Newsmax, fresh off of paying out millions for their lies about the 2020 election, announced on Wednesday that they are suing fellow election liars at Fox News.
In its federal lawsuit, Newsmax accuses Fox of engaging in “anticompetitive behaviors” meant to “expand its monopoly power in the Right-leaning Pay TV News Market.” Newsmax blames Fox for inhibiting the availability of the channel, therefore hobbling its ratings and hurting the company’s ability to attract advertisers.
Newsmax accuses Fox of coercing distributors not to carry other right-wing networks or marginalizing them while prominently featuring Fox. According to Newsmax, if those distributors feature other networks like Newsmax they impose penalties like increased pricing for Fox’s sister networks like Fox Business.
Both networks are available on cable and satellite. Fox had a considerable head start on Newsmax, launched in 1996 by billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch with former Republican operative and serial sexual assaulter Roger Ailes as its founding CEO.
Newsmax TV didn’t launch until 2014, an outgrowth of the anti-Clinton magazine that launched in the 1990s peddling an array of conspiracies. Fox News has long been a ratings leader in the world of cable news while Newsmax has barely been a blip.
In response to the suit a Fox spokesperson told CNBC, “Newsmax cannot sue their way out of their own competitive failures in the marketplace to chase headlines simply because they can’t attract viewers.”
Both channels are a 24-7 cesspool of misinformation, bigotry, and misogyny masquerading as journalism.
Newsmax was recently compelled to pay out $67 million in a settlement with Dominion Voting Systems after airing a series of lies about the company’s role in the 2020 election. Newsmax sought to undermine the election results in favor of former President Joe Biden while bolstering Donald Trump’s losing campaign. Newsmax also paid out a $40 million settlement to voting services company Smartmatic for similar election falsehoods.
Fox infamously paid out nearly $800 million to Dominion after multiple personalities pushed lies about the company. Jeanine Pirro, who now serves as Trump’s U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., was among the most prominent election conspiracy theorists the network pushed—even when producers knew their hosts were lying.
One America News Network, another right-wing “news” network in the same mold as Fox and Newsmax, has also paid out money to Smartmatic for election lies.
When these networks aren’t lying about elections, they keep up a steady drumbeat of racism and misogyny meant to fire up conservative audiences. The bigoted content, interspersed with a steady diet of outright lies, keeps viewers coming back—attracting advertisers, bolstering the conservative movement, and pushing voters toward the Republican Party.
Networks like Fox and their imitators like Newsmax created a universe based on nonsense and hate where figures like Trump now thrive. The world is still dealing with the fallout from the noxious media environment they created and sustain. At the very least a childish legal war that costs them both money could prove to be entertaining.
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