With regard to its coverage of the 2020 presidential election, Fox News has resolved a defamation lawsuit brought by the manufacturer of voting machines, Dominion.
Prior to trial, the network reached a last-minute agreement to pay $787.5m (£644m), or nearly half of the $1.6bn that Dominion had previously requested.
Fox, according to Dominion, promoted bogus rumors that Donald Trump’s opponents manipulated the election.
Rupert Murdoch and other Fox executives will not have to testify as a result of the agreement.The agreement does not need to be approved by the judge in the case.
Fox said that its “commitment to the highest journalistic standards” was demonstrated by the settlement reached on Tuesday in one of the most eagerly awaited defamation cases in recent US history.
In the statement from Fox, it was said that the network “acknowledges the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false” without going into any detail.
Fox “admitting to telling lies, causing enormous damage to my company,” Dominion CEO John Poulos said at a press conference regarding the agreement.
The truth matters, said Justin Nelson, a lawyer for the Dominion.
Lies have repercussions, he continued. “A torrent of lies swept Dominion and election officials throughout America into a parallel universe of conspiracy theories over two years ago, doing grievous harm to Dominion and the nation.”
According to Mr. Nelson, Americans must “share a commitment to facts” if they want “democracy to endure.”
Major participants in the $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox
The case’s opening arguments were scheduled to begin on Tuesday in the afternoon.
After a mysterious wait of many hours following the conclusion of jury selection, leading everyone to believe that negotiations were going on behind the scenes, the settlement was finally announced.
The trial’s start date was postponed by one day on Monday, according to Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis.
He did not state why, but according to US media, it was to allow both parties a chance to address their differences.
However, both parties appeared to be preparing for a protracted trial on Tuesday morning.
The $1.6 billion in damages sought by Colorado-based Dominion had been the subject of numerous objections from Fox’s legal team, who called the amount greatly exaggerated.
Fox had contended that the “cherished” freedoms of speech and the press guaranteed by the First Amendment of the US Constitution would bear the “real cost” of the lawsuit.
Dominion claimed in its lawsuit that the right-wing network had damaged the reputation of the electronic voting corporation by spreading rumors that the 2020 election was stolen from the previous president Trump.
According to the lawsuit, Fox made the accurate assertion on election night that Mr. Trump’s then-opposing candidate, Joe Biden, had won the critical state of Arizona in an effort to appease viewers who were upset by the outcome.
Two months after the Arizona decision was made, two of the Fox executives who were in charge of it were fired.
A number of Fox executives and journalists may have privately questioned and rejected conspiracy theories that the 2020 presidential election was rigged, but they nonetheless broadcast those assertions, according to legal findings made public before the trial.
The allegations against Dominion are described as “really crazy” in court filings, yet Mr. Murdoch did nothing about them.
The popular anchor Tucker Carlson described some of the assertions as “insane” in a string of texts. In private, a different anchor, Sean Hannity, admitted he did not trust them “for one second.”
The statements, according to Fox, were taken out of context.
Judge Davis determined that the accusations against Dominion had already been disproven, stating that the falsities were “crystal clear” before the trial ever began.
Legal experts disagree that the deal was ultimately beneficial for the network despite the enormous payout.
“Looking down the line at a six-week trial, this was going to be grueling for everyone involved and probably embarrassing for Fox,” said Roy Gutterman, a professor at Syracuse University and specialist on the First Amendment.However, a finding in favor of Fox might have been far more costly and had far-reaching effects on subsequent decisions about the actual malice test and the First Amendment itself.
If the defamation trial had proceeded, the jury’s role would have been to decide whether Fox News engaged in “actual malice” by airing claims it knew to be untrue.
The settlement “speaks to the massive threat Fox saw from this litigation,” civil litigation attorney Michelle Simpson Tuegel told the BBC.
“The reputational harm of having executives, including chairman Rupert Murdoch, and hosts take the stand seems to have moved the parties towards a resolution,” Ms Tuegel continued.
Another electoral technology company, Smartmatic, is pursuing $2.7 billion in a second, related defamation action against Fox.
Dominion is still pursuing legal action against OAN and Newsmax, two conservative news organizations.
Additionally, the business has brought legal action against Trump associates like Mike Lindell, Sidney Powell, and Rudy Giuliani.
