Edward R. Murrow in a speech known today as “wires and lights in a box” chastised television and radio for not living up to their potential.

This was his exit speech from CBS and he shocked the industry by sharply criticizing it. He urged the media to teach, illuminate and inspire and not just be a commodity to sell advertising.

Instead, he said, “television is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us.” His words are truer today than they were in 1958.

As a journalist, Murrow set the gold standard for reporting, a standard that all journalists are still measured by. For him, all news must be fact driven and all analyses must be based on those facts.

The total abandonment of facts by the Fox network and its imitators would have appalled him.

Fox led the charge in accusing Dominion voting machines of being manipulated by a vast array of miscreants from the Italian government to space lasers operated by unspecified evil doers. This manipulation, Fox claimed, led to Donald Trump’s loss of the presidency and fueled his repeated bids to remain in office after he lost.

Dominion sued for libel in a case that is likely to make it to the Supreme Court.

To be clear, truth is always a defense in libel cases. If Fox could prove any of its claims, Dominion would lose. Fox has lost consistently in all of the courts which considered this case. In fact, Fox no longer claims any of its statements were true.

Internal memos revealed in court show clearly that all the Fox anchors knew the statements they were making on air were false, deliberately made the decision to say them anyway and defended those statements outside work as part of the network’s support for Trump.

Fox’s owner, Australian Rupert Murdoch, acknowledged in those memos that he knew Dominion’s machines were not tampered with and that Joe Biden won the 2020 election fairly.

Dominion has proven its claim that Fox and its minions lied and lied knowingly. It has proven that Fox ignored the truth. It has proven its claim that the company has suffered damage from the continuous barrage of lies Murdock directed his employees to use. Dominion, however, may still lose this case.

In New York Times v Sullivan, the Supreme Court set the standard for winning a libel case against the news media at “actual malice.” That means the plaintiff must prove that the news media intended to do them harm.

The media’s defense is that it did not exceed normal journalistic standards or recklessly disregard the facts. Proving actual malice is very hard.

Fox cannot rely on the usual defenses of a news outlet, so it hasn’t. In court, Fox and Murdock argue that Carlson, Ingraham and Hannity are entertainers who nobody expects to tell the truth.

The intention of the newscasters was to keep their jobs. The intention of Murdock was to keep ratings high. The intention of Fox advertisers was not to alienate their viewers who didn’t want to hear the truth, that Joe Biden won the presidency fairly.

Nobody wanted to hurt Dominion, even though they persisted in lying after being served with cease and desist orders.

What is clear from the court records is that Fox wanted to help Trump and hurt Biden. It used the lies against Dominion as a way of hurting a third party, Joe Biden.

The key issue in this case is whether abandoning all journalistic standards to damage a third party, not a party to the suit, is actual malice. The Supreme Court would be widening the definition of actual malice if it rules in favor of Dominion, making suits against a lying media easier.

This ruling would place the conservatives on the Court in an awkward position. They want to make it easier for conservatives to file harassing lawsuits against liberal media so they want to do away with actual malice entirely.

If they do away with actual malice, Dominion wins big and Fox News goes out of business.

The Supreme Court could rule that continuing to knowingly lie after being served with cease and desist orders is proof of actual malice toward Dominion and Dominion could win without the Court changing the standard now protecting news media from frivolous and harassing lawsuits. Court watchers don’t think that will happen.

Edward R. Murrow would weep were he alive today.

Dr. Jane Elza, Ph.D., retired, is a resident of Valdosta.