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Fox News Fox News Lies Media in America

Fox Attorneys Won’t Be Allowed To Use Critical Defense Arguments In Dominion Lawsuit: Report

Now that a judge has decided a jury will be empaneled to hear the case of Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News, the conservative network is about to face a monumental task of defending itself from a $1.6 billion lawsuit without several crucial defense arguments.

That was the topic of discussion Sunday on MSNBC when host Katie Phang spoke with Jeremy Peters of The New York Times.

“Judge Eric Davis on Friday decimated much of Fox’s potential trial defenses, ruling that Fox cannot invoke the neutral report privilege because the evidence does not support that Fox conducted good faith reporting, Phang noted. “The judge is also blocking Fox from using the fair reporting privilege because the statements made by Fox and its guests were not related to official proceedings.”

Peters concurred with Phang, adding, “When the jury gets the case several of Fox’s key arguments will not be available for its lawyers to make.”

The Times reporter then elaborated:

“Several of these will have already been decided in Dominion’s favor because of the judge’s decision on Friday. So what this does is it significantly limits Fox’s ability to mount a defense and leaves for the jury the key question of whether or not there is enough evidence to show that Fox hosts, producers and executives knew what they were putting on the air was false or at least recklessly disregarded information showing that it was false.”

“That is how you get to potentially significant and sizeable judgment against Fox News,” Peters added. “Dominion is asking for $1.6 billion and appears that, unless this settles, which I think it’s highly unlikely at this point, and has already been highly unlikely because Fox appears to be preserving its options for appeal here, this is going to head to the jury and it will be one of the most significant and far-reaching defamation suits against a major media company that we have seen in decades.”

Fox is also facing a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Smartmatic, an election and software technology company.

The first line of that lawsuit lays out exactly how both Smartmatic and Dominion plan to win their cases against Fox:

“The Earth is round. Two plus two equals four. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election for President and Vice President of the United States. The election was not stolen, rigged, or fixed. These are facts. They are demonstrable and irrefutable.”

None of those facts are up for debate. And they could wind up bankrupting Fox.

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Elections Fox News

The Dominion Lawsuit Is About To Get MUCH WORSE For Fox – Here’s Why

The $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News became the top media story of last week when portions of a court filing by the company became public, including testimony from Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch, who was forced to admit under oath that some of the network’s hosts did indeed lie when they told viewers the 2020 presidential election had been “stolen” from Donald Trump.

Portions of that filing, however, were redacted (i.e. blacked out) at the request of Fox News, and that is leading some legal and media experts to suggest that things are about to get significantly worse for Fox when the redacted sections are made public.

Washington Post media critic Eric Wemple has looked closely at the redactions and writes they suggest the biggest bombshells are still hiding beneath those black boxes.

Impenetrable black expanses in the filing thwart a complete understanding of what was happening as Fox News faced down a ratings collapse. We do know what happened when White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich fact-checked a stolen election claim made by Trump: Host Tucker Carlson advocated for her firing. Similar tensions arose when anchor Neil Cavuto cut away from a news conference at which Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, was inveighing against the election. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Cavuto said on air. “She’s charging the other side as welcoming fraud and welcoming illegal voting. Unless she has more details to back that up, I can’t in good countenance continue showing you this.”

There are about 35 redacted passages in the “opening narrative” of Dominion’s lawsuit, Wemple notes, all of which were made at the request of Fox, and that alone tells us Fox is trying to hide something. But what, exactly?

The New York Times and NPR have filed a motion to unseal the redacted sections, and given that the lawsuit was filed in Delaware, which has very strong laws supporting press freedom, it seems we’ll know what’s behind those blacked out portions before much longer.

Dominion also wants to see those redactions made clear for all to see:

In a Feb. 17 filing, Dominion itself challenged the confidential treatment of material in three recent briefs by itself, Fox News and Fox Corp. “All the redactions across all three briefs are there at the Fox Defendants’ request,” the document notes.

Given what we already know regarding Fox’s lies in the days after the election was called for President Joe Biden, it’s safe to assume that the redactions could be what finally results in the complete financial meltdown of the Fox empire. And that would be a very good thing for American democracy.

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Elections Fox News Fox News Lies

Murdoch Admits Under Oath That Fox Peddled 2020 Election Lies To Protect Their Financial Bottom Line

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.”

“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.”

The Washington Post notes 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:

“News guys have to be careful how they cover this rally,” he told Fox News C.E.O. Suzanne Scott. “So far some of the side comments are slightly anti, and they shouldn’t be. The narrative should be this is a huge celebration of the president.”

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.

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Fox News Fox News Lies Media in America

Judge Rules That Massive $1.6 Billion Lawsuit Against Fox News Will Move Forward

A Delaware judge has ruled that Fox News “intended to avoid the truth” when broadcasting misinformation about the 2020 election and Dominion Voting Systems, which is suing the right-wing network for defamation and seeking $1.6 billion in damages.

CNN reports that Superior Court Judge Eric Davis’ ruling was a major blow to Fox, which was asking the court to dismiss the Dominion suit:

The ruling will now allow Dominion to attempt to unearth extensive communications within Fox News as they gather evidence for the case, and the company may be able to interview the network’s top names under oath.

At this stage, the court must assume Dominion’s claims about Fox News are true.

Judge Davis noted in his ruling that Dominion had notified Fox of inaccuracies they had broadcast and supplied them with information that clearly refuted accusations of vote-switching in the 2020 presidential race:

“Nevertheless, Fox and its news personnel continued to report Dominion purported connection to the election fraud claims without also reporting on Dominion’s emails … Given that Fox apparently refused to report contrary evidence, including evidence from the Department of Justice, the Complaint’s allegations support the reasonable inference that Fox intended to keep Dominion’s side of the story out of the narrative.”

According to CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, the ruling is very bad news for Fox:

“By putting Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, making these outrageous false allegations on the air without allowing Dominion to refute them, that’s libel. And that’s what Fox is going to have to defend. And I don’t know how they’re going to defend it it. I think it’s a very good case for the plaintiffs.”

Former White House counsel John Dean concurred with Toobin, noting:

“This case has not been decided on any substance yet. Just on the pleadings. And it made the basic bar and got over that, which is going to be a nightmare for Fox, as Jeffrey says. They’re going to now dig in deep and it’s not going to be easy.”

If Fox is found liable and forced to pay $1.6 billion in damages, that could lead to other enormous lawsuits. Enough large lawsuits could leave the network financially vulnerable and lead to its collapse. Imagine how much better a world without Fox News would be.