Fox News Was in a Panic After Calling Arizona for Joe Biden and Called for an Emergency Meeting, New Dominion Filing Shows

When Fox News called Arizona for Joe Biden, it would set off a chain of events leading to a billion-dollar lawsuit and a scandal that has rocked the Rupert Murdoch media empire at its core. A new Dominion filing has surfaced, showing that the network was in a panic after that Arizona call.

According to the New York Times, top executives and anchors at Fox News held an after-action meeting following the Arizona call. However, this was not because they called the results wrong but because they got the call right, as Biden won the previously-red state against then-President Donald Trump.

In the days following the Arizona call, the conservative media outlet was besieged with angry calls, not just from the Trump camp but its own viewers, who were angry at the network for calling the highly-contested state for the Democrat. This reaction from the MAGA faithful had Fox News executives worried they might lose viewers to competitors like Newsmax.

What Was Talked About During That Fox News Meeting

Suzanne Scott, the chief executive of Fox News Media, and Jay Wallace, the network's president, convened the meeting on Zoom on November 16, after the Arizona call. A recording of that call was reviewed by the New York Times and was presented as evidence by Dominion in their lawsuit against Fox News.

In that call, the top executives and hosts tried to discuss how the network could keep itself from angering its conservative audience again. Many offered suggestions, such as abandoning its sophisticated new election-projecting system, in which the network had already invested millions of dollars. Another suggested they should base calls not solely on numbers but on how viewers might react. Another suggestion stated that they should just delay calls to keep their audience in suspense and boost their viewership.

Scott admitted in the call, "Listen, it's one of the sad realities: If we hadn't called Arizona, those three or four days following Election Day, our ratings would have been bigger."

MSNBC Chief Legal Correspondent Ari Melber pointed out that Scott and Fox News anchor Bret Baier even discussed reversing Arizona call just to appease their viewers, sacrificing the truth for ratings. This comes after Fox Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch admitted under oath that Fox News continued presenting Donald Trump's election lies for the money.

Fox News' Financial Motives for Presenting Lies Could Destroy Their Defense During Dominion Lawsuit

Normally, plaintiffs have an uphill battle in defamation lawsuits as they are the ones who bear the burden of proof that the defendant intentionally defamed them. However, the Dominion case is different as they have presented evidence that shows Fox News executives and hosts knew that the claims presented in their shows were all lies but still went with them.

Rutgers University law professor Ronald Chen, an authority on constitutional and media law, spoke with NPR and stated Fox News' legal arguments that news organizations must be allowed to convey allegations by major public figures to their audiences no matter how wild they are will not hold up if there are allegations that presenting these accusations was done for profit.

"The fact that there was arguably a motive by Fox to publish these accusations against Dominion based on its own economic interests in retaining Trump viewers would, if believed by the jury, probably destroy that argument," said the legal expert.

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Written by: Rick Martin

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