As Fox News faces daily revelations from the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, yet another defamation suit against has been given the go ahead by a court, and this one is considered to be even more dangerous than the Dominion case.
The Guardian reports on the second lawsuit, which has been filed by Smartmatic and is seeking $2.7 billion in damages.
Smartmatic claims that more than 100 false statements were broadcast by Fox News hosts and guests. Smartmatic was falsely said to have been involved in 2020 election counts in six battleground states – in fact, it was present only at the count in Los Angeles county.
Fox broadcast that Smartmatic shared its technology with Dominion, when in fact the two companies had no communication and regarded each other as rivals. Smartmatic was in cahoots with foreign governments in a conspiracy to rig the vote for Biden, Giuliani said on Bartiromo’s show – a claim that the company disputes as false and defamatory.
Fox also described Smartmatic as having been founded in Venezuela at the behest of corrupt dictators. In fact, it was founded by Antonio Mugica and Roger Piñate in 2000 in Boca Raton, Florida, in the wake of the “hanging chad” fiasco, with the aim of using technology to restore people’s faith in election results.
Fox suggested in a statement that the Smartmatic lawsuit cannot stand up to First Amendment scrutiny:
But the one-two punch of Dominion and Smartmatic would seem to be Fox’s worst nightmare made reality, and the First Amendment doesn’t protect against blatant lies such as the ones Fox is accused of broadcasting.
With Fox News facing the prospect of having to pay billions for lies their hosts told about the 2020 presidential election, one host in particular is on the verge of destroying the network’s already flimsy defense and also winding up being unemployable on any platform.
Maria Bartiromo is most often seen on Fox Business, but also does a Sunday program that appears on Fox News, “Sunday Morning Futures.”
The Los Angeles Times reports that testimony Bartiromo gave as part of the ongoing $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems is damning for Bartriromo and Fox.
Attorneys for Fox have repeatedly asserted that hosts such as Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Ingraham were merely offering their opinions on the 2020 election and never intended them to be statements of fact that require proof.
“In released court documents and deposition testimony connected to the case, Bartiromo is cited throughout for allowing former President Trump’s false claims about 2020 election fraud to air on the network in an effort to stop angry viewers from abandoning the network. Court testimony shows that in the days leading up to and following the 2020 election, colleagues and executives raised questions about Bartiromo’s online activity and expressed concerns that she was influenced by right-wing conspiracy theorists.”
Why is that a problem? Because Bartiromo herself said under oath that she’s a journalist who reports facts, not opinions.
And therein lies the rub:
Even worse for Fox is that Bartiromo also testified “that no one in management did anything to stop her or force her to correct the record.”
“Bartiromo herself made misstatements, such as repeating inaccurate claims that Dominion was owned by voting software company Smartmatic, which is also suing Fox News and other conservative networks for defamation … several Fox News executives in their testimony concurred with Dominion’s assertions that Bartiromo did not challenge any of [Sidney] Powell’s false statements when she appeared on ‘Sunday Morning Futures.’ Bartiromo also admitted that she never presented any evidence to counter Powell’s claims, even though she was provided with correct information provided by Dominion and other Fox News journalists.”
Bartiromo had the facts and the pushback from Dominion, but she chose to believe bullshit conspiracy theories. How’s that for a “straight news” anchor?
Fox is going to lose the Dominion lawsuit. They will likely lose the one filed by Smartmatic, which is for $2.7 billion, too. Punitive damages in both of those suits would bankrupt Fox News. It would also all but guarantee that Maria Bartriomo never works in the media for as long as she walks the face of the planet.
Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch is on the verge of firing three of the most well-known hosts on the Fox News Network: Sean Hannity, Maria Bartiromo, and Jeanine Pirro.
According to a report from Radar Online, the firings will be the result of the massive lawsuits Fox is facing from Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, both of whom are seeking billions of dollars from the network for lies told in the aftermath of the 2020 election.
At least three prominent Fox News stars are set to be axed from the embattled news network to help Rupert Murdoch save face amid the ongoing $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against him and his company, RadarOnline.com has learned.
In the latest development to come shortly after Murdoch admitted he did nothing to stop his Fox News talent from “promoting” ex-President Donald Trump’s baseless claims the 2020 presidential election was rigged, network insiders believe the 92-year-old billionaire media magnate will commit “blood sacrifices” in an effort to save the network’s bottom line.
Among the names on the list of those to be potentially axed from the network include popular Fox News stars such as Sean Hannity, Maria Bartiromo, and Jeanine Pirro.
A media insider told Puck earlier this week that Fox is “totally fu*ked. Murdoch screwed himself and the company.
Portions of Murdoch’s testimony were made public this week as a result of the lawsuit filed by Dominion. In it, the Fox chief admitted that some of his hosts had indeed pushed known lies that the 2020 election had been “stolen” from failed former president Donald Trump and admitted Fox had done so to protect their financial bottom line:
“Rupert confirmed that he could tell FNN (Fox News Network) to stop running (MyPillow founder Mike) Lindell’s advertisements, ‘But I’m not about to.’ … and when asked why Fox continues to give a platform to Lindell — who continues to this day to spout lies about Dominion — Murdoch agreed that ‘It is not red or blue, it is green.’ … Lindell brought—and brings— Fox a lot of green. He also predictably brought the same lies about Dominion to Fox’s viewers that had been peddled on Fox’s ‘alternate reality machine’ for months.”
Ironically, Murdoch’s grab for “green” may wind up costing him a fortune and also destroy Fox, no matter who gets fired.
Former Fox News chairman Rupert Murdoch admitted under oath in a recent deposition that the network aired conspiracy theories suggesting the 2020 election had been stolen for the sole purpose of protecting their financial bottom line, according to documents released Monday.
In one section of Murdoch’s deposition, which was taken as part of a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, the Fox chief says his network wasn’t interested in red or blue, and was instead focused on “green.”
The Washington Postnotes that in another section of the Monday filing from Dominion, current Fox chairman Lachlan Murdoch was worried that coverage of Trump rally after the election had been called for President Joe Biden had been too negative, which could cost Fox financially:
Elsewhere in the deposition, Rupert Murdoch admits that some of his primetime hosts did indeed endorse nonsensical conspiracy theories about the election.
Question: “About Fox endorsing the narrative of a stolen election; correct?”
Murdoch: “No. Some of our commentators were endorsing it.”
Question: “About their endorsement of a stolen election?”
Murdoch: “Yes. They endorsed.”
In reaction to the Monday court filing, Fox released a statement:
“Dominion’s lawsuit has always been more about what will generate headlines than what can withstand legal and factual scrutiny, as illustrated by them now being forced to slash their fanciful damages demand by more than half a billion dollars after their own expert debunked its implausible claims. Their summary judgment motion took an extreme, unsupported view of defamation law that would prevent journalists from basic reporting and their efforts to publicly smear FOX for covering and commenting on allegations by a sitting President of the United States should be recognized for what it is: a blatant violation of the First Amendment.”
Fox is also facing a multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic, an electronic voting systems company.
Even though they have the temerity to call themselves a “news” network, a large portion of what Fox News broadcasts is little more than right-wing propaganda, Republican talking points, and outright lies that are easily rebutted with a quick Google search.
Such was the case on Sean Hannity’s show recently when he fell for the crap the network had been fed by Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL), who was Hannity’s guest to whine that the Biden administration was shipping “pallets and pallets of baby formula for illegal immigrants and their families.”
As Mediaite notes, Cammack shared photos with Fox that weren’t exactly what she claimed:
Cammack has appeared on several Fox News programs to complain about the issue, and shared photos that she says were given to her by a CBP agent.
CNN’s Reliable Sources did a fact-check on Cammack’s photos, and what they found is far from what the congresswoman alleged:
The photo Hannity pointed to, and the one that followed it, showed boxes and boxes clearly labeled NIDO. As anyone at Fox could have discovered with about a minute’s worth of fact-checking, NIDO is not baby formula; it is powdered milk. As its maker, Nestlé, specifically notes: “NIDO® products are only intended for children ages 1 year and older.”
There is undoubtedly some formula being provided to babies in these centers at the border — you’d assume there would be, unless you expect the government to simply decide to starve babies in its care. The narrative spun over the past two days on the right, though, has let people imagine not a little bit of necessary food but rivers of formula going to the undocumented over themselves. It’s an illuminating example of how Republican politicians and right-wing media work in concert, turning the thinnest possible set of facts into days of outrage over Them getting something You deserve — and then, as with the photos Hannity and “Fox & Friends” used, abandoning facts altogether.
Immigration reporter Anna Giaritelli of the Washington Examiner also called out Cammack for her fake photos: