Fox News is assaulting our justice system

Jesse Watters wants us to think jurors may be evil plotters

Fox News doesn’t want you to believe in our elections or our justice system. It wants you to simply give up on democracy and hand over the reins of power to rich Republicans.

This has been obvious for a long time and was made more so last week in Fox’s coverage of Donald Trump’s trial. The former president is charged with falsifying business records to hide his hush-money payment to a porn star in order to keep damaging facts away from the voters before the 2016 election.

Trump faces even more serious charges, of course. But Fox wants you to think Trump is charged with 88 felony counts in four different jurisdictions for no legitimate reason, even though the evidence revealed so far is damning.

In the first of those court cases to be heard, Fox is doing even worse than sowing doubt about the system: It has taken advantage of the transparency in court proceedings to turn the jurors into targets.

With no evidence, Fox host Jesse Watters accused Trump’s opponents last week of “trying to rig this jury” by installing “undercover liberal activists” as jurors. Then, in an apparent violation of a gag order, Trump shared Watters’ reckless accusation on his Truth Social account, deepening the damage.

Last Wednesday, Watters interviewed jury consultant Susan Constantine in a segment that’s now posted on Fox’s website with the headline “Can the jurors picked so far in Trump hush money trial be trusted?”

The answer from Watters and Constantine was no – especially not if they’re teachers, watch CNN, or like to dance. 

Watters was especially critical of Juror No. 2, disclosing her occupation, her neighborhood, her education level, and the fact that she lives with her fiance. Newsweek and NBC News went even further, specifying her employer.

But Watters went further in another way, suggesting the juror’s media choices made her hostile to the defendant. “This nurse scares me if I’m Trump … gets her news from the New York Times and CNN,” he said. “Goodbye.”

And yes, it was “goodbye,” because Juror No. 2 was taken off the case the next day after telling the judge that family and friends had figured out she was on the jury, based on details in the media. She said this compromised her ability to fairly judge Trump.

I’m not saying there’s anything illegal about what Watters and other media types did. The identifying facts were disclosed in open court. But considering that this trial feels like a mob case, with the defendant capable of inciting violence, the media need to show better judgment. Jurors’ names are anonymous because of the sensitivity of this case, and after identifying details were disclosed by Watters and others, Judge Juan Merchan ordered the news media not to reveal jurors’ employers. He also asked them to “simply apply common sense” and avoid physical descriptions of jurors.

But asking Fox to apply common sense is useless. The former Juror No. 2 wasn’t the only one whose fairness was questioned by Watters and Constantine. Their segment on Fox featured a graphic calling two of the jurors “pro-DEI lawyers” because their firms have diversity, equity and inclusion policies on their websites.

And the fact that Juror No. 5 is a teacher is a problem, according to Constantine: “Usually I don't like teachers on the defense side … They’re usually very opinionated. They're very right-and-wrong.”

Which is a bad thing?

She also noted that the teacher was Black and asked: “Is she going to be influenced by her own community, within the African-American [community]?”

Um, what about the other jurors? Don’t they have communities too?

Watters questioned the impartiality of yet another jury member who exhibited qualities that troubled him. “Juror No. 6, woman in her 20s, works for Disney, likes to dance,” Watters said. “I mean, that is not a Trump juror.”

This kind of thinking would be laughable if it wasn’t so corrosive to our society.

Fox News is applying the same standards to court cases that it applied to the 2020 election: If our side wins, it’s fair. If our side loses, it’s crooked.

That approach cost Fox a $787 million lawsuit settlement last year for defaming a voting machine company while spreading lies about the 2020 election. The lawsuit might have made Fox leadership more careful about internal communications that can be damaging in court cases, but it doesn’t seem to have inhibited Fox’s warping of the news and demonizing of the innocent.

When I think about how vulnerable the Trump jurors must feel, I’m reminded of those two election workers in Fulton County, Ga., Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, who were falsely accused of fraud by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others. Their lives were turned upside down. They had to deal with a wave of threats and harassment. Like these Trump jurors, Freeman and Moss were just trying to do their civic duty but got in the way of the right-wing disinformation machine.

We’re all victims of the MAGA attempts to destroy the public’s faith in democratic institutions. But some of us bear a more personal cost than others. A disturbed person died after setting himself on fire outside the Trump trial courthouse on Friday, further ratcheting up the tension for the jury that will hear the case.

I wish there was more blowback when a privileged person like Watters picks on everyday Americans for fun and profit. And I wish that everyday Americans would get more gratitude when they put themselves out there to make our society work.

After all, people like Freeman, Moss, and the Trump jurors perform a public service. Jesse Watters simply performs.