Post-2020 United States presidential election
Newsmax promoted baseless[46][47][48] allegations that voting machine company Smartmatic and its competitor Dominion Voting Systems had conspired to rig the election against Trump. On Facebook, Newsmax published a video of its host Carl Higbie making three minutes of debunked claims against the election results, which accumulated 16.5 million views from November 7 to 10.[10] In December 2020, Smartmatic sent a letter to Newsmax threatening legal action and demanding "a full and complete retraction of all false and defamatory statements and reports".[49][50]
Days later, a Newsmax host stated the company "would like to clarify its news coverage and note it has not reported as true certain claims" made by Newsmax interviewees about Dominion and Smartmatic. Newsmax declared that it had "no evidence" of certain claims made on its programming, including the claim that the two companies have a business relationship, the claim that either company used each other's software, and the claim that either company "manipulated votes" in the 2020 American general election.[51][52] Newsmax also stated it had "no evidence" that Smartmatic software was used anywhere except Los Angeles during the 2020 election.[53] Newsmax additionally said viewers should be aware of "several facts", including that both companies have no relationship with George Soros, and that "Smartmatic is a U.S. company and not owned by the Venezuelan government" or any other foreign entity.[54][55]
Mediaite's Rudy Takala wrote that conservatives disgruntled with Fox News could potentially be disappointed by Newsmax due to CEO Christopher Ruddy's friendship with former Democratic president Bill Clinton and positive remarks about a Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.[56] Newsmax has previously donated $1 million to the Clinton Foundation. When reached for comment, Ruddy said, "Like Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch and other business people, I have donated to the Clinton Foundation and a few Democrats, but over 90 percent of my political contributions have been to Republicans, including ones to President Trump."[56]
Jeffrey McCall, a journalism professor at DePauw University, told Mediaite that "Ruddy is a pragmatist unlikely to allow his operation to be a fully ideological platform. Trump allies who want to bend the arc of media progressivism will need a much more comprehensive national strategy than just trying to take over one particular media outlet."[56]
Adweek reported that Newsmax's TV ratings grew tenfold in the fourth quarter of 2020 compared to the previous quarter. Its top two shows, Spicer & Co. and Greg Kelly Reports (at 7 p.m.), averaged 816,000 total viewers during the same November 7–18 interval.[57] Regarding coverage of the Biden administration, CEO Christopher Ruddy told Adweek "I think Newsmax's job is to be loyal opposition, to question the policies, the programs and the people that are coming into the Biden administration. We're going to take a very careful look at that. I think we were pretty fair with Barack Obama. We were tough on him, but we never called for his impeachment", he said.[58] Newsmax TV momentarily exceeded Fox News in viewership in December 2020, but lost viewers after the conclusion of the election cycle.[59][60] A Pew Research Center study found that Newsmax's reach (10% of American adults) continued to trail Fox News's reach (43% of American adults) in March 2021.[61]
In July 2021, Vox noted that "Newsmax's effort to out-Trump the competition has been less successful since Trump left the White House for Mar-a-Lago. Newsmax's viewership is down more than 50 percent from January (from an average of about 300,000 viewers then to about 114,000 on July 18), and following a significant slump in December and January, Fox News has reestablished itself as not just the most-watched right-wing cable news network but the most-watched cable news network, period."[62]
In November 2021, a study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate described Newsmax as being among "ten fringe publishers" that together were responsible for nearly 70 percent of Facebook user interactions with content that denies climate change. Facebook disputed the study's methodology.[63][64][65]
Also in November 2021, Newsmax White House correspondent Emerald Robinson falsely tweeted that the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine contained luciferase "so that you can be tracked". This echoed earlier false social media claims that the vaccine supposedly had satanic links due to "lucifer" in luciferase and alleged references to "666". Robinson's tweet began with the salutation "Dear Christians" and referred her over 400,000 followers to the Book of Revelation; in a tweet days earlier, she equated vaccines with the Mark of the Beast.[66][67][68] Twitter removed the tweet that day and suspended Robinson's account for seven days, citing "repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation policy", as Newsmax sought to distance itself from her remark and removed her from the air pending an inquiry.[69][70] Robinson returned to Twitter after her suspension to continue spreading COVID-19 misinformation, causing Twitter to permanently ban her within hours.[71]
DirecTV dropped Newsmax from its lineup in January 2023, after the companies failed to agree on contract terms.[74][75] In response, 42 House Republicans signed a letter to DirecTV executives attacking the removal as an act of "suppressing politically disfavored speech".[76] The two companies resolved their dispute and DirecTV resumed broadcasting Newsmax in March 2023.[77][78]
In May 2023 the "small conservative cable news channel saw its ratings surge" once again in response to actions by Fox News: "Fox’s decision to fire [Tucker] Carlson". Newsmax's viewership during the prime-time spot vacated by Carlson more than doubled.[79] This increase surpassed the 2020 post-election surge and on a night-by-night basis they challenged CNN through the month to be the third-most-watched cable news channel (behind MSNBC and Fox).[80][81] On November 1, 2023, Newsmax placed its live content behind a paywall on YouTube ("Newsmax+") while still offering a free streaming channel ("Newsmax 2").[82]
In March 2024, The Washington Post reported that between 2019 and 2020, a member of the Qatari Royal Family had invested $50 million in the network in the midst of the Qatar diplomatic crisis. It also reported that network leaders had told staffers to soften coverage related to Qatar following the investment, a claim the network later denied in response to the report.[83][84][85] The investment was made by Sheikh Sultan bin Jassim Al Thani, a former Qatari government official and the owner of a London-based investment fund, with Newsmax looking for outside investors to better compete with Fox News.[86]
In April 2024, Newsmax was included as a defendant in a defamation lawsuit by a man who was falsely identified as the perpetrator of the 2023 Allen, Texas mall shooting, alongside others such as Fox News and InfoWars personality Owen Shroyer. The man alleged the defendants had "recklessly disregarded basic journalistic safeguards and published the photo of an innocent man, branding him as a neo-Nazi murderer to his local community and the nation at large".[87]
2020 election lawsuits
In December 2020, Newsmax was included as a defendant in a defamation lawsuit by Dominion executive Eric Coomer.[88] Coomer asserted that the defendants had characterized him as a "traitor" and that as a result he was subjected to "multiple credible death threats".[89][88][90] In April 2021, Newsmax published a retraction and apology on its website, saying it "found no evidence" to support the allegations against Coomer.[91]
In August 2021, Dominion sued Newsmax for "knowingly and continuously" promoting false election fraud narratives.[14][92]
