Fox execs should be fired for 'proven misconduct' (Dominion), renowned Yale prof says

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https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/01/media/dominion-fox-misconduct-news-reliable-sources/index.html

Excerpt:

. . .A lack of action by the board could result in additional legal exposure to Fox, Sonnenfeld warned. “Murdoch ‘only’ controls 39% of the company so any of the 61% of the shareholders can sue for misconduct, failure of management oversight, and conscious inadequate diligence,” he explained.

In the latest Dominion legal filing, it was revealed that behind the scenes, Fox Corp board member Paul Ryan pleaded with Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch to prevent Trump’s bogus election claims from being broadcast to Fox News’ audience of millions. The former House speaker said that Fox News should “move on from Donald Trump” and “stop spouting election lies.”

But Sonnenfeld said Ryan’s actions were not enough. In fact, he said Ryan’s “quiet dissent” was “cowardly, ineffective, and immoral,” and pointed out that board members have certain responsibilities under corporate governance law in Delaware, where Fox is incorporated.

“The duties of loyalty and diligence are NOT to the management but to the owners,” Sonnenfeld said. “By silently going along with misconduct about which they are aware, all directors, including Paul Ryan, are guilty of complicity through their complacency.”

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https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/01/media/dominion-fox-misconduct-news-reliable-sources/index.html

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1. Stunning Rupert Murdoch deposition leaves Fox News in a world of trouble

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/feb/28/rupert-murdoch-deposition-fox-news-dominion-voting-systems

"Fox News and its parent company now face escalating damage on two fronts: to its reputation as a journalism outlet that ostensibly pays lip service to truth and accuracy – and to the financial health of the operation. Media and legal experts told the Guardian that, partly as a result of his stunning testimony, Murdoch can now expect potentially severe injury to both.

A former Republican strategist who co-founded the anti-Donald Trump Lincoln Project, Rick Wilson, said that the reputational damage was self-evident. “This is so profoundly cynical, and deeply corrosive to the role of the largest cable news network in the country,” Wilson remarked. “They admittedly engaged in fraud and lied to their audience.”

Wilson predicted that there would be fallout for Fox News in terms of defections from viewers angered by the admission as much as the substance of it. He said: “There’s been worry at Fox for some time now that they’re losing their iron grip on their audience. We are going to see a migration now of Fox News viewers to even further-right outlets like Newsmax and OANN.”

Brian Stelter, the former anchor of CNN’s media show Reliable Sources who is now a media and democracy fellow at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, told the Guardian that Fox News would be cushioned by its financial success. “It’s a license to print money,” he said. “It is facing large potential damages which may be a major blow, but not a death blow.”

What would hurt most, Stelter suggested, would be the realization among the Fox News base that they had been served a dishonesty. “The most damning headlines to come so far are about the gap between what Fox News hosts say in public and private,” he said. “Even if a little of that seeps into the Fox bloodstream, it still has an impact.”