Fox News boss was angry with anchors for fact-checking Trump: ‘Bad for business’
Donald Trump News: “This has to stop now. This is bad business and there is clearly a lack of understanding," Suzanne Scott said.
Fox News CEO wanted the reporters of the network to stop fact-checking former US president Donald Trump's statements on the 2020 elections, emails show. Several media outlets reported the emails amid a defamation suit against voting machine company Dominion. In the emails, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott wrote to Fox News Executive Vice President of Primetime Programming Meade Cooper demanding that the reporters must stop fact-checking Donald Trump's false claims.
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“This has to stop now. This is bad business and there is clearly a lack of understanding what is happening in these shows. The audience is furious and we are just feeding them material,” Suzanne Scott wrote.
"Bad for business," she emphasized.
Suzanne Scott also expressed concerns about the business implications of the company's editorial policy. “I can't keep defending these reporters who don't understand our viewers and how to handle stories. The audience feels like we crapped on and we have damaged their trust and belief in us,” she wrote.
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“We lost 25k subs on Fox Nation. We can fix this but we cannot smirk at our viewers any longer,” she added. In other emails she wrote that the reporters must "stop disrespecting the audience," saying if they "don't get it, they don't deserve the scale of our platform."
Responding to the leaked emails, a Fox News representative said as per Newsweek, "Despite the noise and confusion that Dominion has generated by presenting cherry-picked quotes without context, this case is ultimately about the First Amendment protections of the media's absolute need to cover the news.