The New York Times (NYT) editorial board member Mara Gay said Thursday that it’s “sad” Fox News allegedly does not realize it is supposed to “support democracy.”
Dominion Voting Systems filed suit against Fox Corp. and its networks for allegedly pushing false claims that Dominion’s voting machines were rigged in the 2020 presidential election. The trial is set to begin Monday.
MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace called the developments upsetting for a news organization, arguing Fox News is usually always right with their election calls and should not have cast doubt on the results.
“So what’s interesting is how much they work to be part of the coup plot, how participatory they are in something that, in an old Fox News business model, wasn’t even really good for them. And the other is how derisive and dismissive they are of what are any news organization’s shining assets, its decision desk. The truth is, they get the elect right, and they get it right first,” Wallace said. (RELATED: NYT Columnist Melts Down Over Trump’s ‘Real Resonance’ With Americans)
“It is sad to see a journalism organization kind of ditch or throw under the bus its biggest asset, which is the reporting that it produces and the journalism that it produces that hopefully viewers can rely upon,” Gay said.
“There are lines that you cannot cross, and just seeing them throw the journalistic integrity out the window is not only sad and diminishing to them as a brand and to the reporters who work there, who are doing good journalism — but actually, it’s also really sad because part of our mission as journalists is to support democracy, and that doesn’t make you biased, that makes you a journalist in the United States as part of a western democracy and I think they’ve lost their way,” she continued.
“It’s such a bigger thought to sort of end on, that they only get to do what they do because they live in a democracy,” Wallace said.
“That’s right.”
“I mean in an autocracy, an organization so rooted in, as a business model and an editorial choice, propaganda, doesn’t continue to — you know,” Wallace added.
“But that’s part of the challenge with democracies, is that sometimes your democratic institutions, you know, can be … hijacked and used against democracy,” Gay chimed in.