Fox News controversies

Former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean has referred to Fox News as a "right-wing propaganda machine",[14] and several Democratic politicians have boycotted events hosted or sponsored by the network.[15][16] In 2007, several major Democratic presidential candidates (Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson) boycotted or dropped out of Fox News-sponsored or -hosted debates.[15][17]

Similar accusations were levied against Fox News in response to its decision to exclude Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter from the January 5, 2008, Republican primary debate.[18] In response, many individuals and organizations petitioned Fox News to reconsider its decision. When Fox News refused to change its position and continued to exclude Paul and Hunter, the New Hampshire Republican Party officially announced it would withdraw as a Fox News partner in the forum.[19]

While Fox News has been criticized for its tendency to support the Republican Party and its interests, David Frum, former speechwriter for George W. Bush, has also said, "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we're discovering we work for Fox."[20]

CNN personality Larry King said in a January 17, 2007 interview with the Chicago Sun-Times: "They're a Republican brand. They're an extension of the Republican Party with some exceptions, [like] Greta Van Susteren. But I don't begrudge them that. [Fox News CEO] Roger Ailes is an old friend. They've been nice to me. They've said some very nice things about me. Not [Bill] O'Reilly, but I don't watch him."[21]

Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Republican and conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg stated: "Look, I think liberals have reasonable gripes with Fox News. It does lean to the right, primarily in its opinion programming but also in its story selection (which is fine by me) and elsewhere. But it's worth remembering that Fox is less a bastion of ideological conservatism and more a populist, tabloid-like network."[5]

Then-Fox News host Bill O'Reilly stated in 2004, in the context of the Iraq War, that "Fox does tilt right", but that the network does not "actively campaign or try to help Bush-Cheney."[22][23]

Progressive media watchdog groups such as Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)[3] and Media Matters for America,[4] have argued that Fox News' reporting contains conservative editorializing within news stories. FAIR has asserted that the ratio of conservative to non-conservative guests on Fox News shows strongly favors conservatives. In a study of a nineteen-week period from January 2001 to May 2001 on Special Report with Brit Hume, the ratio was 25:3, and FAIR obtained similar data from other Fox News shows.[24][25]

The conservative watchdog group Accuracy in Media has claimed that there was a conflict of interest in Fox News' co-sponsorship of the May 15, 2007, Republican presidential debate, pointing out that candidate Rudy Giuliani's law firm had tackled copyright protection and legislation on the purchase of cable television lineups for News Corporation, the then-parent company of Fox News, Fox Sports, Foxtel, Fox Footy, Fox Sports News, Fox Television Studios, Fox Television Stations, Foxstar Productions, 20th Television, 20th Century Fox Television, 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and DirecTV, and suggesting that Fox News might be biased in favor of Giuliani's candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination.[26]

Fox News has publicly denied such charges, stating that the reporters in the newsroom provide separate, neutral reporting, while acknowledging their opinion programming is not intended to be neutral.[27][28]

A poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports during September 2004 found that Fox News was seen as second to CBS as the most politically biased network in the public view. 37% of respondents thought CBS, in the wake of the Killian documents controversy, was trying to help elect Senator John Kerry, while 34% of respondents said they believed that Fox News' goal was to "help elect Bush".[43] However, a poll by Public Policy Polling in January 2010 found Fox News to be the only U.S. television news network to receive a positive rating by the public for trustworthiness, with results strongly split depending on the political affiliation of the respondents.[44] A survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press showed "a striking rise in the politicization of cable TV news audiences ... This pattern is most apparent with the fast-growing Fox News Channel."[45] Another Pew survey of news consumption found that Fox News has not suffered a decline in credibility with its audience, with one in four (25%) saying they believe all or most of what they see on the network, virtually unchanged since Fox News was first tested in 2000.[46]

According to the results of a 2006 study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that Fox News was rarely cited by 547 surveyed journalists as an outlet taking an ideological stance in its coverage, and most identified as advocating conservative political positions.[47] In the 2004 survey, 69% of national journalists cited Fox News as being especially conservative in its coverage of news.[48]

A 2019 Pew survey found that Fox News is the fifth most trusted source in America for political and election news, with 43% of all polled voters (compared with 47% of second-place CNN and 34% of ninth-place MSNBC). However, it is also the least trusted with 40% of all polled voters (compared with 32% of second-place CNN and 26% of fourth-place MSNBC).[49]

The "2011 State of the News Media" Report by the Pew Center on Excellence in Journalism found that in 2010, Fox News had an average daytime audience of 1.2 million and nighttime viewership of 1.1 million, higher than its cable competitors but down 11% and 9% respectively from 2009. Fox News' cumulative audience (unique viewers who watched at least sixty minutes in an average month) was 41.1 million, coming in second to CNN with 41.7 million. For 2010, CNN's digital network continued to lead Fox News' digital network online; CNN with 35.7 million unique visitors per month, compared to Fox News' 15.5 million. For the first time Fox News outspent its competitors, with a total news investment of $686 million. 72% of this investment went to program costs, reflecting their focus on high-profile hosts. They also increased their revenues 17% over 2009 to $1.5 billion, well ahead of second-place CNN at $1.2 billion.[50][51]

The Project on Excellence in Journalism report in 2006 showed that 68 percent of Fox News cable stories contained personal opinions, as compared to MSNBC at 27 percent and CNN at 4 percent. The "content analysis" portion of their 2005 report also concluded that "Fox was measurably more one-sided than the other networks, and Fox News Channel journalists were more opinionated on the air."[52]

A 2006 University of California, Berkeley, study cited that there was a correlation between the presence of Fox News in cable markets and increases in Republican votes in those markets.[53] A 2010 study found that with respect to coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2005, "Fox News was much more sympathetic to the [Bush] administration than NBC."[54]

In a 2006 academic content analysis of election news, Rasmussen Reports showed that the 2004 election coverage from Fox News favored George W. Bush significantly more than John Kerry.[55] In a 2010 study of the news coverage of the 2004 political party conventions, Morris and Francia found that Fox News' reporting was more negative toward the Democratic convention and gave Republicans more opportunity to voice their message than the other networks. The study also found that viewers who relied on Fox News' coverage exhibited attitude change toward both candidates, but particularly a lowering opinion toward Kerry. In contrast the study found that CNN's coverage was more fair and balanced.[56]

A study published in November 2005 by Tim Groseclose, a professor of political science at UCLA, scoring political bias from twenty mainstream news reporting outlets, concluded that all "except Fox News' Special Report and The Washington Times, received scores to the left of the average member of Congress." In particular, Special Report with Brit Hume had an Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) rating that was right of the political center. Groseclose's model used the number of times a host cited a particular think tank on his or her program and compared it with the number of times a member of Congress cited a think tank, correlating that with the politician's ADA rating.[57][58]

Geoff Nunberg, a professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley and a National Public Radio (NPR) commentator, criticized the methodology of Groseclose's study and labeled its conclusions invalid.[59] He pointed to what he saw as Groseclose's reliance on interpretations of facts and data that were taken from sources that were not, in his view, credible. Groseclose and Professor Jeff Milyo rebutted, saying Nunberg "shows a gross misunderstanding [of] our statistical method and the actual assumptions upon which it relies."[60] Mark Liberman (a professor of computer science and the director of Linguistic Data Consortium at the University of Pennsylvania), who helped post Groseclose and Milyo's rebuttal, later posted how the statistical methods used to calculate this bias pose faults.[61][62] Liberman concluded "that many if not most of the complaints directed against G&M are motivated in part by ideological disagreement — just as much of the praise for their work is motivated by ideological agreement. It would be nice if there were a less politically fraught body of data on which such modeling exercises could be explored."[61]

A December 2007 study by Samuel R. Lichter, of the self-described nonpartisan Center for Media and Public Affairs, found that Fox News' evaluations of all of the 2008 Democratic presidential candidates combined was 51% positive and 49% negative, while the network's evaluations of the Republican presidential candidates 51% negative and 49% positive. The study, however, did find that Fox News' coverage was less negative toward Republican candidates than the coverage of broadcast networks.[63]

A study by Media Matters for America found that between August 1 and October 1, 2013, on Fox News, "69 percent of guests and 75 percent of mentions cast doubt on climate science," compared to "[half] of those quoted in The Wall Street Journal ... about 29 percent in the Los Angeles Times, about 17 percent in The Washington Post and about 12 percent in Bloomberg News."[6][7] Fox News' argument against criticism that it disproportionately represents the views of climate change deniers was to itself deny the factual figures which indicate that 97% of climate science experts worldwide hold the consensus view of human-caused global warming.[8] A 2012 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that, from February 2012 to July 2012, 93% of global warming coverage by Fox News was misleading. The report put the figure significantly lower—81 percent—for The Wall Street Journal. The misleading statements identified in the report included "dismissals of human-caused climate change, disparaging comments about individual scientists, rejections of climate science as a body of knowledge, and cherry picking of data."[64][65] A similar 2013 report, also conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists, found that 28% of global warming coverage by Fox News was accurate, a nine-fold increase from the aforementioned report but still significantly behind CNN and MSNBC respectively (70% and 92%).[9]

Croft concluded that Fox News coverage glorified the Iraq War and its reporting framed the discussion in such a way as to drown out critics.[2] He quotes Christiane Amanpour as stating that there was a culture of self-censorship created by "the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News".[2]

A May 2017 study conducted by Harvard University's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy examined coverage of President Trump's first 100 days in office by all major mainstream media outlets and broadcast networks including CNN, HLN, Fox News, MSNBC, NBC, ABC and CBS.[66] It found that, altogether, Trump received 80% negative coverage from the media, and that he received the least negative coverage on Fox News – 52% negative and 48% positive.[67]

A study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland School of Public Affairs, as published in the Winter 03–04 issue of the Political Science Quarterly,[68] reported that poll-based findings[69] indicated that viewers of Fox News Channel, the Fox broadcast network and local Fox affiliates, including in New York City and Los Angeles, were more likely than viewers of other news networks to hold three misperceptions:[68]

• 67% of Fox News Channel viewers erroneously believed that the "U.S. has found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the al Qaeda terrorist organization" (compared with 56% for CBS, 49% for NBC, 48% for CNN, 45% for ABC, 16% for NPR/PBS).
• The erroneous belief that "The U.S. has found Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq" was held by 33% of Fox News Channel viewers and only 23% of CBS viewers, 19% for ABC, 20% for NBC, 20% for CNN and 11% for NPR/PBS.
• 35% of Fox News Channel viewers erroneously believed that "the majority of people [in the world] favor the U.S. having gone to war" with Iraq (compared with 28% for CBS, 27% for ABC, 24% for CNN/HLN, 20% for NBC, 5% for NPR/PBS).

In response, conservative columnist Ann Coulter, a frequent guest on Fox News, characterized the PIPA findings as "misperceptions of pointless liberal factoids" and called it a "hoax poll".[70] Bill O'Reilly called the study "absolute crap".[71] Roger Ailes referred to the study as "an old push poll".[72] James Taranto, editor of OpinionJournal.com, The Wall Street Journal's online editorial page, called the poll "pure propaganda".[73] PIPA issued a clarification on October 17, 2003, stating that, "The findings were not meant to and cannot be used as a basis for making broad judgments about the general accuracy of the reporting of various networks or the general accuracy of the beliefs of those who get their news from those networks. Only a substantially more comprehensive study could undertake such broad research questions," and stated "that the correlation between viewing Fox News and holding misperceptions does not prove that Fox News' presentation caused the misperceptions", inferring that causality is not necessary to prove correlation.[74][75]

PIPA also conducted a statistical study on purported misinformation evidenced by registered voters before the 2010 midterm election. According to the results of the study, "... false or misleading information is widespread in the general information environment ..."[76] but viewers of Fox News were more likely to be misinformed on specific issues when compared to viewers of comparable media,[77] that this likelihood also increased proportionally to the frequency of viewing Fox News[77] and that these findings showed statistical significance.[78]

A 2007 Pew Research Center poll of general political knowledge ("Who is the governor of your state?", "Who is the President of Russia?") indicated that Fox News viewers scored 35% in the high-knowledge area, the same as the national average. This was not significantly different than local news, network news, and morning news, and was slightly lower than CNN (41%). Viewers of The O'Reilly Factor (51%) scored in the high category along with Rush Limbaugh (50%), NPR (51%), major newspapers (54%), Newshour with Jim Lehrer (53%) The Daily Show (54%) and The Colbert Report (54%).[79]

A 2010 Stanford University survey found "more exposure to Fox News was associated with more rejection of many mainstream scientists' claims about global warming, [and] with less trust in scientists".[80] A 2011 Kaiser Family Foundation survey on U.S. misperceptions about health care reform found that Fox News viewers had a poorer understanding of the new laws and were more likely to believe in falsehoods about the Affordable Care Act, such as cuts to Medicare benefits and the death panel myth.[81] A 2010 Ohio State University study of public misperceptions about the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque", officially named Park51, found that viewers who relied on Fox News were 66% more likely to believe incorrect rumors than those with a "low reliance" on Fox News.[82]

In 2011, a study by Fairleigh Dickinson University found that Fox News viewers living in New Jersey were less well-informed than people who did not watch any news at all. The study employed objective questions, such as whether Hosni Mubarak was still in power in Egypt.[83][84][85]

Fox News executives exert a degree of editorial control over the content of the network's daily reporting. The channel's vice president of news, John Moody, controls content by writing memos to the news department staff. In the documentary Outfoxed, former Fox News employees talk about the inner workings of the channel. In memos from the documentary, Moody instructs employees on how to approach particular stories and on what stories to approach. Critics of Fox News claim that the instructions on many of the memos indicate a conservative bias. The Washington Post quoted Larry C. Johnson, a former Fox News contributor, describing the Moody memos as "talking points instructing us what the themes are supposed to be, and God help you if you stray."[86]

Photocopied memos from Moody instructed Fox News' on-air anchors and reporters to use positive language when discussing anti-abortion viewpoints, the Iraq War, and tax cuts, as well as requesting that the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal be put in context with the other violence in the area.[87] Such memos were reproduced for the film Outfoxed, which included Moody quotes such as, "The soldiers [seen on Fox News in Iraq] in the foreground should be identified as 'sharpshooters,' not 'snipers,' which carries a negative connotation."[88]

Two days after the 2006 midterm election, The Huffington Post reported that its news department had acquired a copy of a leaked internal memo from Moody that recommended the following: "... [L]et's be on the lookout for any statements from the Iraqi insurgents, who must be thrilled at the prospect of a Dem-controlled congress." Within hours of the memo's publication, Fox News anchor Martha McCallum went on-air on the program The Live Desk with reports of Iraqi insurgents cheering the firing of Donald Rumsfeld and the results of the election.[89][90]

In December 2010, Media Matters for America released a leaked October 2009 e-mail between Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon and the network's senior producers, which seemed to issue directives slanting network's coverage of President Barack Obama's health care reform efforts. In the e-mail, Sammon instructed producers to not use the phrase "public option" when discussing a key measure of President Obama's reform bill, and instead use the terms "government option" or "government-run health insurance[,]" noting negative connotations; Sammon also suggested that the qualifier "so-called" be used before any proper mention of the public option. Another e-mail by Fox News senior vice president Michael Clemente accepted Sammon's conditions. Critics claimed that Sammon took advice from Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who appeared on Hannity shortly before the e-mail was written and made the same suggestions in identifying the public option. Critics also noticed that reporters and panelists on Special Report with Bret Baier used the term "public option" before the e-mail was sent, but used the term "government option" immediately afterward. Sammon, in an interview with Howard Kurtz for The Daily Beast, defended the directive and denied he was trying to skew Fox News' coverage.[91]

Later that month, Media Matters released an e-mail by Sammon from December 2009, in which he pressured Fox News reporters to assert that "theories are based upon data that critics have called into question" in light of the Climatic Research Unit email controversy.[92][93]

Fox News Channel image of Steinberg superimposed on a poodle, and Reddicliffe superimposed on the man holding the poodle's leash

Left: Original photo of Jacques Steinberg. Right: Photo aired on Fox News Channel.

Left: Original photo of Steven Reddicliffe. Right: Photo aired on Fox News Channel.

On the July 2, 2008, edition of Fox & Friends, co-hosts Brian Kilmeade and Steve Doocy aired photos of New York Times reporter Jacques Steinberg and Times television editor Steven Reddicliffe that appeared to have been crudely doctored and photoshopped, apparently in order to portray the journalists unflatteringly. This occurred during a discussion of a June 28 piece in the Times, which pointed out what Steinberg called "ominous trends" in Fox News' ratings.[96]

According to Media Matters, the photos depict Steinberg with yellowed teeth, "his nose and chin widened, and his ears made to protrude further." The other image, of Reddicliffe, had similar yellow teeth, as well as "dark circles ... under his eyes, and his hairline has been moved back."[97] During the discussion, Doocy called the Times report, written by Steinberg, a "hit piece" ordered up by Reddicliffe.[96] The broadcast then showed an image of Steinberg's face superimposed over a picture of a poodle, while Reddicliffe's face was superimposed over the man holding the poodle's leash.[96]

Times culture editor Sam Sifton called Fox News photos "disgusting", and the criticism of the paper's reporting a "specious and meritless claim" while denying that it was a "hit piece".[96]

In June 2020, Fox News' website published digitally altered photographs of Seattle's Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone to include a man armed with an assault rifle from earlier Seattle protests; also added to the photographs were smashed windows from other parts of Seattle. In a separate incident, the Fox News website ran articles about protests in Seattle, with accompanying photos of a burning city actually being from Saint Paul, Minnesota, the previous month.[98] Although the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone was peacefully occupied, "Fox's coverage contributed to the appearance of armed unrest", stated The Washington Post. The manipulated and wrongly used images were removed, with Fox News stating that it "regrets these errors".[99]

In July 2020, Fox News aired a photo that edited out then-president Donald Trump from a photo where he was seen posing with Melania Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, and Ghislaine Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago which was shown during a segment about Maxwell's arrest at the time.[100] Fox News later apologized for the edit, claiming it was a mistake.[101][102][103]

Gretchen Carlson in 2009

On July 6, 2016, former Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Roger Ailes in the Superior Court of New Jersey.[129] In her complaint, Carlson alleged that she was fired from her program for refusing Ailes' sexual advances.[129] After Carlson came forward, six more women spoke to Gabriel Sherman of New York magazine, alleging that Ailes had sexually harassed them and that Ailes had "spoke[n] openly of expecting women to perform sexual favors in exchange for job opportunities."[130] New York reported that Megyn Kelly told investigators Ailes made "unwanted sexual advances toward her" at the start of her career. The magazine also reported that the Murdochs had given Ailes an ultimatum: resign by August 1 or be fired.[131]

Facing overwhelming public criticism, Ailes resigned on July 21, 2016.[132] On September 6, 21st Century Fox (then-parent company of 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures, 20th Century Fox Television, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, the Fox network, FX Networks, Fox News and Fox Sports) announced that it had settled the lawsuit with Carlson. The settlement was reportedly $20 million. As part of the settlement, 21st Century Fox apologized to Carlson, saying "We sincerely regret and apologize for the fact that Gretchen was not treated with the respect and dignity that she and all of our colleagues deserve."[133]

In August 2016, Andrea Tantaros, who had been pulled from the network in April with reported "contract issues",[134] claimed that she approached Fox News executives about inappropriate behavior towards her by Ailes in 2015. Tantaros said her allegations resulted first in her being demoted from The Five to Outnumbered, and then in her being taken off the air.[135] Tantaros filed a lawsuit against Fox News for sexual harassment, also claiming that Bill O'Reilly, actor Dean Cain, and Scott Brown made inappropriate comments to her, and that Brown and Cain touched her without her consent.[136][137]

In April 2017, The New York Times reported that O'Reilly and Fox News had settled five lawsuits against the former dating back to 2002, in addition to publicly acknowledged settlements to Andrea Mackris in 2004 and Juliet Huddy in 2017; the Times reported that Fox News hosts Rebecca Diamond and Laurie Dhue settled sexual harassment lawsuits in 2011 and 2016 respectively, and junior producer Rachel Witlieb Bernstein settled with Fox News in 2002 after accusing O'Reilly of verbal abuse. The amount paid to the women filing the complaints was estimated at $13 million. The Times also reported a claim by former O'Reilly Factor guest Wendy Walsh, who declined an offer from O'Reilly to go to his hotel suite and was subsequently denied a job as a Fox News contributor.[138] 21st Century Fox hired the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to conduct an investigation into Walsh's allegation; that firm also conducted an investigation into the allegations against Ailes.[139]

After the five settlements were reported, The O'Reilly Factor lost more than half its advertisers within a week;[140] almost sixty companies withdrew their television advertising from the show[141] amid a growing backlash against O'Reilly.[142][143] On April 11, 2017, O'Reilly announced he would take a two-week vacation and return to the program on April 24.[144] However, on April 19, it was reported that O'Reilly would not return to the network.[145] Co-president Bill Shine, who had been accused of covering up sexual harassment allegations, resigned on May 1.[146]

In July 2017, Fox Business Network suspended Charles Payne pending an investigation after a former network guest, Scottie Nell Hughes, accused him of sexual harassment. Payne denied the harassment charge but acknowledged having had a three-year-long "romantic relationship" with Hughes before the accusation was made. Hughes, who kept an apartment near 21st Century Fox's Manhattan headquarters for the duration of the affair, claimed she believed it would help her obtain a permanent position at the network.[147] Hughes' appearances were drastically reduced after she ended the affair in 2015 and reported Payne to Fox News.[148]

In August 2017, The Huffington Post reported that Eric Bolling sent lewd text messages to two women at Fox News and one at Fox Business.[149] He was suspended pending investigation.[150] Caroline Heldman, a former Fox News guest, alleged that Bolling made numerous unwanted sexual advances towards her.[151] Bolling was suspended and eventually left the network, moving to a syndicated show produced by Sinclair Broadcast Group.

In 2013, Fox & Friends featured a segment in which contributor Dr. David B. Samadi made an appearance to discuss the cost of women's health care. On the program, Samadi argued that insurance costs more for women due to their more frequent use of health services, as opposed to men: "I just think that the whole system is not working well. I mean this is one of the examples, where men and women are totally different, there is a sex difference when it comes to the health care use, but I really think that if you pay for it, you are going to negotiate, finding out where is the best doctor, where you're going to get a better deal on all these X-rays, etc., that's how you're gonna save money."[152] Following this segment, Fox News received criticism from several online outlets.[153]

An academic study conducted by economists at the University of Chicago, Harvard University, and other institutions, found a correlation between viewership of Hannity and a greater number of COVID-19 cases and deaths, relative to viewership of Tucker Carlson Tonight on the same channel.[208]

In April 2020, the Washington League for Increased Transparency and Ethics (WASHLITE) sued Fox News under the state's Consumer Protection Act for allegedly "falsely and deceptively disseminating 'news'" that coronavirus was "not a danger to public health and safety." In response, Fox News maintained that its "political commentary" amounts to "constitutionally protected opinions" and that hosts Sean Hannity and Trish Regan participated in an "intense public debate" over the predicted severity of the threat.[209][210] On May 27, King County Superior Court Judge Brian McDonald decided Fox News was within their First Amendment rights. Washlite appealed the case,[211] and on August 30, 2021, the appeal was rejected on the grounds that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution bars WASHLITE's action.[212]

Fox fired Regan, who had claimed that the concern over coronavirus was "another attempt to impeach the president” on her show on March 9; her last appearance was on March 13.[213]

On March 26, 2021, Dominion Voting Systems filed a $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox News.

On May 18, 2021, Fox News filed a motion to dismiss the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit, asserting a First Amendment right "to inform the public about newsworthy allegations of paramount public concern."[217] A Dominion lawyer said that a dismissal of the lawsuit would give Fox News a "blank check" to lie.[218] On November 8, 2021, Dominion sued its parent companies, Fox Corporation and Fox Broadcasting, for defamation and for failing to preserve documents relating to the role Murdoch played in spreading false claims about Dominion.[219][220] On February 16, 2023, Dominion filed a motion for summary judgment, citing dozens of internal communications sent during the months after the 2020 presidential election.[221]

On April 18, 2023, Fox and Dominion settled for $787.5 million.[222]

Dominion showed evidence indicating that privately the Fox hosts did not believe the election fraud lies they pushed publicly.[223] Several prominent network hosts and senior executives—including chairman Rupert Murdoch and CEO Suzanne Scott—discussed their knowledge that the allegations of election fraud they were reporting were false. The communications showed their concerns that if they did not continue to report these falsehoods, viewers would be alienated and switch to rival conservative networks like Newsmax and OANN, impacting corporate profitability.[224]

Internal texts and other products of discovery against Fox revealed that Tucker Carlson privately doubted the false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and mocked Trump advisors, including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. Carlson texted to Laura Ingraham, "Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It's insane" and "Our viewers are good people and they believe it."[225] Furthermore, Carlson texted to Sean Hannity, saying fellow Fox reporter Jacqui Heinrich should be fired for fact-checking false claims Carlson and Trump circulated about Dominion. He wrote "Please get her fired. Seriously…. What the fuck? I’m actually shocked… It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It's measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.", and said he "just went crazy on" a Fox executive over Heinrich's reporting.[226]

Rupert Murdoch privately messaged that Trump's voter fraud claims were "really crazy stuff", telling Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott that it was "terrible stuff damaging everybody, I fear". As a January 2021 Georgia runoff election approached that would determine party control of the U.S. Senate, Murdoch told Scott, "Trump will concede eventually and we should concentrate on Georgia, helping any way we can."[225][227][228] When Murdoch was deposed, he acknowledged that some Fox News commentators were endorsing election fraud claims they knew were false.[229][230]

In February 2021, Smartmatic USA Corporation launched a defamation lawsuit against Fox Corporation, claiming $2.7 billion in damage as a result of the coverage of Donald Trump's claim that the 2020 US Presidential election was stolen. Fox motioned to dismiss. In March 2023, the New York state Supreme Court denied the motion, and the case was set to proceed.[231] On April 20, a lawyer for Smartmatic said the company would not accept a financial settlement smaller than Dominion's, and furthermore they demanded that Fox make a “full retraction” of its election lies.[232]

In July 2023, Ray Epps started legal proceedings against Fox News, following former host Tucker Carlson sharing incorrect allegations that Epps was an agent provocateur during the January 6 United States Capitol attack.[233]

In September 2023, New York City pension funds filed a lawsuit against Fox Corporation alleging negligence for knowingly opening itself up to defamation lawsuits. At the time, New York City pension funds held 857,000 shares of Fox stock worth $28.1 million.[234] The state of Oregon joined the lawsuit on behalf of the Oregon Public Employee Retirement fund which at the time held 225,000 shares worth $5.2 million.[235]

• Glenn Beck, the host of an eponymous afternoon commentary show, stated in 2009 that he believed President Obama is "a racist" and has "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture."[237] These remarks drew criticism, and resulted in a boycott promulgated by Color of Change.[238] The boycott resulted in eighty advertisers requesting their ads be removed from his programming to avoid associating their brands with content that could be considered offensive by potential customers. Beck later apologized for the remarks, stating on Fox News Sunday that he has a "big fat mouth" and miscast as racism what is actually, as he theorizes, Obama's belief in black theology.[238][239][240][241][242][243][244][245] Beck left Fox News in June 2011 after twenty-nine months with the network.[246][247]
• Neil Cavuto, who is also Fox News' vice president of business news and a current member of the network's executive committee, was described as a "Bush apologist" by critics[248] after conducting an allegedly deferential interview with President George W. Bush. Democratic strategists and politicians boycotted Cavuto's show in 2004 after he claimed, on air, that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was rooting for Bush's campaign opponent, Senator John Kerry.[249] Cavuto has also received criticism for gratuitous footage and photos of scantily clad supermodels and adult film stars on his program.[250][251]
• Alan Colmes, who from 1996 to 2009 was co-host of the political debate program Hannity & Colmes, was touted by Fox News as "a hard-hitting liberal"[252] who was used to counter the opinions of his co-host, conservative talk radio personality Sean Hannity. However, while speaking to USA Today, Colmes described himself as "quite moderate". He was characterized by several newspapers as being Hannity's "sidekick".[253] Liberal commentator and future Minnesota Senator Al Franken lambasted Colmes in his book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. Throughout the book, Colmes' name is printed in smaller type than all other words to emphasize Franken's belief that Colmes' role was to feebly defend liberal positions, allowing him to be bulldozed by Hannity. Franken accuses Colmes of refusing to ask tough questions during debates and neglecting to challenge erroneous claims made by Hannity or his guests.[253]
• John Gibson, the former host of an afternoon program called The Big Story, was cited as an example of Fox News blurring the lines between objective reporting and opinion programming. Gibson caused a general uproar among listeners immediately after the 2000 presidential election controversy when, during the opinion segment of his show, Gibson asked: "Is this a case where knowing the facts actually would be worse than not knowing? I mean, should we burn these ballots, preserve them in amber, or shred them?" and, "George Bush is going to be president. And who needs to know that he's not a legitimate president?"[254] In an opinion piece on the Hutton Inquiry decision, Gibson said the BBC had "a frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Americanism that was obsessive, irrational and dishonest" and that the BBC reporter, Andrew Gilligan, "insisted on air that the Iraqi Army was heroically repulsing an incompetent American military."[255] In reviewing viewer complaints, Ofcom (the United Kingdom's statutory broadcasting regulator) ruled that Fox News had breached the program code in three areas: "respect for truth", "opportunity to take part", and "personal opinions expressed (in an opinion slot) must not rest upon false evidence." Fox News admitted that Gilligan had not actually said the words that Gibson appeared to attribute to him; Ofcom rejected the claim that it was intended to be a paraphrase.[256] Gibson also called Joe Wilson a "liar", claimed that "the far left" is working for al-Qaeda[257] and stated that he wished that Paris had been host to the 2012 Olympic Games, because it would have subjected the city to the threat of terrorism instead of London.[258]
• Steven Milloy, a commentator for FoxNews.com, has been critical of the science behind global warming and secondhand smoke as a carcinogen. In a February 6, 2006, article in The New Republic, Paul D. Thacker revealed that ExxonMobil had donated $90,000 to two non-profit organizations run out of Milloy's house.[259] In addition, Milloy received almost $100,000 a year from Philip Morris USA during the time he was arguing that secondhand smoke was not carcinogenic.[260] Milloy's website, junkscience.com, was reviewed and revised by a public relations firm hired by RJR Tobacco.[261] In response to Thacker's disclosure of this conflict of interest, Paul Schur, director of media relations for Fox News, stated that "... Fox News was unaware of Milloy's connection with Philip Morris. Any affiliation he had should have been disclosed."[259]
• E.D. Hill introduced an upcoming discussion before a commercial break about a fist bump between Barack and Michelle Obama after the 2008 Democratic primaries by stating that the gesture was either "A fist bump? A pound? [or] A terrorist fist jab?", but never explained the term when the segment continued after the break.[262] The incident was considered controversial among bloggers and political commentators.[263][264][265][266] Hill apologized for her comments the next day.[267]
• Dick Morris appeared several times on Fox News, including one appearance on Fox & Friends two days before the 2012 presidential election, predicting that Mitt Romney would win the election in a landslide.[268] Morris was the least accurate major pundit in predicting the 2012 election.[269] After the election, Morris did not appear on Fox News for almost three months. Finally on February 5, 2013, Fox News announced that it would not renew Morris' contract.[270]
• Karl Rove protested Fox News' calling of the 2012 election for Barack Obama on November 7, 2012. Megyn Kelly then brought a camera crew to ask the off-air analysts team if they stood by their decision. After Rove continued to refuse Fox News's decision, Kelly responded by asking him, "Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better? Or is this real?"[271][272][273]
• Megyn Kelly drew controversy after making remarks in December 2013 reacting to a Slate article that postulated that "Santa Claus should not be a white man anymore". On her Fox News program, The Kelly File, Kelly quipped that, "For all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white, but this person is just arguing that maybe we should also have a black Santa," adding, "But Santa is what he is, and just so you know, we're just debating this because someone wrote about it." Kelly also stated that Jesus was white later in the segment.[274] Soon after, Jon Stewart,[275] Stephen Colbert,[276] Rachel Maddow,[277] and others satirized her remarks. A few days later, Kelly made additional on-air statements and characterized her original comments as "tongue-in-cheek".[278][279][280][281][282]

• The New York Times ran an article entitled, "At Fox News, the Colonel Who Wasn't" by Jim Rutenberg,[283] revealing that Joseph A. Cafasso, whom Fox had employed for four months as a Military and Counterterrorism Editor, had bogus military credentials.[284]

• Outfoxed, a documentary film on Fox News by activist Robert Greenwald, made assertions of bias in Fox News by interviewing a number of former employees who discuss the network's practices. For example, Frank O'Donnell, identified as a Fox News producer, says: "We were stunned, because up until that point, we were allowed to do legitimate news. Suddenly, we were ordered from the top to carry ... Republican, right-wing propaganda[,]" including being told what to say about Ronald Reagan. The network made an official response[285] and claimed that four of the individuals identified as employees of Fox News either were not employees (O'Donnell, e.g., worked for an affiliate over which Fox News claims to have no editorial authority) or had their titles inflated.[286]
• Fox Attacks was a 2007–08 viral video campaign[287][288][289] designed to expose Fox News' alleged right-wing bias.[290][291][292][293][294] It was produced by Greenwald and Brave New Films after the production of Outfoxed. Greenwald continued his anti-Fox campaign with more than twenty-five short videos on YouTube concerning Fox News' negative treatment of Barack Obama during the 2008 election cycle.[289][291][293][295] As part of the Fox Attacks campaign, Brave New Films also released "open letters" to other media outlets, and circulated anti-Fox petitions which garnered hundreds of thousands of signatures.[288][292][296][297]
• CNN founder Ted Turner accused Fox News of being "dumbed down" and "propaganda" and equated the network's popularity to Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Nazi Germany during a speech to the National Association of Television Program Executives.[298] In response, a Fox News spokesperson said, "Ted is understandably bitter having lost his ratings, his network, and now his mind. We wish him well." The Anti-Defamation League, to whom Turner had apologized in the past for a similar comparison, said Turner is "a recidivist who hasn't learned from his past mistakes."[299]
• Fox News, while covering a car chase, inadvertently broadcast the suspect shooting himself and quickly apologized as being a mistake.[300] Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute, stipulated by e-mail; "There is simply no excuse for this. It is sensationalism to carry it in the first place."[300]
• Fox News apologized for fabricated quotes attributed to John Kerry in an article on its website during the 2004 presidential campaign,[301] stating that the piece was a joke which accidentally appeared on the website.[302]
• Fox News aired a segment celebrating a 14-year-old transgender girl in California. Several conservative commentators criticized Fox News for airing the segment.[303]

• Media Matters for America, which has since announced a campaign of "guerrilla warfare and sabotage"[304] against Fox News, contends that the network specializes in "political sabotage" by putting up moderate-to-conservative "Democrats" as token liberals against more staunchly conservative Republicans. It cites the following people as examples of this:
  • Pat Caddell[305] – called the Democratic Party a "confederacy of gangsters" and defended conservative writer Ann Coulter when she said she could not talk about former senator and presidential candidate John Edwards if a homophobic epithet she used was off-limits.[306]
  • Susan Estrich[307] – known for her support for the defunct Democratic Leadership Council and once told Sean Hannity that she was his "biggest liberal friend".
• Another allegation of Fox's critics is that it sometimes ridicules protesters, especially ones for liberal causes. For example, during the 2004 Republican National Convention, Bill O'Reilly referred to some of the protesters as "terrorists" (though he added, "most protesters are peaceful").[308][309] Fox News online columnist Mike Straka referred to anti-war protesters at the September 24, 2005, march in Washington, D.C., as "jobless, anti-American, clueless, smelly, stupid traitors" and "protesters from hell".[310][311]'

The Fox News report on Malmö was replayed on Swedish television, here on SVT1.

• Iranian-Swedish newspaper commentator, author and legal professional Behrang Kianzad [312] wrote in the Expressen newspaper that "there are lies, damned lies and Fox News",[313] in response to a Fox News story about allegedly Muslim violence in the city of Malmö. The report focused on the borough of Rosengård where two out of 1,000 school students were ethnic Swedes.[314] Kianzad wrote that rock-throwing against police, firefighters and ambulance personnel happened not just in Rosengård and not as a Muslim custom. He also pointed out that the Fox News segment had false facts, namely that Malmö has about 7% immigrants from Muslim countries and not 25%. Furthermore, Kianzad pointed out the rhetoric used by Fox News to imply that Malmö had reached some sort of breaking point due to Muslim immigrants and that these immigrants were potential terrorists."[313]
• In August 2006, two Jordanian-Arab freelancers who were working for Fox News as producers resigned from the network, citing its coverage that month of Israel's conflict with the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon. Their resignation letter read in part: "We can no longer work with a news organization that claims to be fair and balanced when you are so far from that ... Not only are you Fox News an instrument of the Bush White House, and Israeli propaganda, you are warmongers with no sense of decency, nor professionalism."[315]
• On January 19, 2007, a segment on Fox & Friends featured an anonymously sourced article in the conservative web magazine Insight that claimed that associates of Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton had discovered that Senator Barack Obama had attended a "Muslim seminary" as a child in Indonesia. The term "Muslim seminary" refers to a specifically religious form of madrassa (school). It was determined within days that Obama had instead, as he had said in his memoirs, attended first a Catholic and then a modern public elementary school. The latter was, as Obama had written, "predominantly Muslim" (as Indonesia is predominantly Muslim), and not a seminary of any kind.[316] On January 31, 2007, The Washington Post suggested that because of Fox News' reporting of the Insight article, Obama had "frozen out" the network's reporters and producers while giving interviews to every other major network. After the incident, John Moody, a vice president at Fox, wrote to staff: "For the record: seeing an item on a website does not mean it is right. Nor does it mean it is ready for air on FNC. The urgent queue is our way of communicating information that is air-worthy. Please adhere to this."[317]
• In March 2007, the Nevada Democratic Party pulled out of a planned debate to be hosted by Fox News. Its spokesmen cited a joke by Roger Ailes, which hinged on President George W. Bush confusing the names of Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden, as evidence that Fox News is biased against the party. Fox News chairman David Rhodes responded to the cancellation by saying that the Democratic Party is "owned by MoveOn.org" (which had created a petition against the debate).[318]
• On May 25, 2008, Fox News political contributor Liz Trotta stated on the air, while talking about the presidential election, "And now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama, uh Obama. Well, both, if we could"; she then laughed. She apologized for the remark on-air on Fox News the next day, saying, "I am so sorry about what happened yesterday and the lame attempt at humor."[319] Trotta and Fox News were criticized for the remark by The New York Times editorial board and others.[320]
• In June 2007, when Democratic Congressman William J. Jefferson of Louisiana was indicted on corruption, racketeering, and bribery charges, Fox News ran a video of Michigan Democratic Congressman John Conyers. Conyers criticized the network for "a history of inappropriate on-air mistakes" and the network's "lackluster on-air apology” (which did not name him),[321] and a second, more specific apology was issued.[322] In November 2006 Fox News had aired footage of then-Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. while talking about Senator Barack Obama.[323]
• On September 5, 2011, Fox News criticized a speech by James P. Hoffa in Detroit calling for an "army of voters" to "take the SOBs out" and "give America back to Americans". However, Fox News edited out the mention of voters to make the speech sound like a call for violence.[324][325]
• On January 11, 2015, Fox News commentator Steven Emerson, who had been criticized for inaccuracies in the past,[326][327][328][329] reported that Birmingham, a city of over 1 million people in the United Kingdom, is a Muslim-only city: "In Britain, it's not just no-go zones, there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim where non-Muslims just simply don't go in".[330] UK Prime Minister David Cameron commented, "When I heard this, frankly, I choked on my porridge and I thought it must be April Fools' Day. This guy's clearly a complete idiot."[331] Emerson, said to be an expert of Islamic terrorism, later apologized for what he called a "terrible", "inexcusable", "reckless" and "irresponsible" error,[332] and made a donation of £500 to the Birmingham Children's Hospital.[333]
• On November 2, 2022, Fox News commentator Jesse Watters mocked a Starbucks employee—who is a part of Starbucks Workers United—lamenting oppressive working conditions while calling for unionization, stating that "hard work" got him to his position. The video clip was edited, however, so that the employee appeared to just be complaining about an eight hour work day.[334]
• In July 2023, James Ray Epps, a man who participated in the January 6th march on the US Capitol, has filed a defamation lawsuit against Fox News. Epps claims that Fox News falsely reported that he was an undercover FBI agent and responsible for the mob that broke into the Capitol.[335]