How do you solve a problem like Maria Bartiromo?
Fox News executives may be asking that question as she emerges as a central figure in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion libel suit against the conservative news network.
Declassified court documents and testimony related to the case have consistently cited Bartiromo for allowing former President Trump’s false claims of voter fraud to be broadcast on the network in 2020 to discourage angry viewers from leaving the network.
Falsehoods, such as claims that the Denver-based maker of voting machines in Venezuela was set up to help Hugo Chávez and that its software rigged votes in favor of President Biden, circulated unchallenged on the network in the weeks following the election, despite evidence to the contrary .
Court testimony shows that in the days leading up to and after the 2020 election, colleagues and executives questioned Bartiromo’s online activities and expressed concern that she was being influenced by right-wing conspiracy theorists.
Bartiromo’s texts, which appeared in court documents released Tuesday, said she was “concerned” about the outcome of President Biden’s won election and hoped fraud would be discovered that would nullify the outcome.
“I want massive fraud to come to light. Will (Trump) be able to turn it around. I told my team we can’t say an area code. Not in the scriptures. Not in banners in the air. Until it goes to court,” Bartiromo said in a text message to disgraced Trump aide Steve Bannon, who was convicted of contempt in July for denying a congressional subpoena from the House of Representatives that the investigation into the March 6 riot in the Capitol opened. whistled.
“You are our warrior. Enough with the grief. We need you,” replied Bannon, encouraging Bartiromo to run for the U.S. Senate seat held by New York’s Charles E. Schumer.
On November 5, 2020, two days after the election, Washington anchor Bret Baier, who oversees news gathering at Fox News, warned Jay Wallace that Bartiromo had made false claims about the election.
Gary Schreier, a producer who has worked with Bartiromo since 2012, told his bosses that Bartiromo has been influenced by Trump’s most extreme supporters.
“The problem is she (GOP) has conspiracy theorists on her ear and sometimes uses her for their message,” Schreier Lauren Petterson, who oversees Fox Business Network, said in a text message.
That same day, Wallace was told that Bartiromo was spreading conspiracy theories about Dominion on the right-wing social media site Parler, to which he replied, “I don’t know why she’s inviting that.”
When Schreier flagged a Bartiromo tweet endorsing conspiracy theories for Petterson, she suggested that Bartiromo “should disappear from the social network”. [media] all together.” Schreier agreed, noting that Bartiromo “says[ing] crazy s—t” online.
In his statement, Schreier said his comments were made out of concern that Bartiromo was straying too far from financial news and that coverage of controversial political issues would turn advertisers off their program.
Dominion alleges that Fox News acted with malice and reckless disregard for the truth in bringing the allegations against the company, fueling the emotions that led Trump supporters to storm the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Fox News claims its reporting and commentary is protected by the First Amendment because claims made by a sitting president are newsworthy even if they are false.
Bartiromo is one of four Fox News and Fox Business Network figures named in the lawsuit, along with Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro and Lou Dobbs, who are no longer part of the company. Fox Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch admitted under oath that they all made false claims about the 2020 election that he believed were fair.
But the difference with Bartiromo is that she identifies as a news anchor, as she suggested in her statement.
Hannity, Dobbs, and Pirro are considered opinion leaders, and Fox News executives have stated that they are not held to the same journalistic standards as pure news outlets.
Schreier said Fox News opinion shows are not required to correct falsehoods in their broadcasts. Another Fox News executive, David Clark, told the court that Hannity – the network’s longest-running primetime star – was not a credible source of news.
Bartiromo, 55, came to Fox News with a distinguished background as a tireless financial journalist who spent more than 20 years at CNBC. A respected pioneer, she was the first woman to report from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. She joined Fox News in 2013 for an annual salary of $5 million.
Bartiromo is on the air 15½ hours a week on the Fox Business Network as the host of Mornings with Maria and hosts the highest-rated Sunday morning show on Fox News, Sunday Morning Futures.
The host primarily spoke to CEOs on her corporate shows, but became more political after joining Fox News. Her conservative views have become more apparent and Murdoch is said to love her.
Bartiromo did not respond to a request for comment.
Ahead of a hearing on Tuesday, Fox News lawyers offered new emails showing that Bartiromo was not acting maliciously because she did not know whether the accusations made by lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani on Fox News are true or false, and that she has doubts to the legitimacy of the 2020 elections.
Court documents provided by Fox News include comments in a December 2020 email from Nicole Beckman, then an employee of Dominion’s PR firm, Hamilton Place Strategies. Beckman said Bartiromo “made no statements that appear to have strong grounds for libel because she is always careful not to quote other individuals (‘a published report says…’) or not explicitly mention Dominion. She leaves it to her guests to make slanderous claims.”
Bartiromo testified that no one in management did anything to prevent or force them to correct the data. While Bartiromo spent time on the story, top executives, reporters, and even Fox News stars like Tucker Carlson and Dana Perino have said privately that Trump’s claims are false and questioned the sanity of Powell and Giuliani.
Carlson — the most popular and outspoken bearer of the conservative torch at Fox News — has gone to great lengths to distance himself from Trump, saying in one text, “I hate him with a passion.”
Much of the testimony related to Bartiromo focuses on Powell and Giuliani’s performances. The duo gained a platform for the Sunday Morning Futures audience of nearly 2 million viewers per week, where they amplified Trump’s bogus election claims.
Bartiromo himself has made false statements, such as repeating false claims that Dominion is owned by the voting software company Smartmatic, which is also suing Fox News and other conservative networks for libel.
In her statement, Bartiromo claimed that she still doesn’t know if the numerous allegations against Dominion on her show are true or false.
She said she repeatedly asked Powell and Giuliani when they would provide evidence to support their claims and did not detain them after they ran out.
But several Fox News executives agreed in their testimony with Dominion’s claims that Bartiromo did not question any of Powell’s false statements when she appeared on Sunday Morning Futures. Bartiromo also admitted that despite accurate information from Dominion and other Fox News journalists, she never provided any evidence to refute Powell’s claims.
Abby Grossberg, Bartiromo’s Senior Booking Producer at the time, was asked in court whether she believed Sunday Morning Futures had a duty to correct inaccurate information provided by its guests. Her answer was “no,” a surprising admission given that viewers have traditionally come to expect political programs on Sunday mornings that hold government officials accountable.
Bartiromo also testified that she did not feel the need to independently investigate claims made by her guests before submitting them.
While it can be difficult to correct guests in real time, Dominion argued that Fox News could have removed incorrect information for reruns. But the programs repeated unchanged.
Fox News lawyers on Tuesday tried to soften the evidence against the network and Bartiromo through emails between the host and Tony Fratto, another Hamilton Place Strategies executive and a former spokesman for the George W. Bush administration, to bring them to trial. to present to the court.
Fratto, who had a warm relationship with Bartiromo, messaged Giuliani after her interview.
“What Rudy is saying is really not true, and neither is Sidney Powell — it’s a tinfoil conspiracy,” Fratto said. “And I think they need a strong backlash with facts. I’m not saying ignore the story, but Rudy literally makes things up as he goes.
An email response from Bartiromo asked, “You mean I shouldn’t cover an incumbent president who becomes president? Should I just call it off and go with the rest of the media…?”
“I’m not saying ignore the story…” Fratto said.
Bartiromo offered to have Dominion’s CEO on her show and read a lengthy statement from the company on her November 20, 2020 show.
Fratto’s testimony said his efforts to get Bartiromo to stop discussing Giuliani and Powell had no repercussions.
He later wrote to Wallace hoping to embarrass the network by comparing it to its up-and-coming rival, Newsmax.
A Fox News letter said some people in the organization dismissing Trump’s claims do not mean those who believe they acted maliciously in presenting them.
“It’s hardly unusual for some people in a newsroom (with the different political views you’d expect) to disbelieve the allegations and hope they’re ultimately untrue, while others stay open-ended in the hope that they’ll come true.”
Source: LA Times