinos toward the Republican Party in some states is far from over, and that it’s the Spanish-dominant speakers who are now the most ripe for persuasion…”
“Americano Media is modeled on the Fox News formula of right-leaning news programming bookended by much-further-right-leaning opinion shows.”
In a 2:39 a.m. ET post on Truth Social, Donald Trump gave unsolicited legal advice to Rupert Murdoch on how to handle the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News.
Said Trump: “If Fox would finally admit that there was large scale cheating & irregularities int he 2020 presidential election, which would be a good thing for than & for America, the came against them, which should not have existed at all, would be greatly weakened.”
He added: “Back up those patriots at Fox instead of throwing them under the bus.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.