New polling from Quinnipiac University finds that more than 40% of Fox News viewers believe the network should be held to account for knowingly spreading election fraud lies about the 2020 election.
The question references the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox and notes that Fox Chairman Rupert Murdoch admitted in a deposition that a number of the network's hosts spread false claims about the election being stolen from Donald Trump.
Asked whether Fox should be held accountable or not, 41% of Republicans said yes, while 47% said no—damn near even.
Overall, 65% of respondents said Fox should be held to account (just 26% said they shouldn't), including 93% of Democrats and 67% of independents.
Even among white voters without a college degree, a big Fox demographic, twice as many say Fox should pay a price as say they shouldn't, 61%-30%.
A second question found that if people thought a news source they relied on was intentionally not reporting the truth, nearly 90% of people across partisanship and demographics said they would not continue watching or reading that outlet.
These findings would be terrible news for Fox if a significant portion of their viewers stood any chance of finding out about the way they carpet bombed the airwaves with lies following the 2020 election. But more than likely few of them ever will.
That's probably exactly why Fox has mostly forbidden its hosts and reporters from covering the lawsuit. Fox media critic Howard Kurtz finally did mention the lawsuit several days ago, framing it as a major test of free speech.
In response, a Dominion spokesperson wrote, "Dominion is a strong believer in the First Amendment and its protections. As long-settled law makes clear, the First Amendment does not shield broadcasters that knowingly or recklessly spread lies."
You know about the DSCC and DCCC, but have you heard of DASS? You'll want to! We're talking with Kim Rogers, the executive director of the not-especially-well-known but crucially important Democratic Association of Secretaries of State on this edition of The Downballot. Rogers explains how her organization helps recruit candidates, deploy resources, and win races for secretary of state across the country—and why these elections operate so differently from many others. She also tells us about what Democratic secretaries are doing to fight disinformation and expand voting rights, and the most bonkers thing she heard come out of the mouth of a 2022 election denier.
