Dominion might win its suit notwithstanding the general truth of what Kevin [Williamson] said in his piece, that โnothing short of a signed and notarized statement of intent to commit libel seems to satisfy judges or juriesโ in modern defamation litigation. What the company aimed to show in its nearly 200-page brief is that, by word and deed, Fox personnel from management on down did all but openly confess their intent to commit libel. They acknowledged privately that Trumpโs conspiracy theories were false; they were warned repeatedly that those theories were false; they pressed ahead on the air with the big lie anyway.
But even if Dominion loses, itโll have extracted a measure of moral compensation. Whatever else one might call programming that suppresses the truth if it might offend the audience, โnewsโ ainโt it. (โPropagandaโ sounds about right.) No one who reads Dominionโs pleading will ever look at Fox the same way. Thatโs why the company filed it.ย
Iโve been reading the pleading and โฆ itโs something else. If Dominion doesnโt win this suit, then there is no law against defamation in this country, and โnewsโ outlets can say anything they want about anyone at any time with absolute disregard for the truth. Which, come to think of it, is what they do already, I guess. Does anyone really believe that the NYT didnโt demonstrate โactual maliceโ against Sarah Palin when it repeatedly lied that she played a role in Gabby Giffordsโ shooting? Of course not. Itโs just that a lot of people believe that Palin is an official Bad Person and therefore deserves to be lied about. ย
Which is why Operation Diogenes must go on!ย
I donโt usually think much about things I have already published, but I have continued to meditate on the subject I wrote about here โ and thereโs good reason for that, I believe. You read a story like this one and you realize how pervasively the people who profit from minors who (supposedly) suffer from gender dysphoria lie. They lie about the conditions of the children who come to them, they lie about the likely effects of their interventions, they lie about what they do and donโt do โ they lie about everything and it seems that they never stop lying. But then, we in this country also spent four years with a President and a White House staff who lied virtually every time they opened their mouths โ lied even when there was no clear advantage to lying, evermore pursuing the preferential option for bullshit. ย
I could provide ten thousand examples, but I donโt think itโs necessary: we all know that this is the situation weโre in. Thereโs a lot of talk right now โ thanks to this op-edย by Leonard Downie โ about โobjectivityโ in journalism, which term I think is a red herring: nobody has any clear idea what it means. I have never asked whether a journalist is objective; I have often asked whether a journalist is telling me the truth. And when Downie says that renouncing objectivity is a newspaperโs path to โbuilding trustโ with readers, what he clearly means is that you gain your readersโ trust by sending a strong message:ย We will never tell you truths you donโt want to hear; we will always tell you consoling lies; and thatโs how weโll get you to give us your money. He means nothing more or less or other than that.ย
So I think there is no more important question for us to ask than this: Given that almost everyone in the media is lying to us constantly, how can we discover what is true โ especially when the truth hurts? ย
Many years ago there was a huge investigation in Chicago into systemic corruption in the judiciary. It was called Operation Greylord, and it had several offshoots, because more and more corruption was uncovered. My wife ended up on one of the grand juries โ for eighteen months she took the train into Chicago every Wednesday to hear testimony โ and one of the occasional topics of discussion was what the prosecutors should call their inquiry. They ended up calling it Operation Lantern, because someone thought the original suggestion too fancypants: Operation Diogenes. The prosecutors felt that, like Diogenes with his lantern, they were looking for, but apparently failing to find, one honest man.
Thatโs what we need for journalism in America: our very own Operation Diogenes. And if we canโt find anyone willing to tell us the truth, then how can we discover it on our own? Thatโs the question we ought to be asking.ย
Like any social media platform, Truth Social relies on advertising to drive revenue, but as Twitterโs highly publicized struggle to retain advertisers has shown, itโs hard to attract major brands when a companyโs content moderation capabilities appear undependable. Thatโs likely why Truth Socialโwhich prides itself on sparking an โopen, free, and honest global conversationโ by largely avoiding content moderation altogetherโhas seemingly attracted no major advertisers.
A New York Times analysis of hundreds of Truth Social ads showed that the social media platformโs strategy for scraping by is taking ads from just about anyone. Currently, the platform, which was founded by former president Donald Trump, is attracting ad dollars from โhucksters and fringe marketersโ who are peddling products like Trump tchotchkes, gun accessories, and diet pills, the Times reported.
In addition to Truth Socialโs apparently struggling ad business, SFGate reported in November that Truth Socialโs user base also seems to be dwindling. According to The Righting, a group monitoring conservative media, Truth Social traffic peaked last August at 4 million unique visitors but dropped to 2.8 million by October.