Report: Fox News CEO Called Trump Fact-Checking ‘Bad For Business’

Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott blasted the network’s fact-checking of then-President Donald Trump’s false election fraud claims as “bad for business” in an email shortly after the 2020 presidential election, according to Forbes citing citing a court presentation from Dominion Voting Systems, which has portrayed Fox News as a network in turmoil after the election as it moves forward with its $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit.

Scott reportedly told prime time programming executive Meade Cooper in an email dated December 2, 2020 that the fact-checking “has to stop now,” arguing the reporting showed “a lack of understanding” about what Fox News’ audience wanted.

Suzanne Scott

The message came shortly after Fox News correspondent Eric Shawn appeared on Martha MacCallum’s show and lambasted a truck driver who claimed in a largely uncritical interview with Sean Hannity that he took part in vote “dumps”—a Fox News spokesperson said in a statement: “This is not about fact checking - the issue at hand is one host calling out another.”

The email came weeks after Scott privately said, “I can’t keep defending these reporters who don’t understand our viewers and how to handle stories,” blaming them for a loss of 25,000 Fox Nation streaming service subscribers—a spokesperson later said the exchange had to do with “the tone and delivery of the correspondent.”

Dominion Voting Systems reportedly showed the messages in a slideshow in court last week as an April 17 trial start date looms in its defamation case against Fox News—though both sides have pushed for resolving the lawsuit through a pretrial summary judgment.

Fox News admonished Dominion in a statement for a “continued reliance on cherry-picked quotes without context to generate headlines in order to distract from the facts of this case,” calling the lawsuit an attack on the free press.

According to the Statement from Fox: “These documents once again demonstrate Dominion’s continued reliance on cherry-picked quotes without context to generate headlines in order to distract from the facts of this case. The foundational right to a free press is at stake and we will continue to fiercely advocate for the First Amendment in protecting the role of news organizations to cover the news.”