Audience for lies is frighteningly large

It harms democracy when a major media outlet openly commits itself to spreading lies and ignoring reality. It is even worse that an audience vast enough to make that commitment profitable all but demands those lies.

That is democracy’s Fox News infection. Court documents in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News have made it clear that the channel’s executives and on-air personalities knew full well that the 2020 presidential election was free and fair, that there was no meaningful fraud, that Joe

Biden was the legitimate winner — and peddled on air the opposite.

“Actual malice” and “reckless disregard for the truth” is a high legal standard for Dominion to reach, but the internal communications revealed so far suggests that Fox prioritized the desire of its audience to hear lies. Telling the truth would drive their viewers away and hurt the stock price.

If Fox News is embarrassed by these revelations, it is not evident in its behavior or content. This week, Tucker Carlson — the prime-time Fox News host whose prolific lie-telling is such that his employer has argued in previous court cases that no reasonable person can believe what he says — launched a revisionist history campaign depicting the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection as a group of casual sightseers.

Carlson does this with the connivance of House Speaker Kevin Mccarthy, himself a captive of the Republican “looney caucus.” And it creates a vicious cycle — hallucinatory “news” feeds the political psychosis that enhances the clout within the broader party of its worst elements.

That’s not just a Fox News problem. It’s not just a Republican Party problem. It is a problem for the entire body politic.