Fox News Dominion case: Rupert Murdoch son drops lawsuit against news site as Smartmatic eyes trial

The Independent’s Sean O’Grady writes:

“The truth matters. Lies have consequences”. The lawyer for Dominion Voting Systems put it better than any of Rupert Murdoch’s mercenary army of journalists ever would; or, indeed ever be permitted attempt to do so (the sensational story doesn’t figure much on his channels or in his titles). And it is about time that someone, somewhere, decided “enough already with the fake news”.

Without wishing to come over as sanctimonious – we journalists are all of us flawed – the humiliation of Fox News at the hands of Dominion, a hitherto obscure election machinery company, is a victory for truth.

It’s not as simple as that – because no defamation case of this magnitude can be – but the world is now just a little better off, a little safer, a little more protected from the abuse of media power than it was before Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News decided to cave in to Dominion.

The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg writes:

For a good portion of the network’s quarter-century on the air, Fox News went by the mantra of “we report, you decide”.

But after the network wholeheartedly embraced Donald Trump in 2016, the reporting became optional because their viewers had already decided.

They decided to believe whatever Trump told them. And when they heard something that contradicted that, they looked elsewhere for more comforting lies.

Two years later, Fox’s audience has remained loyal to Trump, but the twice-impeached ex-president’s lies are still exacting a cost.

Some of that cost may yet to be extracted from Fox’s bottom line.

Another voting machine manufacturer, Smartmatic, still has a multi-billion dollar lawsuit pending against Fox for many of the same lies that pushed Rupert Murdoch and his organisation to offer more than three-quarters of a billion dollars to get Dominion to drop their case.

But it may be Mr Trump who ultimately pays the highest price.

Former president Donald Trump’s social media output in the hours since Fox News reached a $787m settlement with Dominion Voting Systems has included numerous posts promoting a series of digital trading cards he is selling, attacks on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and bizarre complaints about Elon Musk and alleged censorship on Twitter (where Mr Trump’s account has gone unused since it was restored earlier this year).

But Mr Trump has not weighed in on Fox’s decision to offer more than three-quarters of a billion dollars to Dominion rather than allow a Delaware jury to determine how much the right-wing network should pay for broadcasting repeated lies about the company’s products rather than report the truth because it was upsetting their audience.

Andrew Feinberg reports.

Stephen Colbert could barely contain his laughter as he discussed the news that Fox News has settled a defamation lawsuit with Dominion for $787.5m.

“Damnit! I want my trial! I want it!” he shouted. “I wanted to see Rupert Murdoch put his hand on the Bible and burst into flames.

“I guess it’s satisfying for Dominion that Rup-y had to fork over a pile of cash, but that does nothing for our democracy.”

Isobel Lewis has the full story.

Despite the $787.5m settlement, there will be no retractions or on-air apologies on Fox, a source with knowledge of the agreement told The Independent.

Josh Marcus has the details.

The settlement between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems has become the largest publicly known payout ever struck by an American media company.

Fox Corp and Fox News on Tuesday settled a defamation lawsuit slapped against it by Dominion by agreeing to pay $787.5m to the voting equipment company.

Sweta Sharma has the full story.

Fox News has had very little to say about Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6bn defamation lawsuit for nearly the entirety of its existence, but finally deemed the story worth covering on Tuesday when it announced the parties had settled.

In Fox News’ story — which comes in at 256 words, approximately 70 of which are a block quote from a Fox spokesman— we do not learn why the company was sued, just that it was broadly sued for defamation. We also do not learn how much it cost the network to make the trial go away.

(It was $787.5m, in case you missed it.)

Graig Graziosi has the story.

Noah Berlatsky writes for The Independent:

To the general disappointment of progressive observers, Fox settled its lawsuit with Dominion voting systems just before the trial’s opening arguments were slated to begin.

I, along with plenty of others, had been hoping for a full trial. We wanted to see Fox anchors like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity testify in open court under oath that they had lied to their viewers about the election, insisting that the vote was rigged against Donald Trump when they knew it was not.

Fox was desperate to avoid that, and with a $787.5 million settlement – the biggest libel payout in American history – they did.

A long trial underlining the perfidy and recklessness of right-wing media would have been a healthy outcome for democracy, and could have even undermined Fox’s reputation with some of its fanbase.

But it’s important to acknowledge that the lawsuit does provide some accountability, and, just as important, it makes future coup attempts or assaults on democracy more difficult. We know from discovery that Fox carefully weighed incentives and financial consequences before pushing election lies. This payout changes those incentives for the future. That’s a good thing.

Fox News declared it was “pleased” to have paid out $787.5m to Dominion Voting Systems and avoided a grueling six-week courtroom examination of its shoddy journalistic practices.

Yet the measured celebration in Fox’s statement after paying out the second largest defamation award in US history may be short-lived.

However, the thousands of emails, texts and private documents unearthed during Dominion’s discovery process have pried open Fox’s internal decision-making process, and the willingness of its anchors and executives to lie for the sake of ratings, like never before.