Fox News settles with Dominion, agrees to pay $787.5 million

[RZehr]

Fox acknowledges that it aired false election claims.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/dominions ... 023-04-18/

[Ken]

With that much money they can buy 1/55th worth of Twitter!

[Jazman]

From the Reuters... "Under questioning from a Dominion lawyer, Murdoch testified that he thought everything about the election was on the "up-and-up" and doubted the rigging claims from the very beginning, according to Dominion's filing.

Asked if he could have intervened to stop Giuliani from continuing to spread falsehoods on air, Murdoch responded, "I could have. But I didn't," the filing said."

[Ernie]

Is this a win for both sides, or did one side get the better end of the deal? (as compared with this thing going to trial)
Obviously Dominion got a lot of money, but I'm thinking more about the public perceptions of Dominion and Fox going forward.

[mike]

I didn't see anything about this on Fox News

[JimFoxvog]

This is a loss for the public as we don't get the public testimony supporting Dominion's claims.

[temporal1]

When cases are settled, they’re settled, often with details sealed.
Speculation isn’t settled or ended. Opinions.

The case that lingers in my mind, was NICK SANDMANN / NYT (and others).

For some in busness, lawsuits are just Standard Operating Procedures, they come and go, making little difference to the business.
They don’t take it personally, it’s “nothing.” (i learned from a business person i once worked for.) The NYT paid big, no obvious change.

[Szdfan]

Is this a win for both sides, or did one side get the better end of the deal? (as compared with this thing going to trial)
Obviously Dominion got a lot of money, but I'm thinking more about the public perceptions of Dominion and Fox going forward.

So Dominion gets about half of what they sued for and they got Fox to admit that their coverage isn't true. Proving "malice" legally in a defamation case is a high bar to clear. Fox probably would have appealed a ruling against it and the case would have dragged on for years.

Because of discovery, emails that showed Fox executives, producers and on-air talent knew that the accusations were false are now part of public record. That's a huge win for Dominion.

Fox avoids the spectacle of having its executives and talent dragged to the courthouse to provide testimony. While this settlement is one of the largest in a defamation case, Fox easily has enough money to pay it. More critically, it doesn't sound like Fox has to apologize on-air, which means that a lot of its audience is unaware of what's happened.

I think this means that not much at Fox is going to change, though they might be more cautious about outright defamation.

Of course this isn't over for Fox. They're also being sued by another voting machines manufacturer for defamation.

[Szdfan]

I didn't see anything about this on Fox News

Apparently they don't have to apologize on-air.

[JimFoxvog]

Of course this isn't over for Fox. They're also being sued by another voting machines manufacturer for defamation.

As this one hasn't seen as much news coverage, I just revisited this thread to post this.

Fox resolves Dominion case, but a bigger election defamation lawsuit looms
April 19 (Reuters) - Fox News on Tuesday disposed of one legal threat with its $787.5 million defamation settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, but the network still faces a $2.7 billion lawsuit from another voting technology company over its coverage of debunked election-rigging claims.
...
Smartmatic is seeking $2.7 billion in damages from Fox and five individuals, including former Trump lawyers and hosts.

Smartmatic alleges in its lawsuit in New York County Supreme Court that the defendants knowingly spread false claims that its software was used to flip votes. Conspiracy theorists erroneously claimed Smartmatic owned Dominion, and the companies mounted similar allegations in their lawsuits.
...
https://www.reuters.com/legal/fox-resol ... 023-04-19/