(New York) The long-awaited trial will not take place. Anxious to avoid further exposure of its lies about the 2020 presidential election, news channel Fox News reached an out-of-court settlement on Tuesday with voting machine maker Dominion Voting Systems, which had sued the in early 2021 a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against her.
Announced at the last minute, the deal calls for $787.5 million to be paid by Fox News to Dominion, according to Justin Nelson, one of the election technology company’s attorneys.
“The truth is important. Lies have consequences,” the attorney told reporters outside the courthouse in Wilmington, Delaware, where the trial was to take place. “More than two years ago, a torrent of lies swept Dominion election officials across America into an alternate universe of conspiracy theories, causing serious harm to Dominion and the country. »
PHOTO ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Dominion boss John Poulos (on microphone) at a press briefing after the settlement was reached with Fox News, outside a court in Wilmington, Delaware
Dominion boss John Poulos hailed a “historic” settlement, the largest in US history on defamation.
“Fox admitted to lying about Dominion,” he said.
Fox vicariously admitted wrongdoing in a written statement: “We note the Court’s rulings that have found certain Dominion assertions to be false. »
But the conservative channel won’t have to admit its lies or apologize on the air.
The observers’ verdicts were not long in coming.
“With this settlement, everyone wins,” said the New York Times Martin Garbus, lawyer specializing in matters relating to the First Amendment of the Constitution. “Fox is on his way. Dominion collects the money. »
Michael Socolow, professor in the department of communications and journalism at the University of Maine, did not contradict the famous jurist.
“The amount Fox News was willing to pay is staggering,” he told The Press. Dominion cannot be faulted for agreeing to a $787 million settlement. To put it into perspective, that’s $29 million a year for every year Fox News has been in existence, or 27 years. »
Even the public is a winner, as hopefully Fox News will be more careful and circumspect in airing defamatory and knowingly false claims.
Michael Socolow, professor in the Department of Communications and Journalism at the University of Maine
Some of the public would still have liked the truth about the lies conveyed by Fox News and its hosts to be revealed to as many Americans as possible in the context of a trial.
“Real malice”
Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis announced the settlement more than two hours after jury selection ended and before opening arguments began. It thus brought an abrupt end to a trial whose preliminary stages had already generated enormous media interest due to the sensational revelations concerning Fox News executives and stars.
The trial promised to be historic for another reason. In a country where it is very rare for a media outlet to be convicted of defamation, Dominion seemed to have collected enough evidence to establish that Fox News had acted with “actual malice”, a major legal obstacle.
PHOTO JULIO CORTEZ, ASSOCIATED PRESS
A man holds a sign saying ‘Fox Is Guilty’ during the Dominion Voting Systems team press briefing after the settlement was reached with Fox News, in Wilmington, Delaware.
Dominion accused Fox News of misleading viewers into believing its voting machines were used to rig the results of the 2020 presidential election and deprive Donald Trump of the victory he was due. However, the technological company was ready to present to the jury documents and testimonies intended to prove that the leaders and the animators of the chain knew that the theories propagated by allies of the ex-president were false.
According to the evidence available to Dominion, these lies had only one purpose: to stem the flight of Fox News viewers to Newsmax and OAN, its more Trumpist competitors.
This evidence included texts and emails exchanged between Fox News hosts and executives after the November 3, 2020 election.
“Sidney Powell is lying, by the way. I cornered her. This is insane, ”wrote Tucker Carlson, big star of the chain, to his colleague Laura Ingraham, on November 18, 2020.
And Ingraham to answer: “Sidney is completely crazy. No one will want to work with her. Same for Rudy. [Giuliani]. »
PHOTO JACQUELYN MARTIN, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, in November 2020
Sidney Powell, a lawyer allied with Donald Trump, was nevertheless invited several times on Fox News, where she was able to present her conspiracy theories concerning Dominion. One such theory was that the company’s voting machines were designed to rig elections in favor of Venezuelan autocrat Hugo Chavez and were equipped with an algorithm that could erase a candidate’s votes and give them to another.
After seeing a press conference featuring Powell and Giuliani on television, Rupert Murdoch, head of the media empire to which Fox News belongs, wrote to the network’s director, Suzanne Scott: “Terrible things harming everyone, I’m afraid. »
Fox News faces another lawsuit
Murdoch and Scott were to parade at the helm, as were the Carlsons, Ingrahams, Sean Hannity and Maria Bartiromo, among other hosts.
Until settling the lawsuit out of court, the 1996-founded channel defended itself by arguing that it had simply reported newsworthy allegations made by Donald Trump’s allies and was protected by the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of the press.
It does not matter: Fox News is not at the end of its sentences. Smartmatic, another election tech company, filed a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against the channel in February 2021.
“Dominion’s lawsuit exposed some of the misconduct and damage caused by Fox’s disinformation campaign. Smartmatic will expose the rest,” the company promised in a statement.