Fox News avoids trial by paying Dominion $787.5 million to settle a libel action.

 Fox News was sued by Dominion for $1.6 billion in March 2021, allegedly for promoting Donald Trump's false claims that the presidential election was rigged.

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The News

By Mehran Khan

WILMINGTON, United States: Dominion, a provider of voting equipment, filed a defamation suit against Fox News, alleging that the network intentionally broadcast false statements linking its devices to a plot to rig the 2020 US election. The case was settled for $787.5 million on Tuesday.

The settlement arrangement prevented what most analysts believed would have been a damaging trial for the conservative channel in which Rupert Murdoch, the owner, would have had to give public testimony.

After the 12 jurors had been chosen and the Delaware Superior Court was getting ready to hear opening arguments, Judge Eric Davis revealed the last-minute accord.

In a statement, Fox News expressed its "pleasure" with the resolution of the conflict and stated: "We acknowledge the court's findings finding certain allegations regarding Dominion to be incorrect.

Fox had "admitted to telling lies about Dominion that caused enormous damage to my company, our employees, and our customers," Dominion CEO John Poulos told reporters outside the court. Nothing will ever make that up.

The New York Times dubbed the hearings "the defamation trial of the century," as they involved a media outlet purposefully spreading false material while also pushing the boundaries of free speech in the country.

Analysts had anticipated that the hearing could end up being one of the most important libel cases in US legal history.

The deal, which is thought to be one of the richest in a defamation case ever, means that prominent anchors like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity will also avoid testifying.

According to US media, the agreement does not compel Fox hosts to apologize on-air or acknowledge that they have distributed inaccurate information.

In March 2021, Dominion sued Fox News for $1.6 billion, claiming that it had supported Donald Trump's unfounded assertion that the election he lost to Joe Biden had been rigged using the network's equipment.

Fox broadcast the lies, according to Dominion, even though it knew they were false.

It said that the network started backing Trump's conspiracy because it was losing viewers to smaller competitors after it became the first television station to predict that the Democrat would win the presidency by picking Biden to win the southwestern state of Arizona.

First Amendment rights

Ox News denied libel. It asserted that it was protected by the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech because it was merely reporting on Trump's charges and not endorsing them.

Plaintiffs find it challenging to prevail in defamation lawsuits in the US due to the protection.

Davis determined that there was no doubt Fox broadcasted defamatory claims regarding Dominion during pre-trial proceedings.

To succeed, Dominion would have needed to demonstrate that Fox News behaved maliciously, either by knowing the material was false or by showing a "reckless disregard" for the truth.

Since 1964, the strict burden has served as the cornerstone of US media law.

Dominion published a wealth of internal messages from Fox News in which certain pundits and executives disputed Trump's assertions and even voiced animosity towards the former president despite praising him on TV. This was evidence of malice, according to Dominion.

According to a filing, Murdoch called the remarks made by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, two former Trump advisers, supporting Trump's assertion that the election was rigged, as "very insane stuff. And harmful.

According to court records submitted by Dominion, Murdoch acknowledged in a deposition in the case that some on-air personalities had "endorsed" the deception but claimed that the network as a whole had pushed it.

The day will come, Carlson assured colleagues, when he can "ignore Trump most nights," adding, "I hate him passionately."

Dominion was charged by Fox News with "cherry-picking and taking quotes out of context."

High-profile Fox figures representing themselves in court, according to Delaware Law School professor John Culhane of Widener University, would have been substantially worse for the network than the settlement.

"The audio would have been replayed a thousand times, forever," he said to AFP.

In spite of recent setbacks, Fox News was the most-watched cable news channel for the sixth year in a row in 2017, well outpacing rivals MSNBC and CNN.

While it does employ some traditional news reporters, conservative pundits receive the majority of its airtime, including during prime-time programs.

According to Media Matters advocacy organization president Angelo Carusone, "The network has been completely exposed as a partisan propaganda outlet that is willing to do anything for profit and power."