I was having lunch yesterday with an old friend when my phone alerted me to the news of Fox News settling with the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit. I groaned. He groaned. We’d both hoped for a trial bringing forth regular revelations about the inner workings of America’s Finest Propaganda company, along with seeing various talking heads from the network under oath admitting they knew the emperor had no clothes.
As Stephen Colbert said in his monologue, “I wanted to see Rupert Murdoch put his hand on a bible and burst into flame.”
I’m especially saddened by the reality that there’s nothing in this settlement discouraging Fox News from continuing to spread misinformation and outright lies. Check out these headlines:
CNN: Fox News Pays $787.5 MILLION to settle Dominion defamation case
MSNBC: Fox News Pays $787.5 MILLION to settle Dominion defamation case
Fox News: MSNBC Anchor accused of plagiarizing column on child spanking.
The Fox News website's story on the Dominion settlement is only 161 words long. It makes no mention of the dollar award and summarizes the issue at hand as involving "coverage of the post-2020 presidential election."
CNN’s Jake Tapper laughed while reading Fox’s one-paragraph statement: “We acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.” It went on to praise the network’s “continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards.”
The arrogance of Murdoch’s empire was on display for all to see in a full page ad in the New York Times the day before the settlement was reached. It touted a public opinion survey showing Fox News was the most trusted network.
I’ll let Snopes.com pick it up from there:
Altogether, the numbers in the advertisement added up to 148%, not 100%. At the bottom of the ad, a disclaimer read that participants were supposedly given a list of TV networks and asked to select the ones that they use to keep up with the news. They could choose more than one. From those answers, per the disclaimer in the ad, the survey asked respondents to mark which outlets (again, plural) they trust the most.
So what many of us assumed to be at least a skirmish between good and evil actually turned out to be a quibble among the bourgeoisie. The Wall Street crowd takes care of each other first, and could care less about the havoc caused within the institutions of democracy. Settling the case also ensures larger issues don’t get too much exposure.
From the New York Times:
Legal experts noted that even if Dominion had prevailed in a jury verdict, it would have risked years of expensive battles over appeals from Fox.
“The tort of defamation is not about saving democracy from liars,” said Enrique Armijo, a professor and First Amendment expert at Elon University School of Law. “It’s about saving the reputation of the people who have been lied about and making those liars compensate them for the harms to their reputations.”
Much is being made by dull witted analysts about the dollar value Fox will cough up; $787 million represents about one-fifth of the company’s cash on hand. At this rate, they can settle with other lawsuits coming down the pike and have enough left over to support whomever they deem as the candidate most likely to damage the United States in the 2024 election.
This settlement amounts to a toll on the highway to authoritarianism.
The payout IS a great deal for Dominion Voting Systems, which is owned by private equity firm Staple Street. The valuation of Dominion when purchased in 2018 was $80 million. Lawyers for Fox News claimed their opponent's value had risen to $226 million, but given their casual relationship with the truth it’s safe to say they pulled it out of nowhere.
The ultimate source/subject of the defamation was Donald J. Trump. And it’s once again the case that his hangers-on pay the price for his crimin’. The Big Lie is alive and well in MAGAland, inspiring the level of paranoia needed to make people overlook the truth of his character.
All is not lost, at least in the sense that there will be further damaging blows to the network’s credibility. Here’s Oliver Darcy at CNN’s Reliable Sources Newsletter
But it is important to note that this was only the first of Fox News' legal problems stemming from its mendacious conduct in the wake of the 2020 election. Another voting technology company, Smartmatic, is still suing Fox News, demanding $2.7 billion for the "disinformation campaign" it waged against its company.
"Dominion’s litigation exposed some of the misconduct and damage caused by Fox’s disinformation campaign," the company's lead attorney, Erik Connolly, said in a statement after the Fox-Dominon settlement was announced.
"Smartmatic will expose the rest.
Sadly, I don’t think the people who need to recognize the underlying facts are in a mood to listen.
PS. Fox News is going to charge the American public more to pay for its losses in these cases. The network’s major source of income is platform fees cable companies pay to make their propaganda available, even if you don’t want it.
You can count on your cable bill going up.
***
More Stuff to Ponder from the News
Think Globally, Build Like Hell Locally Via Mother Jones, where activist Bill McKibben goes after the “left NIMBYs among us.
Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman is back and feeling feisty. He posted this video poking fun at the conspiracy nuts who jockeyed for attention when he underwent treatment for depression.
Children can work in meat lockers, but drag shows are too much Via WHO13. Iowa's legislature waited until the wee hours of the morning to pass a law concerning child labor.
The bill allows 14-year-olds to work six-hour night shifts, allows 15-year-olds to work in plants on assembly lines moving items up to 50 pounds, and allows 16 and 17-year-olds to serve alcohol.
Mr. Trump wants to outlaw Homelessness & force the Unhoused into federal Concentration Camps Via Daily Kos. He says out loud what many elected officials must be thinking.
Teachers nationwide are flummoxed by students’ new chess obsession Via the Washington Post. Wait! I thought they were all yearning for jobs in meat packing plants.
Conservatives, Not "The Left" Are Making Young Americans "Woke" Via Oliver Willis. Ya think?
***
You can follow me at:
Post —→DougPorter@wordsdeedsblogger
Tribel ——> DougP Porter@dougporter506
Mastodon ——> DougPorter506@mastodon.social
Spoutible —>@dougporter506
Facebook —----> https://www.facebook.com/WordsAndDeedsBlog
Email me at: WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com
As far as I am concerned, Fox's settlement with Dominion is an admission of guilt because they are afraid of what testimony in a trial would reveal.