Can We Arrest Fox News Hosts for Disinformation?

Here’s What the Law Actually Allows

Eliza Mackintosh, CNN

The pattern is decisively consistent. First consolidate media. Then implement authoritarian policies. Controlled media redirects blame for consequences. The captured information infrastructure prevents democratic accountability from operating. A free and just nation requires an independent and ethical press. It follows then, that the profit incentive is antithetical to democracy and justice.

The United States now exhibits these conditions. Fox News reaches 38% of Americans regularly. Fifty-seven percent of Republicans regularly get news from Fox News. Sinclair’s 178 stations reach 40% of households through local news that Americans trust more than national news by a ten-point margin. Musk’s Twitter has 200 million followers and around half a billion monthly users.

Worth note, research published in Science and Science Advances finds conservatives share more low-quality sources and misinformation than liberals, with subsequent studies in Nature Scientific Reports and Harvard Misinformation Review confirming these findings. This creates asymmetry in information environments. When oligarch policies produce economic suffering, these outlets redirect blame to immigrants, Democrats, or claim things are going well. Constitutional violations get alternative explanations or outright denial. Foreign policy failures get reattributed to different causes or reframed as successes.

Follow the money to understand the point. Jeff Bezos “loses” $100 million annually to prop up the Washington Post. This represents 0.04% of his $250 billion net worth. At this rate, Bezos could sustain Post losses for 2,500 years. The losses are immaterial to him. His motivations are not financial. These purchases provide value far greater than their dollars and cents cost. It allows oligarchs to shape and direct public discourse away from their sickening behavior.

Voters in those jurisdictions don’t hold leaders accountable because they cannot identify who caused their problems. The common assumption that people will ‘wake up when things get bad enough’ ignores how sealed information environments function. Economic collapse doesn’t break through when Fox, Sinclair, and Twitter are telling audiences who to blame instead. Suffering alone doesn’t create insight. It creates rage that captured media redirects toward preferred enemies and convenient scapegoats. The worse conditions become, the more these voters will support authoritarian solutions to problems their trusted sources falsely attribute to democratic governance itself.

This percentage matters because democratic systems require more than simple majority rule. Constitutional governance, legislative compromise, and peaceful transfers of power depend on substantial majorities accepting electoral outcomes as legitimate. When 40% of voters inhabit information environments telling them elections are stolen, policies are sabotage, and opposition is treasonous, they will not accept democratic outcomes. They will support unconstitutional measures to restore what their trusted sources tell them was taken illegally. The percentage is large enough to make democratic governance impossible but too large to be dismissed as a fringe.

The federal government will not address this consolidation. Republicans control federal institutions. The billionaires who own media outlets receive tens of billions in federal contracts and regulatory decisions. Their business interests depend on maintaining Republican power. More critically, many of these people face potential criminal prosecution if Democrats restore rule of law. Elon Musk led a government department overseeing agencies that regulate his companies and award him contracts. That is corruption. Jeff Bezos killed an endorsement the day his executives met with Trump about contracts. That is corruption. Paramount paid Trump $16 million and got regulatory approval 22 days later. If prosecutors who are not captured by these people ever investigate these arrangements, prison time becomes possible. These billionaires are not just protecting profits. They are protecting themselves. This leaves state governments as the only entities with both motivation and authority to act.

The states that can act are the states where voters still consume diverse information. California, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, Washington. These states control access to markets billionaires cannot afford to lose. They must use that power aggressively or watch democratic accountability collapse nationwide.

Republicans and oligarchs are breaking the rules. They are using media ownership to hide open corruption and lawless behavior. They are blocking endorsements to curry favor. They are installing conservative operatives atop news organizations. They do not care about norms or precedent. If states with power refuse to fight back because they are worried about process or precedent, they will lose.

The First Amendment constrains state action but it does not prohibit it. Several pathways remain constitutionally viable. States must pursue all of them simultaneously.

States should establish criminal penalties for systematic disinformation campaigns. Not civil penalties. Criminal penalties. Prison time. The law recognizes that falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater creates dangerous panic, yet accepts that billionaire-controlled media can lie about economic responsibility, redirect blame for policy failures, and conceal corruption affecting millions without criminal consequence. When Fox News anchors or Sinclair broadcasts knowingly spread false information to protect oligarch interests, that constitutes fraud. When social media executives allow coordinated lies that redirect public blame away from billionaire policy failures, that constitutes fraud. The distinction matters: editorial judgment and political commentary remain protected. Knowingly lying to protect federal contracts, conceal corruption, or prevent democratic accountability does not.

Prosecutors should file criminal charges against media figures and executives engaged in these operations. Make them defend it in court. Make judges rule explicitly that the First Amendment protects billionaire-funded systematic deception. Force that confrontation. These media operations exist to shield their owners from consequences. States either prosecute this fraud with the seriousness they prosecute any other scheme to defraud the public, or they accept that oligarchs can simply buy the right to lie without legal consequence.

This is not about arresting journalists for opinions. This is about prosecuting fraud. When someone accepts money from foreign governments to spread disinformation without disclosure, that is already illegal under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The DOJ indicted RT employees for funneling $10 million to U.S. influencers in September 2024. When someone knowingly lies about voting procedures to prevent citizens from casting ballots, that is criminal election interference. The distinction matters: editorial judgment and political commentary remain protected. Coordinated disinformation campaigns funded by hostile governments or designed to prevent voting do not. States should prosecute the latter with the same seriousness they prosecute any other fraud that undermines democratic processes.

Sinclair operates 178 stations under licenses granted by the FCC. Those licenses require serving the public interest. Systematic dissemination of disinformation does not serve the public interest. States should petition the FCC to revoke Sinclair licenses. When the FCC refuses, states should challenge that refusal in court. Make federal courts rule explicitly that broadcast licenses protect systematic propaganda. Make them say it out loud.

When Larry Ellison’s Warner Bros Discovery acquisition comes before regulators, California and New York should file to block it. Not based on economic competition. Based on information infrastructure. Concentrating CBS News and CNN under single ownership controlled by a billionaire with $18 billion in SpaceX contracts threatens democracy. State attorneys general should use state antitrust laws to challenge this. Make courts rule explicitly that billionaires can use media acquisitions to protect federal contracts. Make that the precedent.

States should enact their own Foreign Agents Registration Acts requiring anyone receiving foreign government funding to register and label all content. Penalties should be criminal, not civil. When RT employees funnel $10 million to U.S. influencers without disclosure, state prosecutors should file charges. When platforms carry foreign-funded content without labels, states should fine them daily until they comply or ban them entirely.

Demand your state use its power. Contact your governor, attorney general, and state legislators. Demand they pursue criminal charges for election disinformation. Demand they block media consolidation. Demand they ban non-compliant platforms. Demand they fund counter-speech campaigns. Do not accept procedural excuses. The other side is not following procedures.

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Academic research shows media capture precedes authoritarian consolidation in every documented case. The sequence has operated in Hungary, Russia, and Turkey. It is operating in the United States now. Federal action is impossible when federal institutions are captured. The states most damaged by oligarch-controlled media are the states least likely to regulate it.

This leaves states with remaining power facing a choice they cannot avoid making. Refusing to act is itself a choice with consequences. There is no neutral ground, no procedural path that preserves norms while the other side dismantles them. The other side is using media ownership to protect tens of billions in federal contracts, blocking endorsements to curry favor with the administration, and installing operatives atop news organizations. They are doing this openly. States either use the power they retain or watch it become irrelevant. The consolidation documented in this series establishes that the capture is underway. The question is not whether states will interfere with established norms. The question is whether they will act while action remains possible. The window is closing.

Author’s Note

This is part two of a series documenting oligarch media consolidation and state-level solutions. Part one covers the timeline of billionaire media acquisitions and the pattern from Hungary, Russia, and Turkey. Follow The Existentialist Republic on Substack or Christopher Armitage on Medium for the complete analysis.

The link to part one can be found at the end of the references list.

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References

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CNN. (2024, October 2). Elon Musk’s X is worth nearly 80% less than when he bought it, Fidelity estimates. CNN Business.

Federal Communications Commission. (2017). Sinclair and Tribune, MB Docket 17-179.

Kornfield, M. (2024, December 19). Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump met for dinner at Mar-a-Lago, joined by Elon Musk. The Washington Post.

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U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs. (2024, September 4). Two RT employees indicted for covertly funding and directing U.S. company that published thousands of videos in furtherance of Russian interests [Press release].

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Variety. (2025, July 2). Paramount, President Trump reach $16 million settlement over ‘60 Minutes’ lawsuit.