This reporting is one of several scoops featured in this week’s edition of Confider, the newsletter pulling back the curtain on the media. Subscribe here and send your questions, tips, and complaints here.
The Dominion defamation lawsuit against Fox News is by far the biggest media story of the year and a number of star journalists are already looking to cash in.
Michael Wolff was spotted at Delaware Superior Court Monday, according to our spywitness, and has recently signed on as a commentator for Sky News UK and is discussing writing a book about Fox News, Confider has learned.
Wolff, who was asked by the judge to take off his hat in the courtroom, was close to former Fox Chairman Roger Ailes and infamously published off-the-record remarks he made.
Also hearing the ka-ching of the cash register is media man-about-town Brian Stelter, who announced last week he is releasing his second book on Fox’s Network of Lies which will be rushed out for a November release.
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In the meantime, one of the conservative cable giant’s thirstiest competitors has all but ignored the case as it moves to trial this week.
Newsmax, the MAGA channel that saw exponential growth in late 2020 by peddling election lies, hasn’t mentioned Dominion’s $1.6 billion suit on-air in nearly a month. And even then, it was merely network CEO Chris Ruddy boasting that unearthed texts and emails showed Fox News executives freaking out over Newsmax poaching pro-Trump viewers following the 2020 election.
Prior to that, the channel’s scant coverage of the case revolved around Tucker Carlson’s behind-the-scenes attacks on Donald Trump, or Ruddy’s CPAC appearance where he bemoaned that Newsmax was also facing down a billion-dollar lawsuit from the voting software firm.
Several Newsmax staffers told Confider that they hadn’t heard of any network plans to cover the Dominion trial, adding that the channel may avoid it altogether because of its own legal troubles with the company. And despite the fact that Newsmax typically takes glee in any bad publicity Fox News receives, sources said that wouldn’t be the case with the trial.
“I mean if we lost that case, Newsmax would be gone,” one insider noted.
Newsmax and Wolff did not respond to a request for comment.
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