Dominion Settles With Fox News
In the wake of the 2020 Election and the claims that the election was stolen, Dominion’s multi-billion dollar defamation lawsuit against Fox News began commanding a lot of attention. Over the last few weeks, details have leaked from the discovery that showed Fox News personalities knew these claims were false and had less than charitable opinions about Trump and the menagerie of charlatans he has surrounded himself with. The case was set to go trial this week, but will no longer be going forward (gift link):
The judge in the Fox News defamation case said on Tuesday that the case was resolved, abruptly ending a long-running dispute over misinformation in the 2020 election just as a highly anticipated trial was about to begin.
It was a last-minute end to a case that began two years ago and after the disclosure of hundreds of thousands of pages of documents that peeled back the curtain on a media company that has long resisted outside scrutiny. The settlement included a $787.5 million payment from Fox, according to Justin Nelson, a lawyer for Dominion.
“The truth matters. Lies have consequences,” he said outside the courthouse. “Over two years ago, a torrent of lies swept Dominion and election officials across America into an alternative universe of conspiracy theories causing grievous harm to Dominion and the country.”
Dominion had originally sought $1.6 billion in damages. Fox Corporation said in a statement that “we acknowledge the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.”
It added: “We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues.”
The details of the settlement are still coming out but it would appear that this would not require Fox’s on-air personalities to acknowledge their promulgation of the Big Lie (although Fox’s news programs have already reported the settlement, including the admission to lying). While the settlement amount is less than Dominion was originally seeking, it is still a stunning sum, equal to over $3 million for every employee of the company and over a decade’s worth of revenue. Which is probably appropriate, since it’s likely the accusations have wrecked the company for good.
A lot of commentators are disappointed with this settlement since it will allow Fox and their defenders to claim some degree of vindication. I understand why the settlement was made; defamation lawsuits are notoriously difficult to win. And I also understand why Fox settled, since the image of their biggest performers taking the stand and admitting that they lied would have been a nightmare for them. But it would seem this trial is not going to be the Great Reckoning many were hoping for regarding the 2020 Election and the falsehoods heaped thereupon.
Nevertheless, it is interesting to see the wheels of justice coming for a number of grifters these days. Alex Jones was crushed by the Sandy Hook families for lies he spread about them. Dinesh D’Souza is being sued for a lie in his election movie. The two election workers who were falsely accused of pulling ballots out of “suitcases” got a settlement out of OANN and are now suing Gateway Pundit.
It would be nice if we got to the point where news organizations, documentary makers and radio hosts face consequences for promulgating lies. Fox News is now having to pay nearly 800 million consequences. Hopefully, there is more to come. And, perhaps more hopefully, this will curtail the worst excesses of the Era of Humbug that we live in.
Yet another reason why the fairness doctrine needs to come back.Report
The Fairness Doctrine was unconstitutional, sustained by the twisted logic of Red Lion. Today’s Court would absolutely strike it down. And, in any case, it would never have applied to a cable network like Fox News.Report
And getting rid of the Fairness Doctrine was…. grrrrrrrrr…. the right result.Report
You mean you think it’s okay for people to just go on TV and TELL LIES?!Report
The worst lie people tell on TV is that of the “Dramatic Confrontation.” It’s the sole reason for “Road Rage” and doctors getting attacked on the freeway with boomerangs.
The next worst lie people tell on TV is that “The Lab Coat is always Right.” This is responsible for about a hundred thousand iatrogenic deaths … in the past few years alone.
The third worst lie people tell on TV is “Stick up for the Little Guy.” I’m going to blame our entrance into Kuwait and the Ukraine on this one. They were both dumb wars (Iraq I was basically “let’s test some new toys”)…Report
Also, couldn’t it be trivially subverted by inviting on particularly dim-witted or uncharismatic person to take the opposing side?Report
The rationale behind it was that there were only a tiny number of channels with government licenses to broadcast on a limited number of frequencies. That hasn’t been the case in forever.Report
So update it for the modern reality. This is not hard folks.Report
Yeah, it actually is. We have the first AM and the gov’s desire to prevent opposition to whatever it wants to define as truth.
Whatever tools we put in place will be used by the next President Trump.
Even the various “evaluate the truth” groups have seriously beclowned themselves more than once. Thus Obama’s claim that you can keep your doctor was evaluated as truth before the vote and the lie of the year after the roll out.Report
Here we go again. The “lie” about keeping your doctor turned out to be 90% true. The real Big Lie about Obamacare was “death panels.” Does anybody remember that one?Report
The left remembers . . . .Report
Cancel Culture returns to fight free speech.Report
The problem is mostly that it takes a long time and not that it doesn’t happen.Report
And that a lot of them will make money off the lie and the lawsuit. People are throwing money at Alex Jones right now.Report
Also, lying is the least harmful form of misinformation, because it’s easier to call out. Prestige media promote false narratives through selective presentation of “the truth…and nothing but the truth.” No need to lie. You just lead your audience down a winding path through the parts of the truth consistent with the narrative and away from the parts that contradict it.
This is just as effective as lying, but much more resistant to debunking. “That’s technically true, but when you account for X, Y, and Z, you’ll see that the full story is very different from what you’ve been led to believe” is a much less effective rebuttal than “That’s a lie and here’s the proof.”Report
When was the last time you called a hospital to verify if the emergency room is actually full?
(A good friend of mine does this for work — they weren’t full, despite the yearlong propaganda campaign, that neatly fell apart when all the Good Vaxxed Democrats started getting Omicron.)Report
One of my friends in Michigan was an doctor who did ER. The young healthy and unvaxed dying because they’re unvaxed is a thing.Report
1,684 is the total deaths from COVID19 for the 18-34 cohort in California (first public data in the search engine). Your friend has statistics for how many hospitals?
I mean, sure, someone died who was in the 18-34 cohort. They weren’t filling up hospital emergency rooms, though. Not in California, and not in Texas, where the liars decided to claim (via bot-armies) there was a problem.Report
This is my complaint of BLM and some other Blue causes.
I disagree. Subtract lying and there is no anti-vax movement and no “stop the steal” movement.
This is why Trump did so badly in court. Courts have rules against outright lying and take the licenses of lawyers who do it. Thus he had to present stupid arguments rather than outright lies.Report
The reaction of the Republican voting base to the “revelations” is what is revelatory.
As it was revealed that Fox News was a propaganda outfit pushing lies and distortions which even their own personalities knew were lies, how did the base react? With shock and anger, furious that they had been duped?
Nope. They knew it was all a lie, all along, but just don’t care.
Tomorrow they will repeat the lies, as if none of this ever happened.
Its important for us non-reactionaries to refuse to take the bait and accept the premises of the lies.
For example, when they assert that efforts to manipulate the various state boards of elections have anything to do with “voter fraud” instead of a desire to steal a future election.
Or that DeSantis’ war against Disney is about “good governance” instead of a desire to crush dissent;
Or that efforts to ostracize and punish trans people are about “protecting children”;
Or that attempts to risk a debt default have anything to do with “fiscal responsibility”;
These are all just lies. Not errors, not honest differences of opinion about which reasonable people can disagree, but simply lies that even the people telling them don’t believe.Report
Babylon Bee: Fox News Defamation Trial Over As Jury Votes In Favor Of Dominion 138,000 To 1Report
I was expecting a low 9-figure settlement… but $785M? Wow.
“A report commissioned by Dominion and filed with the court laid out about a billion dollars worth of damages the company says it has experienced. Dominion says it has lost $16 million in profits, more than $70 million in potential business, $14 million in legal, security and other expenses and more than $900 million in value”
I guess Fox got to see what their ‘actual’ valuation/revenue figures must have been vs. the widely reported $40M revenues. Because at $40M revenue, they should likely have been able to simply buy the company for, say, $200-$300M.
I mean, by any measurable metric, it doesn’t matter what Dominion ever does by way of revenue… they should liquidate and enjoy the win.
Maybe the core team can start a Voting Systems company as a hobby after a few years of sabbatical.Report
Probably just insurance money.Report
Maybe. I hate to think the premium on a policy that pays out that much on this kind of claim.Report
I find it hard to believe that any insurance company is going to cover Fox News against billion dollar “you were lying” lawsuits.
Further since they’re part of a massive corporation, you’d think they’d be self insuring through Fox Corp.Report
Probably an extremely ‘reasonable’ premium for this claim. It’s the renewal premium that you gotta watch out for.Report
Maybe… although I’m not sure insurance pays for your own crimes.
And this is just one settlement. They still have another, larger, voting machine case pending with Dominion’s competitor.
For perspective, all of Fox combined had a net income of $2.15B in 2021. That’s Fox Entertainment, Fox TV, Fox News, and Fox Sports combined.
This is past “cost of doing business” territory, especially if we double it with the other lawsuit.Report
Crimes? The standard commercial general liability policy covers defamation and slander lawsuits. It’s an insurable risk.Report
It’s definitely insurable, I’m just wondering if it’s insurable to the tune of the settlement amount, or what you have to pay in premiums to have it insurable to those amounts. This is one of those things where you may have made the business decision to be self-insured. Especially if you run a business like Fox News where something like this was bound to happen eventually.Report
I think journalist know more than they are willing to report on this, but here’s Business Insider:
“Despite the looming settlement number, the Fox Corporation could ultimately escape relatively unscathed financially. The media source told Insider that insurance typically covers these types of agreements.
“Fox News representatives and attorneys declined to answer Insider’s questions on their libel insurance.
“It was not immediately clear on Tuesday how Fox will handle the payout, but back in 2013 when shareholders sued the News Corp. board for not providing more oversight of the newspaper operation, which was accused of hacking the phones of celebrities, insurance paid out the $139 million settlement, according to Reuters. Fox was later spun out of News Corp into a separate company.”Report
Reporters often “know” more than they are willing to report because they can’t back it up if push comes to shove. I don’t see any reason they wouldn’t report this if they had it nailed down. It is true that insurance typically covers things like this, and they reported that, but the real juice is whether there are coverage limits or some other way that the insurer might be able to avoid paying. You’d pretty much have to see the policy, or have the word of someone who knows, to report on that.Report
I didn’t mean to come off as grousing about the Business Insider story I quoted, they did a good job. Reporters can’t report about insurance coverage when nobody will answer questions about whether it exists, unless there is a pending insurance coverage dispute litigation, which would be interesting also.
But reporters should mention insurance coverage is common because it has explanatory power about how the litigation proceeded and ended. And while I recognize reporters are rarely specialist in all of the areas they cover, they almost certainly understand one of the common benefits from working in a news organization over free-lancing is insurance coverage.Report
I was reading some more about this. I wonder if Fox News wasn’t thinking about the long term result of having their biggest stars take the stand and admit they just make stuff up. The lifeblood of cable news and FN in particular I think is a kind of kayfabe. Even if the whole audience knows in their head it isn’t real it could never survive an official admission.
Anyway yea, this is called sell the IP, the desks, the chairs and the laptops and close up shop. I’m reminded of a situation a dozen years ago or so where Albert Haynesworth punched some random guy in a road rage incident. This is like that but way bigger. They won the defendant lottery.Report
Considering that we have seen the emails regarding loosing viewers when they were fact checked by their own news division – yeah I’d say so.Report
it’s also true that the entire premise of the Republican Party in 2023 is kayfabe
None of the things they say are real positions sincerely held, but propaganda straight out of an Arendt or Orwell essay.Report
Sure, that’s what makes it interesting… basically they were willing to pay more than the company was worth to not have to do that.
If they’d gone to trial and lost and in the damages phase the $900M in ‘potential’ revenue is scrutinized… well, that’s a risk on Dominion. Counter-Counter point: the punitive damages were in addition to the $1.6B filing. Not sure how those would be calculated. In any circumstance, it just seems curious to get a settlement for multiples greater than the value of the company.
At any rate, If I were a principal at Dominion, definitely pushing to cash out, buy a yacht and update my LinkedIn with: “Voting Systems are my Passion” and call it a career.Report
I’m not seeing well-sourced data on the question, but Fox News is likely worth way more than $787.5 million.Report
Not Fox, Dominion.Report
Lots of things for Fox to be scared about here, the settlement fixed that.
They’re lying about an election and enabling someone’s attempt to overthrow the country. That’s putting legal risk and political risk (i.e. hostile laws) on the table.
The Judge has been fair, which unfortunately for them also means “hostile”. What we’ve seen thus far as been so bad that it’s pretty clear they’re guilty, and it’s provable, and they’d end up paying the entire original amount plus penalties. They might even be forced to tell the truth to their viewers.
And that would be the gift which keeps giving because all the evidence being used against them now would also be used against them in the other lawsuits.Report
Freedom of speech means being allowed to speak freely in opposition to a statement or a promoted point of view on a program or a network. We don’t have true freedom of speech in this country, because opposing views were quashed from biased programs and networks by a misguided FCC via removal of the longstanding Doctrine in 1987.
Restore and codify the Fairness Doctrine. Include cable this time. Cable TV is TV. Require all venues who do news/opinion to allow opposing views in their venues. Penalize those operators who don’t. When the 35-year stench in the air begins to clear, the internet will likely take mitigating measures of its own to curb disinformation, fear-driven hate, and calls to violence.Report
A reminder: if something is only punished with a fine, it is legal for rich people to do.
Also a reminder: Fox News technically didn’t have to lie about the Dominion systems, and the only reason it ran into trouble here is that the lie was about a specific company that was willing to defend itself. There was just as much damaging misinformation about poll workers and changed ballots and ballot harvesting that was not sued over.
I.e, this also basically only happened because fox news, or actually the Trump lawyers who went on Fox News, decided to attack Dominion despite not actually needing to, they could have spread just as much misinformation without involving them. Or, to rephrase, Trump’s lawyers are incompetent and have always been incompetent, in every possible way, and this lawsuit happened because of them.
People seem to think this was some sort of referendum on whether or not you can lie about election information, but the 2030 election pretty much definitively proved you _could_ lie about election information, just repeat as much misinformation as you want, as long as you didn’t target one moderately-sized corporation that would be willing to go after you. (Well, actually, two cuz there’s still the Smartmatic lawsuit.)
I did quite enjoy the discovery, though, and what I’m really going to enjoy are the Fox shareholder lawsuits that are already in progress, suing the organization for putting itself into disrepute (and thus damaging the stock price) despite knowing it was reporting things that were factually incorrect.Report
Those shareholder lawsuits will be very interesting to follow.Report