There seemed to be no consequence for the peddling of the most outrageous ideas in primetime. But now, unfortunately for Fox News, One America News Network (OAN) and Newsmax, it turns out that this brave, new world wasn’t free of legal jurisdiction — with the three networks now facing billion-dollar lawsuits as a result of the baseless their charges. In June, Dominion Voting Systems, which provided voting machines in 28 states, was given the go-ahead to sue Fox Corp, the parent company of Fox News, in a case that could drag Rupert Murdoch and son of, Lachlan. . In the $1.6 billion lawsuit, Dominion accuses Fox Corp, specifically the Murdochs, of allowing Fox News to amplify false claims that the polling company rigged the election for Joe Biden. Fox Corp had tried to dismiss the suit, but a Delaware judge said Dominion had shown sufficient evidence for the lawsuit to proceed. Dominion has already sued Fox News, as well as OAN and Newsmax. “These allegations support a reasonable inference that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch either knew that Dominion had not rigged the election or at least had a reckless disregard for the truth when they allegedly caused Fox News to spread its allegations about Dominion,” said Judge Eric Davis. Davis’ ruling is no guarantee that Fox will be found liable. But the judge made it clear that this is no frivolous attempt by Dominion – and media and legal experts believe Fox may be in real trouble. “Dominion has a very strong case against Fox News — and against OAN for that matter,” said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor who teaches constitutional law at Stetson University and a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan think tank. law and politics. . “The reason Dominion is suing is because Fox and other right-wing news outlets have repeated vicious lies that Dominion’s voting machines stole the 2020 election from Trump to Biden. But all these conspiracy theories about the Dominion machines were just bunk and Fox as a news organization should know that and not give a mouthpiece to this aspect of the big lie.” “What’s particularly bad about Fox is [that] “Dominion asked them to stop and correct the record in real time, and Fox persisted in spreading false statements about the voting machine company.” Indeed, in his ruling, Davis noted that “other newspapers controlled by Rupert Murdoch, including the Wall Street Journal and New York Post, condemned President Trump’s claims and urged him to concede defeat.” In a statement, a Fox News spokesperson said: “Limiting the ability of the press to report freely on the American election process runs counter to the freedoms on which this nation was founded, and we are confident we will prevail in this case. as the First Amendment is the foundation of our democracy and freedom of the press must be protected.” A possible precedent for Dominion v Fox could be found in a recent case involving Sarah Palin, who sued the New York Times. Palin claimed the paper maliciously damaged her reputation by falsely linking her campaign rhetoric to a mass shooting. In February, a jury sided with the Times, finding that a Times employee had not acted with “actual malice” against a public figure or with “reckless disregard” for the truth — the criteria necessary to prove defamation . But the Times’ victory shouldn’t give Fox much hope, Torres-Spelliscy said. “In the Palin case, the New York Times quickly corrected an error about Palin that had been added while editing an article,” Torres-Spelliscy said. “Instead, Fox News continued its bad behavior and repeatedly told myths about Dominion’s voting machines. This is likely why the judges in many of these Dominion defamation cases have not dismissed them.” Dominion isn’t the only company seeking damages from Fox and its contemporaries. Smartmatic, an election software company that provided voting software to exactly one county in the 2020 election, but found itself subject to allegations that it was founded “with the specific purpose of fixing the election” by associates of Hugo Chavez, the former Venezuelan president who died in 2013, suing Fox Corp, Fox News and its affiliates for $2.7 billion. Still, Fox News is the most-watched and arguably the most influential cable news channel in the US, and it’s probably too big to fail. But that’s not the case for the smaller right-wing networks OAN and Newsmax, which are also being sued by Dominion and Smartmatic — in June, a Delaware judge denied Newsmax’s motion to dismiss the Dominion case, but did not consider whether Newsmax he was innocent or guilty. “I think OAN will be wiped out from legal costs. Forget all judgment,” said Angelo Carusone, president and CEO of Media Matters for America, which monitors right-wing media. Carusone pointed out that OAN is already struggling to survive, after being spun off by cable company DirecTV – which reportedly accounted for 90% of OAN’s revenue – in April. “We’re starting to see, already, they’re cutting back on programming, laying off staff, cutting back on the number of programs. So it’s pretty clear that they don’t have sufficient resources to deal with a protracted litigation.” Newsmax, which is still carried by DirecTV, is “relatively a cash drain” compared to OAN, Carusone said — enough to survive a trial, if not to pay the billions of dollars sought by Dominion and Smartmatic. The Newsmax booth at the NRA convention in Houston in May. Photo: Patrick T Fallon/AFP/Getty Images In a statement, Newsmax said it had “reported the allegations made by President Trump and his surrogates, and at no time did we indicate that those allegations were true. We also cited critics of Trump’s claims.” He added: “The Dominion suit is an attack on a free press and endangers the entire press if it prevails.” OAN did not respond to a request for comment. As for Fox, the most important thing could be if the Murdochs are subject to discovery — where they and Fox could be forced to hand over documents that may include communications data — as part of the legal process, Carusone said. Text messages obtained by the Jan. 6 committee have already revealed that there was communication between the Fox News hosts and White House officials about the riot — and it seems unlikely that was the only thing that was discussed. “I think once you start pulling the discovery material, what you’re going to find is that there was a lot of communication between Trump’s people both internally and externally to promote very specific lies and narratives,” Carusone said. While Fox is more comfortable financially than OAN and NewsMax, it is not invulnerable. Fox News is set to renegotiate its contracts with cable providers at the end of this year, and Carusone said the cable companies could use the lawsuit to lower prices. The Dominion and Smartmatic cases are likely to drag on for quite some time, and it remains to be seen how Fox News, OAN and NewsMax will react. As for the news channels’ conspiracy allegations of election fraud, at least that’s one thing that’s already been settled. Courts, the Department of Justice, election officials investigated and dismissed the allegations, as did the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency of the US Department of Homeland Security. “The November 3 election was the most secure in American history,” the agency said in a statement in 2020. “While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about our election process, we can assure you that we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should too.” William Barr, Trump’s attorney general, put it in rather less complicated terms. Allegations of election interference, Barr told the Jan. 6 panel, were “nonsense.”
title: “Fox And Friends Face Billion Dollar Us Lawsuits Over Election Fraud Claims Fox News " ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-03” author: “Michael Richardson”
There seemed to be no consequence for the peddling of the most outrageous ideas in primetime. But now, unfortunately for Fox News, One America News Network (OAN) and Newsmax, it turns out that this brave, new world wasn’t free of legal jurisdiction — with the three networks now facing billion-dollar lawsuits as a result of the baseless their charges. In June, Dominion Voting Systems, which provided voting machines in 28 states, was given the go-ahead to sue Fox Corp, the parent company of Fox News, in a case that could drag Rupert Murdoch and son of, Lachlan. . In the $1.6 billion lawsuit, Dominion accuses Fox Corp, specifically the Murdochs, of allowing Fox News to amplify false claims that the polling company rigged the election for Joe Biden. Fox Corp had tried to dismiss the suit, but a Delaware judge said Dominion had shown sufficient evidence for the lawsuit to proceed. Dominion has already sued Fox News, as well as OAN and Newsmax. “These allegations support a reasonable inference that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch either knew that Dominion had not rigged the election or at least had a reckless disregard for the truth when they allegedly caused Fox News to spread its allegations about Dominion,” said Judge Eric Davis. Davis’ ruling is no guarantee that Fox will be found liable. But the judge made it clear that this is no frivolous attempt by Dominion – and media and legal experts believe Fox may be in real trouble. “Dominion has a very strong case against Fox News — and against OAN for that matter,” said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor who teaches constitutional law at Stetson University and a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan think tank. law and politics. . “The reason Dominion is suing is because Fox and other right-wing news outlets have repeated vicious lies that Dominion’s voting machines stole the 2020 election from Trump to Biden. But all these conspiracy theories about the Dominion machines were just bunk and Fox as a news organization should know that and not give a mouthpiece to this aspect of the big lie.” “What’s particularly bad about Fox is [that] “Dominion asked them to stop and correct the record in real time, and Fox persisted in spreading false statements about the voting machine company.” Indeed, in his ruling, Davis noted that “other newspapers controlled by Rupert Murdoch, including the Wall Street Journal and New York Post, condemned President Trump’s claims and urged him to concede defeat.” In a statement, a Fox News spokesperson said: “Limiting the ability of the press to report freely on the American election process runs counter to the freedoms on which this nation was founded, and we are confident we will prevail in this case. as the First Amendment is the foundation of our democracy and freedom of the press must be protected.” A possible precedent for Dominion v Fox could be found in a recent case involving Sarah Palin, who sued the New York Times. Palin claimed the paper maliciously damaged her reputation by falsely linking her campaign rhetoric to a mass shooting. In February, a jury sided with the Times, finding that a Times employee had not acted with “actual malice” against a public figure or with “reckless disregard” for the truth — the criteria necessary to prove defamation . But the Times’ victory shouldn’t give Fox much hope, Torres-Spelliscy said. “In the Palin case, the New York Times quickly corrected an error about Palin that had been added while editing an article,” Torres-Spelliscy said. “Instead, Fox News continued its bad behavior and repeatedly told myths about Dominion’s voting machines. This is likely why the judges in many of these Dominion defamation cases have not dismissed them.” Dominion isn’t the only company seeking damages from Fox and its contemporaries. Smartmatic, an election software company that provided voting software to exactly one county in the 2020 election, but found itself subject to allegations that it was founded “with the specific purpose of fixing the election” by associates of Hugo Chavez, the former Venezuelan president who died in 2013, suing Fox Corp, Fox News and its affiliates for $2.7 billion. Still, Fox News is the most-watched and arguably the most influential cable news channel in the US, and it’s probably too big to fail. But that’s not the case for the smaller right-wing networks OAN and Newsmax, which are also being sued by Dominion and Smartmatic — in June, a Delaware judge denied Newsmax’s motion to dismiss the Dominion case, but did not consider whether Newsmax he was innocent or guilty. “I think OAN will be wiped out from legal costs. Forget all judgment,” said Angelo Carusone, president and CEO of Media Matters for America, which monitors right-wing media. Carusone pointed out that OAN is already struggling to survive, after being spun off by cable company DirecTV – which reportedly accounted for 90% of OAN’s revenue – in April. “We’re starting to see, already, they’re cutting back on programming, laying off staff, cutting back on the number of programs. So it’s pretty clear that they don’t have sufficient resources to deal with a protracted litigation.” Newsmax, which is still carried by DirecTV, is “relatively a cash drain” compared to OAN, Carusone said — enough to survive a trial, if not to pay the billions of dollars sought by Dominion and Smartmatic. The Newsmax booth at the NRA convention in Houston in May. Photo: Patrick T Fallon/AFP/Getty Images In a statement, Newsmax said it had “reported the allegations made by President Trump and his surrogates, and at no time did we indicate that those allegations were true. We also cited critics of Trump’s claims.” He added: “The Dominion suit is an attack on a free press and endangers the entire press if it prevails.” OAN did not respond to a request for comment. As for Fox, the most important thing could be if the Murdochs are subject to discovery — where they and Fox could be forced to hand over documents that may include communications data — as part of the legal process, Carusone said. Text messages obtained by the Jan. 6 committee have already revealed that there was communication between the Fox News hosts and White House officials about the riot — and it seems unlikely that was the only thing that was discussed. “I think once you start pulling the discovery material, what you’re going to find is that there was a lot of communication between Trump’s people both internally and externally to promote very specific lies and narratives,” Carusone said. While Fox is more comfortable financially than OAN and NewsMax, it is not invulnerable. Fox News is set to renegotiate its contracts with cable providers at the end of this year, and Carusone said the cable companies could use the lawsuit to lower prices. The Dominion and Smartmatic cases are likely to drag on for some time, and it remains to be seen how Fox News, OAN and NewsMax will react. As for the news channels’ conspiracy allegations of election fraud, at least that’s one thing that’s already been settled. Courts, the Department of Justice, election officials investigated and dismissed the allegations, as did the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency of the US Department of Homeland Security. “The November 3 election was the most secure in American history,” the agency said in a statement in 2020. “While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about our election process, we can assure you that we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should too.” William Barr, Trump’s attorney general, put it in rather less complicated terms. Allegations of election interference, Barr told the Jan. 6 panel, were “nonsense.”
