Fox News employees expressed concerns network was intentionally aiding Trump, legal filings reveal | Fox News

Multiple Fox News employees expressed concerns about the network’s editorial standards and the conduct of its top hosts in an internal survey conducted in the summer and fall of 2020; One of them went so far as to wonder if they had sold “their soul to the devil,” according to legal filings.

The employees’ statements were excerpted from a 771-page dossier published last week and made public as part of a defamation lawsuit filed against the network by voting technology company Smartmatic.

The comments come from an anonymous internal survey called the “Fox News 2020 Great Place to Work Trust Index Survey” of 1,040 employees conducted between August 24, 2020 and September 8, 2020. Several employees have raised concerns that the network is intentionally helping Donald Trump and the Republican party.

An anonymous employee said Fox should “change its misogynist, racist, right-wing content,” adding: “Fox News is NOT a news organization but is the propaganda machine of the Republican party and should be recognized as such. It’s embarrassing to tell people I work here, as even conservatives know.” [Fox News Channel] And [Fox Business Network] “They are not news, they are biased sources of information.” While the employee described the work environment as “great,” he said “the content is hateful and has made the world a more divided and angry place.”

“Sometimes I go home fighting back tears,” one employee said. “This network made me question my morality. Did I sell my soul to the devil?”

One employee said the network needs to “come out of Trump’s pocket” and realize that its most prominent hosts, including Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, “are an absolute disgrace, peddling slander and conspiracy theories.” “Many days I feel like I am part of the problem and that FNC is contributing to hate in this country,” the person said.

“This company aligns itself with the current management and has lost its integrity,” one employee said. “I wish our work had a purpose other than pushing the brand, ideology and political will. [the president]another comment read.

Most of the comments were specifically about the network’s conservative opinion hosts rather than the news division. “I wish management would put an end to the conspiracy theories and hateful rhetoric of such hosts,” said one employee. “To change our credibility and the way we are perceived, we must stand up for our real journalists and focus more on newsgathering and reporting.”

One staffer demanded “a commitment from opinion hosts/producers to tell viewers only the truth and back up their arguments with hard, proven facts given in full context rather than distortions or reckless assumptions that harm real people.”

Fox said the survey responses are irrelevant to Smartmatic’s lawsuit because they were provided months before the network covered the 2020 presidential election, which is the basis of the lawsuit. “There is no connection between these comments and the state of mind of the individuals responsible for the statements on the matter,” the network said, referring to on-air comments from hosts such as Jeanine Pirro and Lou Dobbs. The organization that conducted the survey, Great Place to Work, After all, it’s Fox certified. It is considered one of the best places to work in 2020, with the vast majority of network employees approving of it as an employer. It is also unclear whether the remarks mentioned in the application came from a broad group of employees or a select few employees.

But Smartmatic believes critical comments from employees provide evidence that Fox executives were aware of internal concerns about what the network was broadcasting. The company also alleged that Fox’s board did not act on the survey results, providing a “stark warning” about the network’s programming.

Several employees named in the survey directly called for new editorial guidelines to be implemented. “I would suggest that FOX establish some general code of ethics or positions that police editorial content so that we can limit the spread of insensitive and/or misinformation, racism, and xenophobia,” one said.

Consistent with Smartmatic’s assertion that Fox has turned to a strategy of embracing Trump’s election-denying claims for fear of alienating viewers, one employee expressed the belief that “there is a fear that we cannot anger the president or his most zealous supporters and that we have abandoned any pretense of actual reporting.” (Fox denied such a “spin” and maintained that it did not disparage Smartmatic in its coverage of the 2020 election.)

In a legal document responding to Smartmatic’s allegations, Fox did not dispute the employees’ proposals but said many of them were “incomplete.”

Smartmatic’s 2021 lawsuit against Fox moved slowly. Next month, the parties will appear before a judge in New York to petition him to grant their motion for summary judgment and ask him to rule on key aspects of the case before it reaches a jury.

But in a slight twist Thursday, Smartmatic was officially added to an indictment filed last year by the Department of Justice against several company executives, accusing them of participating in a scheme to bribe election officials in the Philippines in connection with the country’s 2016 election.

“We can now categorically deny these allegations,” a Smartmatic spokesperson said. “This is wrong on the facts and wrong on the law. We will contest the allegations and are confident we will prevail in court.”

While the indictment does not have a direct impact on the merits of the case, depending on whether Smartmatic can prove that Fox’s hosts and guests knowingly made false statements about the company’s conduct during the 2020 U.S. election, the charges could theoretically take into account estimates of the company’s value and how much damages it might owe if a jury decides in its favor.

Judicial hearing officer Alan C Marin ruled on Thursday that Smartmatic must produce documentation regarding the impact of the alleged conduct on the company’s business. Fox has repeatedly said Smartmatic’s estimated losses are grossly inflated.