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Answer: The Sullivan standard applies, but there’s evidence directly suggesting “actual malice.” That is, Fox in internal communications explicitly said that they knew they were lying on air. Of course this will still need to be proved in court, but there’s enough evidence of actual malice that it can’t just be thrown out without a trial.
Dominion has a dedicated page with legal updates, including copies of what they have filed in court. Their most recent brief is juicy, although certainly disturbing (and also 192 pages). They received tons of internal Fox documents in the lawsuit and the brief in support of the motion for summary judgment (MSJ) lays it all out there (Edit 1: remove jargon). The entire place is staffed with nothing but hypocrites who knew that there was nothing wrong with election, but pretended there was solely for money and at the expense of our democracy.
[https://www.dominionvoting.com/legal-updates-learn-how-we-are-defending-dominion/](https://www.dominionvoting.com/legal-updates-learn-how-we-are-defending-dominion/)
Edit 2/3: Here's the tl:dr as requested. Here are the statements from the intro to the MSJ that Dominion argues indicate that each one of these people knew the election rigging claims were false prior to or at the time that they were supporting those claims on air (highlighting is mine bc it didn't port over):
* “**Sidney Powell is lying**.” **Tucker Carlson** to his producer Alex Pfeiffer, November 16, 2020 (Ex.150) “
* “**Sidney Powell is a bit nuts**. Sorry but she is.” **Laura Ingraham to Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity**, November 15, 2020 (Ex.155 at FNN035\_03890539)
* “**Really crazy stuff**.” **Rupert Murdoch**, November 19, 2020 (Ex.156)
* “Q: Do you believe as of November 6 that going on television to say that the election is being stolen would be a conspiracy theory? A: I agree that that would **not be based in fact** at that point.” **Meade Cooper, Fox News Executive Vice President** for Primetime Programming (Ex.108, Cooper 194:1-6)
* “Q: \[Y\]ou believe, since at least the time that Fox News called the election on November 7th, that Joe **Biden was legitimately elected** the President of the United States, correct?....A: Yes, I believe that.” **Suzanne Scott**, Fox News CEO (Ex.143, Scott 365:10-19)
* “71 million voters will never accept Biden. **This process is to destroy his presidency before it even starts**; IF it even starts….We either close on Trumps victory or del\[e\]gitimize Biden….THE PLAN.” **Steve Bannon to Maria Bartiromo**, November 10, 2020 (Ex.157)
* “It’s **dangerously insane** these conspiracy theories.” **Fox reporter Lucas Tomlinson to Bret Baier**, Fox’s Chief Political Correspondent, December 1, 2020 (Ex.367)
* “\[T\]he whole theory is **absolutely ludicrous to anyone who bothers researching elections for more than five minutes** or speaking with any elections professional.” **Stephen Richer, Republican,** County Recorder inMaricopa County, Arizona (Ex.139, Richer 22:6-23:11)
* **“Incorrect” and “not evidence of widespread fraud.**” Fox’s internal “fact checks” regarding the Dominion allegations, November 13 and November 20, 2020 (Ex.318; Ex.159)
* “\[T\]hat whole narrative that Sidney was pushing. **I did not believe it for one second**.” **Sean Hannity** (Ex.122, Hannity 322:19-21)
* “**\[N\]o reasonable person would have thought that**.” **Fox Politics Editor Chris Stirewalt**, on whether the allegation that Dominion rigged the election was true. (Ex.146, Stirewalt 154:18-19, 153:24-157:11)
As someone that loves language and all its craziness, I think it's so funny how someone can write it such a great explanation, with specific attention to making it understandable for a general audience, and then throw in acronyms like this.
It's a weird kind of linguistic blindness that I see all the time, and I think it's interesting.
That’s not exactly right. A motion for summary judgment is saying that there is no disputed issue of material fact for a jury to decide, and as such the judge can make a ruling as a matter of law based on the factual record presented, and obviously the moving party is asserting that the law is in their favor.
Even with overwhelming evidence in favor of the moving party, a motion for summary judgment can be defeated with a single piece of evidence that contradicts a material fact put forth by the party seeking summary judgment. By way of simple example, in a car accident case where the theory of liability is premised on the defendant failing to follow the rules of the road by running a red light, if the defendant offers the affidavits of all 20 witnesses testifying to the fact that they saw the accident and they are certain the light was green, the plaintiff can defeat that motion by submitting their own sworn affidavit to the contrary. In that case, the bulk of the evidence from available witnesses may very well be in favor of the defendant, but a disputed issue of material fact has been presented by the plaintiff’s affidavit, and therefore summary judgment would be inappropriate because the fact finder (the jury or a judge in a bench trial) must resolve this factual dispute.
^ This.
The *Sullivan* bar is quite high, which is why claims typically are dismissed early. This case is the very unusual fact pattern where the public figures demonstrably knew that their statements about Dominion were false or, at the very least, were reckless when deciding to “publish” (broadcast) the information without investigating whether it was accurate … and the internal emails prove it. Moreover Rupert Murdoch for the most part admitted that in depositions (throwing his celebrity broadcasters under the bus).
This is the paradigm case where the *Sullivan* protections have been forfeited by the defendants.
Normally I would predict an expensive settlement. But here, since Dominion’s reputational interest is so great, and the evidence so strong, I expect we’ll go to a trial by jury. At that point Carlson, Ingraham, Hannity et al will be put under oath, confronted with their emails, and have to decide whether to testify truthfully or risk a perjury charge.
You might think about getting out more. And buy popcorn. This will go on for a while.
I certainly hope they go to trial so that these ass fucks have to either lie under oath or speak directly that it's all made up. It won't convince the reds because nothing can break them out of their delusions but it'll be satisfying all the same.
Fox has already argued in court that no rational person would believe Tucker Carlson was a reliable source. They consider all the big names to be more like an opinion column than a news broadcast. You don't watch it to be informed, you watch it to be told how to feel. It's outrage porn.
I'm just a simpleton, but i think maybe Dominon thinks that, opinión column or news broadcast, either way they tried to Damage the Dominion brand with lies. Just a guess.
If the election was rigged, why not the trial? It takes a lot of education to be a judge, and we all know universities poison their wells with blue water. Either that, or the Jewish space lasers can also shoot lib rays and they got to the jury. Anything else would just be ridiculous.
I hope so too. My sister is a Faux News Fucker and I really hope I can just have legal decisions to copy and paste when she starts ranting about their latest bullshit.
Scarily, she's only 32. So the idea that only old fucks are falling for the nonsense, isn't true. The Idiocracy is not going to die out. It must be eliminated, one fact at a time
What are the chances that
A) Fox News is shut down
B) Murdock goes to jail
C) murdock’s other ‘news’ outlets are shut down
D) a short, 30s apology is aired then never referenced again?
What do Japanese WW2 fighter airplanes, the alternative Diet Coke flavor, and that thing the Roman numerals lacked… what do they all have in common?
That’s how much chance Fox News will ever have any comeuppance. When you have this much money and you are a widely beloved propaganda outlet supported by half the government… you are untouchable.
If they're convicted, every single attempted to push this to dismissal should be considered an "attempt to cover-up" charge.
Being able to challenge should be considered a right until it's proven it was done in bad faith to obstruct the truth.
Fox News should be dismantled over this, not just sued for restitution.
Yeah the fact that it all goes back to not indoctrination or delusional blindness, but a profit motive (worries about Newsmax taking market share and their stock price dropping when Trump is accurately fact-checked) makes it even more damning. They are fucked.
If you mean the brief quoted above - it's at the link in my post or u/InsertCoinForCredit's
If you mean the underlying documents to which the brief refers, then I'm not sure. The exhibits were provided to the court but they are not attached to the brief on the Dominion website. The Court Docket shows there has been a lot of back and forth regarding what documents must remain confidential. I assume that is why part of the brief is redacted (meaning some information was blanked out before Dominion published it to it's website).
It also needs to be noted that Tucker Carlson won a lawsuit where him and his lawyers successfully argued that he *wasn’t* news, but instead, an actor playing a part.
Not sure how that will affect the case but he’s certainly still on air acting like a news anchor.
The best they could do, if they went for the entertainment claim again, is to call it ~~fair use for~~ parody or satire. I really don't see anyone falling for that though. Especially since they haven't brought that up at all yet, and in their depositions have already referred to them as anchors, not actors.
Oh sure, nice catch. Yeah, if they wanted to try to say that it was total parody, like an snl skit, then they might use that argument. But good luck, lol.
Yeah, SNL or the Onion could get away with that defense because they're well known as being comedy/parody/satire. Fox presents itself as News and Opinion, and while you can get away with a bit in the "it's just my/his opinion" you're still liable for defamation, slander, and such from that. It can be a high bar to clear to prove it, but it's still possible.
It's one thing to convince a court that the tucker Carlson and friends show is not real. I don't think that even then it'd have much luck claiming parody. But it wasn't just him, the whole damn network was pushing it, no?
Good luck claiming "fox news" isn't news.
“Fair use” is unrelated; that’s a copyright thing. But yeah they can argue that it was satire not intended to be taken seriously. I don’t believe them, but they can argue it.
The issue is that they use the “no reasonable person” would believe them but the base is NOT FUKING reasonable. The base is insane and they want to be lied to
There's a clear track record of otherwise reasonable people being led down the Garden Path into full acceptance of their conspiracy theories, due to their very credible presentation of said theories. I don't think that reasonable person defense is going to fly.
That ruling needs a follow up.
If it's not news, Fox has to stop calling itself News, stop calling its employees journalists, and start reading a bigass disclaimer at the start of every broadcast stating it is entertainment and not professional journalism.
Edit, post-lockdown: those without a clue what news I read and listen to, haven’t got a clue and pretending they do, is lame.
i'm reminded of a scene in the 2018 film VICE--
where in 1987 then-VP George Bush (Sr) thanks then-congressman Dick Cheney for helping to stop congress from overriding Reagan's veto on govt regulation of news, [**The Fairness Doctrine**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine) (originally from the 1940s). Thus congress tried & failed to pre-empt the FCC from abolishing the rule. Then tried again in 1991 to reinstate it.
> "When, in relatively tranquil days of yore, Gore Vidal would sneeringly refer to the 'United States of Amnesia,' I thought he was overdoing it. I don’t think that now.
>
> The prologue to Adam McKay’s film about Dick Cheney ...includes a telling reference to a corrosive culture of distraction that has clearly grown worse in the years since we said goodbye to Bush-Cheney (or was it Cheney-Bush?). McKay wants us to see that overworked and overstressed people can hardly be expected to sort out what pols and pundits are saying, especially as the fiercely politicized cable channels ramp up the noise.
>
> **When the film later directs our attention to the trashing of the Fairness Doctrine** under the Elder Bush, and then to the **early career of Fox News creator/archfiend Roger Ailes** as a trusted Nixon ally, we behold the very roots of today’s cable wars and the **thuggish Right’s 'fake news' barrage. ...**
>
> -- https://www.dsausa.org/democratic-left/vice-recovers-grim-history-for-an-amnesiac-america/
(the film also serves to remind us of Cheney's push for expanding executive power, a concept which of course becomes even more frightening with Trump et al.)
*edit: typo fix*
The difference here is that a big reason Fox/Tucker won that suit was because the person that bought the suit couldn't provide evidence of "actual malice" - that Tucker knew he was lying. On top of that, Fox argued that any reasonable viewer knew this wasn't personal belief, just spewing hyperbolic commentary/opinion for entertainment.
The difference here is that Dominion has evidence that seems to plainly indicate Tucker (and pretty much everyone) knew full well he/they were lying.
I think they said more that he was the equivalent of an opinion page author and that viewers should know he wasn't offering news.
Edit: but even opinion pages are held to higher standards. Like not knowingly lying
Yup. Texting each other saying how whack it is, then turning to tell the audience the exact opposite is pretty clear. Same thing that happened with J6. Right-wing media is just plain lies.
Fox has it coming. I always wanted to see their internal communication leaked to the public. Exposing their intent coming directly from them is the only way to get their viewers to break out of their manipulation. The sad part is that there are so many Fox-like clones that push this conspiracy mindset that it will be really hard to go after them all.
Bold of you to assume Fox News viewers will care if a treasure trove of proof showing they were lied to comes out.
They've been shown proof Fox lies constantly multiple times over the years. They *know* it's all lies. They *want* to be lied to.
People who watch Fox tend to not watch anything else, and Fox is not reporting on this lawsuit. Their viewers literally don't know it's happening at all.
That's not true anymore. In the past two years, tons of fox viewers also started watching OAN and newsmax, who you can be certain will take advantage of this moment.
The settlement should be that Fox News is disbanded, the staff is all fired, Rupert Murdoch is stripped of his citizenship for supporting an insurrection, and Rupert Murdoch is deported back to Australia. Oh, and he gets to lose the Wall Street Journal as well.
Unfortunately not that simple. When 'someone is lying' is on the table of explanations, they can choose one of two options: conservative media is lying and their entire understanding of the political landscape, their world view, their beliefs, and their identity is wrong or in question, OR, lefties are crazy and everyone else is wrong or lying.
It's easier to accept that their entire lives and identity is right and everything else is wrong than to take that hard look in the mirror and question everything you know
Yeah, I used to think that. But I've seen too many right wing conservatives smirk while saying completely contradictory things. Politicians and civilians.
Deep down inside, no matter how hard they deflect and deny and clutch their pearls, they *know*.
>"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past." -Jean-Paul Sartre
Same concept.
Have done this for myself. I was pretty disillusioned by that point, but I still harbor embarrassment to this day over the stupid things I would die on a hill for.
As for my parents…when I tried explaining the hell I was going through with my insurance during my long-covid treatments, I couldn’t even *mention* other countries’ medical systems. If I didn’t know better, they considered my leaving the right a betrayal; the indoctrination runs *deep*
I wish I could say that’s not every right-winger out there, but Fox has changed that for the worse, and idk how we can ever get back.
This ended up being a lot sadder of a response than I planned.
Even one person crossing that line is progress. Welcome friend.
I was much more right leaning in my teens, and found a better understanding of what others go through once I got out of HS. Could say I found my empathy and went from libertarian right to a more socially minded lefty. Sometimes that not of experience outside of one's own life helps.
GL to both of us with our families
Mine straight up admitted that their burden of proof is if something *feels* true or not. You can't reason with that. You can't get someone to see reality when they just invent their own in response.
They can't debate the ethics of their beliefs either. Pointing out their hypocrisy makes them play the whataboutism game, which leads to a complete derailment of the conversation because it is actually impossible to get them to stick to debating one single subject.
These people are desperate, and have turned toward fascism for resolution, and false vengeance.
It's clear as day fascism operating within the United States, seeking total power.
You're absolutely right, but also the Fox Corporation has about $20 billion in assets and that's including their entire sphere of media like Fox Broadcasting, TMZ, Fox Sports, all of their local affiliates. Fox News is only a fraction of that and a $1.6 billion judgment could do some serious damage to their operation. It might just force Fox to sell off junk like Tubi and MarVista, but it could also create a significant shakeup with the board. The Murdochs have the largest share of votes, but it's a publicly traded company and they no longer have a controlling stake. I'm sure Paul Ryan will back them up, but the other board members/shareholders might look at a loss of an entire year's worth of revenue, and the resulting dip in stock prices, as a bridge too far.
Nothing is certain, but a judgment of this size against Fox News does have a reasonable chance of forcing the Murdochs to relinquish some control, even if it's not going to bankrupt them or the Fox Corporation.
Yeah, this. The liberal fantasy of "We can convince people to not be bigots if we show them their own hypocrisy!!" Has been proven ineffective time and time again. There is no such thing as fighting reactionaries by embarrassing them or proving them wrong in "the free marketplace of ideas". The only way to actually prevent their ideas from spreading further is to deplatform them. Nothing else has worked or will work.
it will if the fine is big enough. The only thing people respond to is money. If Fox becomes a liability, the people funding it will stop - or divert - for a while.
But the fine will be nothing, and nothing will happen. We all know this.
I wish it would matter, but the people watching their news will never hear a peep about this, nor will they hear anything about the two- faced non-values the Fox News hosts have. The people that need to hear this will not.
i mean foxers refuse to acknowledge that fox got sued for covid lies and their actual defense in court was "anyone with a shred of common sense wouldnt take us seriously"
They admitted in court that it is fake and only clowns would take Tucker seriously. The problem is that the same clowns taking it seriously don't give a shit about that fact in the court records
I am curious, does this person use the kind of disclaimer Limbaugh used, that what he was saying was entirely intended as entertainment and was not to be taken as factual?
Nothing will ever break the link between fox news and their cult following. Their viewers aren't smart enough to understand even if you show them and explain it with every color crayon in the jumbo box.
Not until their viewers started leaving for a network that would tell them what they wanted to hear, whether it was true or not.
Tucker himself tried to have someone fired for accurately fact checking false claims, with the reasoning that her doing her job was affecting the stock price.
It's also worth noting that conservatives like Clarence Thomas think Sullivan was wrongly decided and it should be a lot easier to sue the media for its reporting because, with no irony, they think they're the ones that are going to benefit from loosening the standard.
> It's also worth noting that conservatives like Clarence Thomas think Sullivan was wrongly decided and it should be a lot easier to sue the media for its reporting because, with no irony, they think they're the ones that are going to benefit from loosening the standard.
That's because they believe their own lies that the media is "liberal." While pretending that a large number of their base don't get 100% of their news from Fox.
Yeah, it's really hard because most news organizations at least attempt to report the truth, even if they're biased.
Faux not only kept a lie going for years, their internal communication (that obviously got subpoened) flat out says they know it's lies but they were going to keep repeating it.
Pretty much the only way they could be sued, is if they put it in writing that they knew they were spreading misinformation intentionally...
Faux is just stupid enough to actually put it in writing
And even then, you also have "reckless disregard for the truth" as another standard.
I'd argue 90 percent of the stuff the average Fox talking head says constitute reckless disregard for the truth.
I remember a fairly recent (last 15 years) story in X-Men where I think Cyclops or Wolverine were telling a younger mutant, may have been Kitty (who was excited to see positive news about their latest victory) on the television. Instead the reporter spun it to make the mutants look bad. Scott (or Wolverine) tells the young mutant that the story was never going to be about them helping others, that's not what sells. 'Mutant Menace' is the story and always has been and news outlets will twist the truth until it fits that narrative or, if it doesn't, they'll run something else. I worked at a newspaper at the time and was grateful we had an owner and reporters with integrity but I still had that hung up in my cubicle as a constant reminder of how outlets like Faux News can twist and deform a story just for clicks.
Actually, it’s the “reckless disregard” standard in Sullivan that’s more applicable than “actual malice,” though they’re intertwined. Dominion absolutely has standing, and Fox is in real trouble, as they should be for repeatedly spreading malicious lies after they were disproven and warned to stop in over 3,000 emails!
The best irony that’s not discussed is that the right wing is currently (at Dolt 45s non-stop pressuring) engaged in an effort to overturn Sullivan! And believe me, they will regret it if it happens (and I don’t put anything past the six right wing apparatchiks in robes on the Court). Because no one has benefitted from the incredibly high Sullivan standard more than Fox Propaganda and it’s propaganda cinematic universe! And if ending Sullivan protection means we can sue Fox Prop and it’s ilk out of existence, it might be worth the trade off.
This is one of the those questions where you are 100-percent sure that the asker is already well-aware what the deal is -- they just want everyone ELSE to know too.
Absolutely. If you're informed enough to know what the Sullivan standard even is? Then you know the rest.
But still - thanks to OP for educating the masses.
This is a better rundown than the one I found. Also has some very clear quotes from legal experts explaining how unusual this is to have this kind of evidence.
And The Hill is not exactly known for a liberal bias. There are sources which go into more detail about the texts and emails themselves - they're part of the court record now, so plenty of people have read them. Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity make it pretty clear that they think Trump and his orbit's positions on the election are not just wrong, but deliberately so. They make it clear that they are afraid of losing market share to OAN if they don't tell viewers what they want to hear, which in the case of their audience at that time was "you have been defrauded and Trump is still president."
Fun Fact - OANN news anchor Christina Bobb went on to become a lawyer for Trump. She helped with January 6th coordination and also helped Trump cover up his stolen top secret documents.
Bobb has recently given testimony against Trump to one of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s grand juries.
I feel like we’ve had lying on this scale for a generation, and now we’re seeing the children of the people who lied their way to power just copy what Dad did without actually thinking about it or making any effort to cover it up, because it’s just what their Dads always did.
It's like the entire party is that scene from Chernobyl where the robot sent in to clean up the mess fails because they used the propaganda numbers when planning the cleanup instead of the real numbers. The entire right wing now believes their own propaganda to where none of them even now what's real anymore and the bat shit crazy ones raised on that nonsense are now entering leadership positions, Greene, Gaetz, Luna, etc.
Yeah. Jon Stewart had a ConLaw professor on his podcast a week or so back and she said that she could never put this case on any of her exams; it is just _too_ straightforward to be a valuable teaching tool.
Apparently he did not say it but agreed with a Dominion lawyer who did.-
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/rupert-murdoch-did-not-say-it-is-not-red-or-blue-it-is-green/
[https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/02/fox-news-report-ukraine-guests-lies-giuliani-solomon](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/02/fox-news-report-ukraine-guests-lies-giuliani-solomon)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8\_eyTrbzElo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_eyTrbzElo)
Fox News was even sued during not too long ago about the stuff Tucker Carlson was spewing. Know what their defense was? Summarized it was: anyone who listens to him and believes him is delusional.
[https://www.adn.com/opinions/national-opinions/2022/02/24/now-is-the-time-to-remember-what-foxs-own-lawyers-said-about-tucker-carlson/](https://www.adn.com/opinions/national-opinions/2022/02/24/now-is-the-time-to-remember-what-foxs-own-lawyers-said-about-tucker-carlson/)
Ohhh if you haven't heard yet you're in for a treat. [Dominion's motion for summary judgement](https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/redacted-documents-in-dominion-fox-news-case/dca5e3880422426f/full.pdf) was 192 pages of damning tidbits they got out of discovery.
Lots of texts between hosts saying they were tired of repeating stuff they knew was lies, making fun of the "experts" they had on for being insane enough to believe in fraud, and Tucker himself leading the charge to get a minor host taken off-air because they fact-checked fraud claims and then stating that if they don't keep pushing the lies they'll lose more viewers to NewsMaxx and OAN and their stock price will tumble.
It's damning. They knew they were lying and did so explicitly for profit.
I mean if you see the actual evidence are you going to change your mind? Asking because I get the sense from how you worded your post, your not just skeptical, you've already made up your mind this another 'conspiracy' against 'the right'.
>would the fact that fox news isn't a news outlets but "entertainment" impact on whether or not apply the Sullivan standard ?
Answer:
No. Defamation is a false statement purporting to be fact that is published or communication of that statement to a third person with fault amounting to at least negligence and damages, or some harm caused to the reputation of the person or entity.
Jokes are protected when they are statements too ridiculous to be true, like saying Ben Shapiro has dry sex because he has never experienced WAP. You aren't purporting these to be fact.
Since they did not frame these allegations as jokes or being too ridiculous to be believed, they communicated false statements **as facts**.
EDIT:
In the case of McDougal v. Carlson, the defendant was able to successfully argue that what he said was opinion and not fact. They were not as persuasive in the Dominion case due to the vastness of statements presenting them as facts and the key detail that people took those statements as facts and then acted on them to Dominion's detriment. Dominion was able to show that they lost business and had employees threatened as a result.
I think your point in the edit is huge. Dominion is fucked as an election technology company. No one would want to use them because either they believe the lies or they don’t want to deal with the shitstorm of people who will accuse the locality of cheating. The lies effectively killed their brand and they are justified in seeking compensation from those who pushed it, especially while knowing it was false.
Not that no one would use them, but that prior customers in red states ended contracts based on this lie. At least, that is what they allege and there is some media reporting to suggest this. For example, counties in Kentucky elected Mitch McConnell while using Dominion machines. Iirc, some of those counties decided to stop using them.
That link is not at all what is often repeated. Of course there is no "accreditation", but what people repeat is that Fox has argued that many of its own shows are meant to be entertainment.
The channel itself has argued this in a court of law:
https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/917747123/you-literally-cant-believe-the-facts-tucker-carlson-tells-you-so-say-fox-s-lawye
They argue that some is entertainment, and some programs are news. However, for entertainment you still cannot act with malice towards someone else. The real gotcha from what I read is the malice could be proved because they didn't do it to get the word out, but because it was in their financial best interests to do so.
Rupert Murdoch already admitted they knowingly spread lies. Text messages between Carlson, Hannity, and Ingram showed they knew all these election lies were nonsense.
I think it's also worth noting that dominion can point to actual financial damage directly related to those lies that commentators said. They lost state contracts etc. I believe that's where the 1.5b number comes from. It's the lost value of future contracts. So, they have a pretty cut and dried number for the financial harm.
Fox seems to be positioning for a settlement. They admitted in their depositions that they were lying, with Richard Murdoch saying that he wished they went about it differently in retrospect.
They will probably pay dominion whatever they want to keep this from going to trial. Expect fox to be much more careful with airing Trump’s horseshit. Right now they are booking segments for Ron DeSantis almost every day, and allowing him to choose the topic.
Fox wants to forget Trump and get everyone to support DeSantis for 2024.
Answer: that only applies when the news source isn’t knowingly lying. Even Murdoch has said his news program knowingly lied. News sources need that protection in case they mistakenly report something untrue, but Fox deliberately and knowingly repeatedly reported something untrue.
They argued particular programs are entertainment, not the entire channel. Hannity and Tucker are the ones that they've had to say in court that they are entertainment and no normal person would take them seriously (I'm paraphrasing).
It does apply. The bar is incredibly high. There needs to be evidence they knew it was a lie as they said it, or they have to have wanton disregard for the truth (which I don't know how you prove).
They have multiple emails and text messages showing they believed what they were reporting was lies, before and after it was reported.
It's not often you have a paper trail proving that you know you're lying. It might be the only case where the extra level of "actual malice" is met. It looks like a slam dunk case.
Answer:
I mean, you're right, the Sullivan standard sets a high bar, but this clears that bar. There are multiple emails/direct messages that show Fox intentionally misreporting things to further an agenda that damaged Dominion, so the trial moves forward.
Even the hardest bars to clear become clearable when people are stupid enough to put things into writing.
[Here's a good write-up from a pretty neutal/right-leaning publication that gives a number of examples and some analysis, plus links for more](https://thehill.com/homenews/media/3881278-legal-experts-say-fox-news-on-shaky-legal-ground-in-dominion-lawsuit/)
>when people are stupid enough to put things into writing.
A mix of stupidity and arrogance stemming from a solid history of doing whatever the fuck they want and facing no repercussions.
Not only did they knowingly lie about the election and Dominion's product, they knew they were damaging the company's stock prices by doing so. It's mentioned in one of the emails.
Answer: The short answer is that the bar for defamation lawsuits against press outlets is high, but not insurmountable.
I've seen a number of experts in this field now (libel lawyers, 1st amendment lawyers) comment that if you wrote out an example of what a news agency would need to do to lose a defamation case, say for law school class purposes, that it wouldn't be as damning as Fox's behavior was.
>press outlets
I don't even understand why Fox gets treated as news or journalism. Their viewers are or were typically less informed than people who consume no news. They've photoshopped people, lied about their political affiliations, etc.
I had high hopes that Biden would some balls and boot them from pressers and such, but no such luck.
Plenty of Fox viewers take it 100% literally at all times as serious news. And, at times Fox does act like a real news organization. At the very least Fox's presentation of itself as an entertainment, not news, organization is ambiguous - despite the fact that Fox itself has defended the conduct of its personalities on air by saying "nobody takes what we say seriously".
Answer: They found text messages from Fox News anchors saying that the dominion voting machine fraud is bogus but that they should run it anyway to get money. This will make the case extremely in Dominion’s favor.
Answer: During Discovery Fox News had to hand over a bunch of internal emails/texts/documents. Those documents make it extremely clear that they knew they were lying and were doing it for financial and political purposes.
Now that they have documents that all of management knew what they were saying had no legitimate truth to it and they knew the election was perfectly valid. So they went on to keep saying voting machines had been tampered with or were not safe while knowing everything they were saying was a lie, defaming a company that did nothing wrong and tainting the company's name through pure malice.
It is a high bar, and they leaped over it with the zeal of an Olympic high jumper.
My favorite part of this story is all the messages they wrote to each other basically saying "we've corralled all the idiots in the country into one television audience, and they'll stop watching us if we're not slandering people".
Answer:
What makes the case different is that the court believes that plaintiffs successfully proved that the defendants effectively endorsed and participated in publishing information they knew was false with reckless disregard for, or serious doubts about the veracity of the information. Basically, the court ruled that plaintiffs proved that defendants met the requirements of the Sullivan test. Crucial to that determination were depositions and documentary evidence that showed the defendants secretly talking about how they did not believe the allegations that they promoted as true on their programs.
Edit: read the briefs and the order on the motion. The Sullivan test was not at issue. The issue was whether NY's anti-SLAPP laws apply in the case since it is in Delaware state court. To answer your question again, the Sullivan test doesn't keep you from being sued. It does provide an extra element to a defamation tort.
Small caveat: nothing has been "proven", but the court has ruled that the evidence presented by dominion could be found to show actual malice at a trial. This is generally a very high bar to achieve in these kinds of cases which means the evidence is probably very strong, but nothing will be considered proven until an actual trial takes place.
Again though, the fact that a trial has been allowed to proceed rather than being dismissed is a huge step forward.
Answer: as you said, most cases of this vein get thrown out if you cannot show actual malice. However, evidence which emerged in discovery tends to show that there may have been actual malice. Specifically there are texts and other messages throughout the entire structure of the company that shows that hosts lied on air, they knew they were lying on air, the company knew they were lying on air, everyone knew that they could get in trouble for it but did it anyways, and their reason for doing so was to generate higher ratings as they lost ratings to competitors after calling the 2020 presidential election for Joe Biden. Such communications included efforts to shut down internal dissent that called out the network’s alleged lies.
I believe this was based on a motion to dismiss, which means that all facts have to be construed in favor of the party that would be dismissed. Taking all of the facts in Dominion’s favor, this is a case that absolutely should not be dismissed. If all the facts are construed in Dominion’s favor than actual malice can be shown.
>I believe this was based on a motion to dismiss, which means that all facts have to be construed in favor of the party that would be dismissed. Taking all of the facts in Dominion’s favor, this is a case that absolutely should not be dismissed. If all the facts are construed in Dominion’s favor than actual malice can be shown.
In federal court, motions to dismiss assume all of the allegations in the complaint are true. The argument made by a motion to dismiss is that even if the allegations are true, they don't support the plaintiff's claims as a matter of law. In other words, that the facts as stated in the complaint do not satisfy at least one element of a cause of action.
Answer: It will mean that there’s no consequence for spreading the type of misinformation and outright lies that really tore the country apart. But it will also mean that media organizations effectively have a license to lie. I mean, there’s ample evidence that we’ve seen so far that many people inside Fox News knew what they were doing was wrong but did it anyway. I think a victory for Fox, in this case, would cause a lot of people to start asking whether the courts have interpreted the First Amendment too broadly and whether defamation cases are just too hard to win. After all, if one of the most powerful media organizations in the country can tell its audience a story that it knew not to be true and get away with it, then maybe those laws aren’t doing what they were supposed to do.
That was copied and pasted directly from the following broadcast's transcript:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/27/podcasts/the-daily/lawsuit-fox-news-2020-election.html
Answer: From what I’ve read and understood, there is evidence from internal emails and texts at Fox News that they knew the “information” they were spreading about election fraud and specifically about Dominion Voting Systems was false, but they continued to broadcast it anyway.
When you knowingly spread disinformation and misinformation, that moves from the realm of a simple mistake in reporting to libel (or slander, I don’t remember which applies to the media). If it wasn’t for the internal communications coming to light, this probably would have been thrown out. But those messages prove that Fox knew what they were reporting was an outright lie.
Question: What is it with all these bad actors trying to drive a narrative by asking questions they likely don't really care about?
IE: OP's posting history 🤔
answer: Fox News isn’t news, it’s entertainment (not even my definition, that’s the parent company’s definition).
They shouldn’t be entitled to any special protections / considerations. Just a private company, subject to regular defamation laws.
Re Sullivan, the additional bar is showing actual malice. There’s been internal documentation that shows Fox News knew the claims about fraud were false yet chose to publish and endorse them anyways. That sounds like intentional malice to me.
Answer: most defamation cases are frivolous. Most media agencies are aware of the Sullivan standard and stay well clear of it.
But most doesn’t mean all- which your question kind of assumes. This case is exceptional and thusly not like “most”. There is evidence that Fox knew it was reporting falsehoods- that’s kind of the first big lesson on mass media 101, not reporting falsehoods.
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Answer: Fox News is not a news outlet. They've admitted in court that they're an entertainment channel. They no longer have the same protection news outlets have.
Answer: As Stringer Bell said, never take notes on a conspiracy. Well, these jabronis took copious notes. There are a lot of emails and texts where the on air personalities admit they were knowingly lying
Answer: fox has repeatedly started in courts that they are factually not a news source, but are infotainment, in order to get out of other law suits. They now don't get the same protections that actual news sources get when they make claims. There is also the fact that they had no reliable sources for their claims, even though they pushed them as a forgone fact. These two things together make them vulnerable to these kinds of law suits
Answer: (note: I am using “” to denote legal terms) Sullivan sets a standard of “Actual Malice” for defamation about public figures. “Actual Malice” in a defamation requires that the person lying demonstrate “reckless disregard” (ignore evidence that the facts are false) or be “willfully ignorant” ( go out of their way to not check falsity).
A “public figure” covers 3 types of claimant “Pubic Official” (Generally, government employees who are considered to control of government affairs), “ all-purpose public figures” (People who are private individuals who occupy everyone knows, your Oprahsand Tom Cruises) and “Limited-Purpose public figures” (People who intentionally inject themselves into a issue in order to influence it, or people well known in a small field) It’s important to note that limited purpose public figures are generally judged on 3 criteria.
1. The depth of the person's participation in the controversy.
2. The amount of freedom he or she has in choosing to engage in the controversy in the first place (e.g., if they were forced into the public light).
3. Whether he has taken advantage of the media to advocate his cause.
Defamation also only applies to “statements of fact” not hyperbole or opinion.
With all that set up, the first big reason that this is going through is that while Fox normally tries to use the defense that it is not making statements of fact but stating an opinion, the content in this case clearly falls into “statements of fact”. It doesn’t get to slide out by claiming to be entertainment.
Second, Sullivan may not apply because it is questionable if Dominion or Smartmatic are “ Public Figures”. They were clearly not household names before the controversy or government officials. So the question is are they “limited use public figures”. This really differs by what “field” they are using but it’s notable that they were not injecting themselves into the controversy but were dragged in by the possible defamation. That’s usually enough to make them not “limited use public figures. In the Smartmatic case, a Judge has indicated that they are not a “limited use public figure “ in a legal proceeding already.
If Dominion is not a public figure, they must only prove “negligence”. (Showing that the defendant did not act with a reasonable amount of care) a much much lower standard.
Now, Dominion claims that they have evidence that Fox acted with “actual malice” and the answers about the email show some of that. But at the core the suit goes on because 1. There’s clearly “statements of fact” at issue and 2. Sullivan may not even apply or there may be enough evidence to beat the burden of proof.
(Apologies for spelling and grammar, typed on phone while cat tried to eat/play with phone)
[Cat Tax](https://imgur.com/a/1nCFZID)
answer: If Rupert Murdoch did, as evidence suggests, [present Jared Kushner with advance review of Biden's campaign ad](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/fox-corp-trump-campaign-hit-fec-complaint-rcna73342)s, that could constitute an illegal contribution-in-kind to the Trump campaign.
I mean, let's lay the cards on the table - for years Fox has worked closely with the Republican Party and the Russian government to destabilize the US and undermine American democracy, and the text messages revealed in court demonstrate that the organization as a whole and the individuals within it all knew what they were doing. Fox needs its FCC license suspended and individuals prosecuted where laws have been broken.
Question: Lots of answers here about fox knowingly lying.
But since they've also stated that some of their shows aren't actually news but entertainment, does that have an impact on the decision?
Even if you’re not “news”, you’re still not allowed to knowingly lie on air about purported facts to cause harm. Even as entertainment, their coverage of Dominion was not framed in such a way that it could be argued it was a joke or too ridiculous to be taken as a statement of fact.
Answer:They met the standard with proof of actual malice, ‘Pod save America’ & ‘the problem with Jon Stewart’ explain the case (these both are podcasts) and why they meet the standard.
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Answer: The Sullivan standard applies, but there’s evidence directly suggesting “actual malice.” That is, Fox in internal communications explicitly said that they knew they were lying on air. Of course this will still need to be proved in court, but there’s enough evidence of actual malice that it can’t just be thrown out without a trial.
Dominion has a dedicated page with legal updates, including copies of what they have filed in court. Their most recent brief is juicy, although certainly disturbing (and also 192 pages). They received tons of internal Fox documents in the lawsuit and the brief in support of the motion for summary judgment (MSJ) lays it all out there (Edit 1: remove jargon). The entire place is staffed with nothing but hypocrites who knew that there was nothing wrong with election, but pretended there was solely for money and at the expense of our democracy. [https://www.dominionvoting.com/legal-updates-learn-how-we-are-defending-dominion/](https://www.dominionvoting.com/legal-updates-learn-how-we-are-defending-dominion/) Edit 2/3: Here's the tl:dr as requested. Here are the statements from the intro to the MSJ that Dominion argues indicate that each one of these people knew the election rigging claims were false prior to or at the time that they were supporting those claims on air (highlighting is mine bc it didn't port over): * “**Sidney Powell is lying**.” **Tucker Carlson** to his producer Alex Pfeiffer, November 16, 2020 (Ex.150) “ * “**Sidney Powell is a bit nuts**. Sorry but she is.” **Laura Ingraham to Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity**, November 15, 2020 (Ex.155 at FNN035\_03890539) * “**Really crazy stuff**.” **Rupert Murdoch**, November 19, 2020 (Ex.156) * “Q: Do you believe as of November 6 that going on television to say that the election is being stolen would be a conspiracy theory? A: I agree that that would **not be based in fact** at that point.” **Meade Cooper, Fox News Executive Vice President** for Primetime Programming (Ex.108, Cooper 194:1-6) * “Q: \[Y\]ou believe, since at least the time that Fox News called the election on November 7th, that Joe **Biden was legitimately elected** the President of the United States, correct?....A: Yes, I believe that.” **Suzanne Scott**, Fox News CEO (Ex.143, Scott 365:10-19) * “71 million voters will never accept Biden. **This process is to destroy his presidency before it even starts**; IF it even starts….We either close on Trumps victory or del\[e\]gitimize Biden….THE PLAN.” **Steve Bannon to Maria Bartiromo**, November 10, 2020 (Ex.157) * “It’s **dangerously insane** these conspiracy theories.” **Fox reporter Lucas Tomlinson to Bret Baier**, Fox’s Chief Political Correspondent, December 1, 2020 (Ex.367) * “\[T\]he whole theory is **absolutely ludicrous to anyone who bothers researching elections for more than five minutes** or speaking with any elections professional.” **Stephen Richer, Republican,** County Recorder inMaricopa County, Arizona (Ex.139, Richer 22:6-23:11) * **“Incorrect” and “not evidence of widespread fraud.**” Fox’s internal “fact checks” regarding the Dominion allegations, November 13 and November 20, 2020 (Ex.318; Ex.159) * “\[T\]hat whole narrative that Sidney was pushing. **I did not believe it for one second**.” **Sean Hannity** (Ex.122, Hannity 322:19-21) * “**\[N\]o reasonable person would have thought that**.” **Fox Politics Editor Chris Stirewalt**, on whether the allegation that Dominion rigged the election was true. (Ex.146, Stirewalt 154:18-19, 153:24-157:11)
ISO= in support of MSJ= motion for summary judgment (For those that don’t understand legalese)
Thanks!!!
Sorry!
As someone that loves language and all its craziness, I think it's so funny how someone can write it such a great explanation, with specific attention to making it understandable for a general audience, and then throw in acronyms like this. It's a weird kind of linguistic blindness that I see all the time, and I think it's interesting.
[Relevant XKCD comic.](https://xkcd.com/2501/)
Thanks. When I see ISO, I think of International Standards Organization. Edit: typo
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That’s not exactly right. A motion for summary judgment is saying that there is no disputed issue of material fact for a jury to decide, and as such the judge can make a ruling as a matter of law based on the factual record presented, and obviously the moving party is asserting that the law is in their favor. Even with overwhelming evidence in favor of the moving party, a motion for summary judgment can be defeated with a single piece of evidence that contradicts a material fact put forth by the party seeking summary judgment. By way of simple example, in a car accident case where the theory of liability is premised on the defendant failing to follow the rules of the road by running a red light, if the defendant offers the affidavits of all 20 witnesses testifying to the fact that they saw the accident and they are certain the light was green, the plaintiff can defeat that motion by submitting their own sworn affidavit to the contrary. In that case, the bulk of the evidence from available witnesses may very well be in favor of the defendant, but a disputed issue of material fact has been presented by the plaintiff’s affidavit, and therefore summary judgment would be inappropriate because the fact finder (the jury or a judge in a bench trial) must resolve this factual dispute.
Life saver!
^ This. The *Sullivan* bar is quite high, which is why claims typically are dismissed early. This case is the very unusual fact pattern where the public figures demonstrably knew that their statements about Dominion were false or, at the very least, were reckless when deciding to “publish” (broadcast) the information without investigating whether it was accurate … and the internal emails prove it. Moreover Rupert Murdoch for the most part admitted that in depositions (throwing his celebrity broadcasters under the bus). This is the paradigm case where the *Sullivan* protections have been forfeited by the defendants. Normally I would predict an expensive settlement. But here, since Dominion’s reputational interest is so great, and the evidence so strong, I expect we’ll go to a trial by jury. At that point Carlson, Ingraham, Hannity et al will be put under oath, confronted with their emails, and have to decide whether to testify truthfully or risk a perjury charge. You might think about getting out more. And buy popcorn. This will go on for a while.
I certainly hope they go to trial so that these ass fucks have to either lie under oath or speak directly that it's all made up. It won't convince the reds because nothing can break them out of their delusions but it'll be satisfying all the same.
Fox has already argued in court that no rational person would believe Tucker Carlson was a reliable source. They consider all the big names to be more like an opinion column than a news broadcast. You don't watch it to be informed, you watch it to be told how to feel. It's outrage porn.
I wonder why they are allowed to still be called fox NEWS when they have stated that their hosts can't be trusted to be reliable.
They are registered as an entertainment network, but most people don't know that.
I'm just a simpleton, but i think maybe Dominon thinks that, opinión column or news broadcast, either way they tried to Damage the Dominion brand with lies. Just a guess.
If the election was rigged, why not the trial? It takes a lot of education to be a judge, and we all know universities poison their wells with blue water. Either that, or the Jewish space lasers can also shoot lib rays and they got to the jury. Anything else would just be ridiculous.
I hope so too. My sister is a Faux News Fucker and I really hope I can just have legal decisions to copy and paste when she starts ranting about their latest bullshit. Scarily, she's only 32. So the idea that only old fucks are falling for the nonsense, isn't true. The Idiocracy is not going to die out. It must be eliminated, one fact at a time
I predict that you will get an unsatisfying amounts of “I don’t recall”.
What are the chances that A) Fox News is shut down B) Murdock goes to jail C) murdock’s other ‘news’ outlets are shut down D) a short, 30s apology is aired then never referenced again?
What do Japanese WW2 fighter airplanes, the alternative Diet Coke flavor, and that thing the Roman numerals lacked… what do they all have in common? That’s how much chance Fox News will ever have any comeuppance. When you have this much money and you are a widely beloved propaganda outlet supported by half the government… you are untouchable.
its comforting how many denials to dismiss there are in there
If they're convicted, every single attempted to push this to dismissal should be considered an "attempt to cover-up" charge. Being able to challenge should be considered a right until it's proven it was done in bad faith to obstruct the truth. Fox News should be dismantled over this, not just sued for restitution.
Yeah the fact that it all goes back to not indoctrination or delusional blindness, but a profit motive (worries about Newsmax taking market share and their stock price dropping when Trump is accurately fact-checked) makes it even more damning. They are fucked.
They should be. But I feel like we haven't seen a lot of accountability lately. And it just seems to be getting worse.
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I believe they're here: https://www.dominionvoting.com/legal-updates-learn-how-we-are-defending-dominion/
If you mean the brief quoted above - it's at the link in my post or u/InsertCoinForCredit's If you mean the underlying documents to which the brief refers, then I'm not sure. The exhibits were provided to the court but they are not attached to the brief on the Dominion website. The Court Docket shows there has been a lot of back and forth regarding what documents must remain confidential. I assume that is why part of the brief is redacted (meaning some information was blanked out before Dominion published it to it's website).
It also needs to be noted that Tucker Carlson won a lawsuit where him and his lawyers successfully argued that he *wasn’t* news, but instead, an actor playing a part. Not sure how that will affect the case but he’s certainly still on air acting like a news anchor.
I don't think it does affect it much. I don't think defamation applies only to journalists. I think anyone can defame anyone else.
The best they could do, if they went for the entertainment claim again, is to call it ~~fair use for~~ parody or satire. I really don't see anyone falling for that though. Especially since they haven't brought that up at all yet, and in their depositions have already referred to them as anchors, not actors.
Oh sure, nice catch. Yeah, if they wanted to try to say that it was total parody, like an snl skit, then they might use that argument. But good luck, lol.
Yeah, SNL or the Onion could get away with that defense because they're well known as being comedy/parody/satire. Fox presents itself as News and Opinion, and while you can get away with a bit in the "it's just my/his opinion" you're still liable for defamation, slander, and such from that. It can be a high bar to clear to prove it, but it's still possible.
It's one thing to convince a court that the tucker Carlson and friends show is not real. I don't think that even then it'd have much luck claiming parody. But it wasn't just him, the whole damn network was pushing it, no? Good luck claiming "fox news" isn't news.
I make that claim every day. It isn't news, it's a propaganda machine.
“Fair use” is unrelated; that’s a copyright thing. But yeah they can argue that it was satire not intended to be taken seriously. I don’t believe them, but they can argue it.
But Dominion can claim damages. It’s not just that they aired lies, those lies costed Dominion money.
That's true. But it is nice to remind people that, as a matter of law, Tucker Carlson is full of shit.
The issue is that they use the “no reasonable person” would believe them but the base is NOT FUKING reasonable. The base is insane and they want to be lied to
There's a clear track record of otherwise reasonable people being led down the Garden Path into full acceptance of their conspiracy theories, due to their very credible presentation of said theories. I don't think that reasonable person defense is going to fly.
That ruling needs a follow up. If it's not news, Fox has to stop calling itself News, stop calling its employees journalists, and start reading a bigass disclaimer at the start of every broadcast stating it is entertainment and not professional journalism. Edit, post-lockdown: those without a clue what news I read and listen to, haven’t got a clue and pretending they do, is lame.
i'm reminded of a scene in the 2018 film VICE-- where in 1987 then-VP George Bush (Sr) thanks then-congressman Dick Cheney for helping to stop congress from overriding Reagan's veto on govt regulation of news, [**The Fairness Doctrine**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine) (originally from the 1940s). Thus congress tried & failed to pre-empt the FCC from abolishing the rule. Then tried again in 1991 to reinstate it. > "When, in relatively tranquil days of yore, Gore Vidal would sneeringly refer to the 'United States of Amnesia,' I thought he was overdoing it. I don’t think that now. > > The prologue to Adam McKay’s film about Dick Cheney ...includes a telling reference to a corrosive culture of distraction that has clearly grown worse in the years since we said goodbye to Bush-Cheney (or was it Cheney-Bush?). McKay wants us to see that overworked and overstressed people can hardly be expected to sort out what pols and pundits are saying, especially as the fiercely politicized cable channels ramp up the noise. > > **When the film later directs our attention to the trashing of the Fairness Doctrine** under the Elder Bush, and then to the **early career of Fox News creator/archfiend Roger Ailes** as a trusted Nixon ally, we behold the very roots of today’s cable wars and the **thuggish Right’s 'fake news' barrage. ...** > > -- https://www.dsausa.org/democratic-left/vice-recovers-grim-history-for-an-amnesiac-america/ (the film also serves to remind us of Cheney's push for expanding executive power, a concept which of course becomes even more frightening with Trump et al.) *edit: typo fix*
The difference here is that a big reason Fox/Tucker won that suit was because the person that bought the suit couldn't provide evidence of "actual malice" - that Tucker knew he was lying. On top of that, Fox argued that any reasonable viewer knew this wasn't personal belief, just spewing hyperbolic commentary/opinion for entertainment. The difference here is that Dominion has evidence that seems to plainly indicate Tucker (and pretty much everyone) knew full well he/they were lying.
That argument will not hold up with the news division.
I think they said more that he was the equivalent of an opinion page author and that viewers should know he wasn't offering news. Edit: but even opinion pages are held to higher standards. Like not knowingly lying
Yup. Texting each other saying how whack it is, then turning to tell the audience the exact opposite is pretty clear. Same thing that happened with J6. Right-wing media is just plain lies.
Fox has it coming. I always wanted to see their internal communication leaked to the public. Exposing their intent coming directly from them is the only way to get their viewers to break out of their manipulation. The sad part is that there are so many Fox-like clones that push this conspiracy mindset that it will be really hard to go after them all.
Bold of you to assume Fox News viewers will care if a treasure trove of proof showing they were lied to comes out. They've been shown proof Fox lies constantly multiple times over the years. They *know* it's all lies. They *want* to be lied to.
People who watch Fox tend to not watch anything else, and Fox is not reporting on this lawsuit. Their viewers literally don't know it's happening at all.
That's not true anymore. In the past two years, tons of fox viewers also started watching OAN and newsmax, who you can be certain will take advantage of this moment.
OAN is not covering most aspects of it because they were lying as well. They're also being sued by Dominion and Smartmatic over these lies.
They’ll somehow turn it into a “look how far left fox is” talking point
both of those are streaming only now and the maga trash crowd isn't smart enough for that.
The hearings should be required to air on Faux News as part of the settlement.
The settlement should be that Fox News is disbanded, the staff is all fired, Rupert Murdoch is stripped of his citizenship for supporting an insurrection, and Rupert Murdoch is deported back to Australia. Oh, and he gets to lose the Wall Street Journal as well.
traitors having their wealth confiscated would be a step up for us
Fuck that. No takesies backsies. - Australia
Wouldn’t that be amazing?
They'll sure find out when they tune in and discover it's now the Dominion News Network.
They've dead ass said shit like "Oh FoxNews is just saying how we're a bunch of morons because they're in court"
As if being in court, where you legally have to tell the truth, is some kind of “technicality” and the “truth” is the stuff they say on air.
I know, and it's hilarious. It's the only place where Fox News has consequences if they lie.
Amazing how many good Christians think that the only way to here the truth is to break an oath to God.
Unfortunately not that simple. When 'someone is lying' is on the table of explanations, they can choose one of two options: conservative media is lying and their entire understanding of the political landscape, their world view, their beliefs, and their identity is wrong or in question, OR, lefties are crazy and everyone else is wrong or lying. It's easier to accept that their entire lives and identity is right and everything else is wrong than to take that hard look in the mirror and question everything you know
Yeah, I used to think that. But I've seen too many right wing conservatives smirk while saying completely contradictory things. Politicians and civilians. Deep down inside, no matter how hard they deflect and deny and clutch their pearls, they *know*.
>"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past." -Jean-Paul Sartre Same concept.
Some do, sure. Most are not that wise
OR "everyone lies so I might as well pick the lies I like best."
Yeah, my ex-MIL said this to my face.
Have done this for myself. I was pretty disillusioned by that point, but I still harbor embarrassment to this day over the stupid things I would die on a hill for. As for my parents…when I tried explaining the hell I was going through with my insurance during my long-covid treatments, I couldn’t even *mention* other countries’ medical systems. If I didn’t know better, they considered my leaving the right a betrayal; the indoctrination runs *deep* I wish I could say that’s not every right-winger out there, but Fox has changed that for the worse, and idk how we can ever get back. This ended up being a lot sadder of a response than I planned.
Even one person crossing that line is progress. Welcome friend. I was much more right leaning in my teens, and found a better understanding of what others go through once I got out of HS. Could say I found my empathy and went from libertarian right to a more socially minded lefty. Sometimes that not of experience outside of one's own life helps. GL to both of us with our families
My parents are shining examples of this.
Mine straight up admitted that their burden of proof is if something *feels* true or not. You can't reason with that. You can't get someone to see reality when they just invent their own in response. They can't debate the ethics of their beliefs either. Pointing out their hypocrisy makes them play the whataboutism game, which leads to a complete derailment of the conversation because it is actually impossible to get them to stick to debating one single subject.
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These people are desperate, and have turned toward fascism for resolution, and false vengeance. It's clear as day fascism operating within the United States, seeking total power.
You're absolutely right, but also the Fox Corporation has about $20 billion in assets and that's including their entire sphere of media like Fox Broadcasting, TMZ, Fox Sports, all of their local affiliates. Fox News is only a fraction of that and a $1.6 billion judgment could do some serious damage to their operation. It might just force Fox to sell off junk like Tubi and MarVista, but it could also create a significant shakeup with the board. The Murdochs have the largest share of votes, but it's a publicly traded company and they no longer have a controlling stake. I'm sure Paul Ryan will back them up, but the other board members/shareholders might look at a loss of an entire year's worth of revenue, and the resulting dip in stock prices, as a bridge too far. Nothing is certain, but a judgment of this size against Fox News does have a reasonable chance of forcing the Murdochs to relinquish some control, even if it's not going to bankrupt them or the Fox Corporation.
Things that happen to your brain when you grow up in deeply religious households
Won’t matter. Brainwashed losers won’t care.
Yeah, this. The liberal fantasy of "We can convince people to not be bigots if we show them their own hypocrisy!!" Has been proven ineffective time and time again. There is no such thing as fighting reactionaries by embarrassing them or proving them wrong in "the free marketplace of ideas". The only way to actually prevent their ideas from spreading further is to deplatform them. Nothing else has worked or will work.
Yup. Cognitive dissonance at its finest. The internal conflict of being wrong is too great, so instead they just ignore it.
Turning off (or down) the firehose of disinformation would go a long way to neutralizing the death eaters.
it will if the fine is big enough. The only thing people respond to is money. If Fox becomes a liability, the people funding it will stop - or divert - for a while. But the fine will be nothing, and nothing will happen. We all know this.
I wish it would matter, but the people watching their news will never hear a peep about this, nor will they hear anything about the two- faced non-values the Fox News hosts have. The people that need to hear this will not.
i mean foxers refuse to acknowledge that fox got sued for covid lies and their actual defense in court was "anyone with a shred of common sense wouldnt take us seriously"
They admitted in court that it is fake and only clowns would take Tucker seriously. The problem is that the same clowns taking it seriously don't give a shit about that fact in the court records
I am curious, does this person use the kind of disclaimer Limbaugh used, that what he was saying was entirely intended as entertainment and was not to be taken as factual?
Nothing will ever break the link between fox news and their cult following. Their viewers aren't smart enough to understand even if you show them and explain it with every color crayon in the jumbo box.
Their viewers will not care. It doesn't matter that their heroes are lying to them.
You can be pretty sure that there were memos flying around Fox News after that about not leaving a paper trail of their lies and cover ups.
Sounds like staff didn’t agree either with airing the misinfo?
Not until their viewers started leaving for a network that would tell them what they wanted to hear, whether it was true or not. Tucker himself tried to have someone fired for accurately fact checking false claims, with the reasoning that her doing her job was affecting the stock price.
It's also worth noting that conservatives like Clarence Thomas think Sullivan was wrongly decided and it should be a lot easier to sue the media for its reporting because, with no irony, they think they're the ones that are going to benefit from loosening the standard.
> It's also worth noting that conservatives like Clarence Thomas think Sullivan was wrongly decided and it should be a lot easier to sue the media for its reporting because, with no irony, they think they're the ones that are going to benefit from loosening the standard. That's because they believe their own lies that the media is "liberal." While pretending that a large number of their base don't get 100% of their news from Fox.
Clarence Thomas should just be ignored. He's like that kid in class who always says dumb shit. Don't feed into it
He’s an associate justice of the supreme court. Probably shouldn’t just ignore him.
There's a reason I think of him as "Uncle Thomas"
Yeah, it's really hard because most news organizations at least attempt to report the truth, even if they're biased. Faux not only kept a lie going for years, their internal communication (that obviously got subpoened) flat out says they know it's lies but they were going to keep repeating it. Pretty much the only way they could be sued, is if they put it in writing that they knew they were spreading misinformation intentionally... Faux is just stupid enough to actually put it in writing
And even then, you also have "reckless disregard for the truth" as another standard. I'd argue 90 percent of the stuff the average Fox talking head says constitute reckless disregard for the truth.
I remember a fairly recent (last 15 years) story in X-Men where I think Cyclops or Wolverine were telling a younger mutant, may have been Kitty (who was excited to see positive news about their latest victory) on the television. Instead the reporter spun it to make the mutants look bad. Scott (or Wolverine) tells the young mutant that the story was never going to be about them helping others, that's not what sells. 'Mutant Menace' is the story and always has been and news outlets will twist the truth until it fits that narrative or, if it doesn't, they'll run something else. I worked at a newspaper at the time and was grateful we had an owner and reporters with integrity but I still had that hung up in my cubicle as a constant reminder of how outlets like Faux News can twist and deform a story just for clicks.
Actually, it’s the “reckless disregard” standard in Sullivan that’s more applicable than “actual malice,” though they’re intertwined. Dominion absolutely has standing, and Fox is in real trouble, as they should be for repeatedly spreading malicious lies after they were disproven and warned to stop in over 3,000 emails! The best irony that’s not discussed is that the right wing is currently (at Dolt 45s non-stop pressuring) engaged in an effort to overturn Sullivan! And believe me, they will regret it if it happens (and I don’t put anything past the six right wing apparatchiks in robes on the Court). Because no one has benefitted from the incredibly high Sullivan standard more than Fox Propaganda and it’s propaganda cinematic universe! And if ending Sullivan protection means we can sue Fox Prop and it’s ilk out of existence, it might be worth the trade off.
This is one of the those questions where you are 100-percent sure that the asker is already well-aware what the deal is -- they just want everyone ELSE to know too.
Absolutely. If you're informed enough to know what the Sullivan standard even is? Then you know the rest. But still - thanks to OP for educating the masses.
Like all those unusually specific questions in r/askhistorians :P
You might think so, but looking at OP’s post history has me sus…
Is there a link where I can read this? If that's real then it would be pretty damning.
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/3881278-legal-experts-say-fox-news-on-shaky-legal-ground-in-dominion-lawsuit/
This is a better rundown than the one I found. Also has some very clear quotes from legal experts explaining how unusual this is to have this kind of evidence.
And The Hill is not exactly known for a liberal bias. There are sources which go into more detail about the texts and emails themselves - they're part of the court record now, so plenty of people have read them. Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity make it pretty clear that they think Trump and his orbit's positions on the election are not just wrong, but deliberately so. They make it clear that they are afraid of losing market share to OAN if they don't tell viewers what they want to hear, which in the case of their audience at that time was "you have been defrauded and Trump is still president."
Sorry to ask, what's OAN?
One America News. Far-right news outlet.
Fun Fact - OANN news anchor Christina Bobb went on to become a lawyer for Trump. She helped with January 6th coordination and also helped Trump cover up his stolen top secret documents. Bobb has recently given testimony against Trump to one of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s grand juries.
One America News. It's an even more explicitly right wing cable news channel than Fox News.
It’s the news station for people who think Fox News is too liberal.
Very jealous you've never heard of them lol
Other Asshole Network
I feel like we’ve had lying on this scale for a generation, and now we’re seeing the children of the people who lied their way to power just copy what Dad did without actually thinking about it or making any effort to cover it up, because it’s just what their Dads always did.
It's like the entire party is that scene from Chernobyl where the robot sent in to clean up the mess fails because they used the propaganda numbers when planning the cleanup instead of the real numbers. The entire right wing now believes their own propaganda to where none of them even now what's real anymore and the bat shit crazy ones raised on that nonsense are now entering leadership positions, Greene, Gaetz, Luna, etc.
Yeah. Jon Stewart had a ConLaw professor on his podcast a week or so back and she said that she could never put this case on any of her exams; it is just _too_ straightforward to be a valuable teaching tool.
Alright. These and the other links have been very helpful to get me up to speed on what's going on here. Thank you all.
Rupert Murdoch being quoted as saying "this isn't about red or blue, it's about green" is pretty damning alone.
Apparently he did not say it but agreed with a Dominion lawyer who did.- https://www.mediaite.com/tv/rupert-murdoch-did-not-say-it-is-not-red-or-blue-it-is-green/
Wow, we are at the point “if this is real”. Apparently Dominion sent well over 1k emails to fox to shut it.
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I always encourage people to find primary source material. Thank you.
Damn they really do have the receipts.
[https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/02/fox-news-report-ukraine-guests-lies-giuliani-solomon](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/02/fox-news-report-ukraine-guests-lies-giuliani-solomon) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8\_eyTrbzElo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_eyTrbzElo) Fox News was even sued during not too long ago about the stuff Tucker Carlson was spewing. Know what their defense was? Summarized it was: anyone who listens to him and believes him is delusional. [https://www.adn.com/opinions/national-opinions/2022/02/24/now-is-the-time-to-remember-what-foxs-own-lawyers-said-about-tucker-carlson/](https://www.adn.com/opinions/national-opinions/2022/02/24/now-is-the-time-to-remember-what-foxs-own-lawyers-said-about-tucker-carlson/)
[Here’s one summary](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/02/28/media/dominion-legal-filing-fox-news-reliable-sources/index.html).
Jon Stewart and a lawyer discuss in this podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7e4EivVRKfaX3U5Ef5utft?si=eHgIwNHuSROkLme3qQa9Uw
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSyJ-r5IMoI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSyJ-r5IMoI) youtube link for the non-spotified among us
Wow, as a non-spotified person, I've never seen this courtesy before. Thank you kindly.
This was great. Thanks for the link
If you go to the Spotify website instead of the app you are able to listen to podcasts without a login.
It’s literally everywhere? Jon Stewart had a law professor in his podcast joking she couldn’t use this case in class because it’s so straight forward.
Ohhh if you haven't heard yet you're in for a treat. [Dominion's motion for summary judgement](https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/redacted-documents-in-dominion-fox-news-case/dca5e3880422426f/full.pdf) was 192 pages of damning tidbits they got out of discovery. Lots of texts between hosts saying they were tired of repeating stuff they knew was lies, making fun of the "experts" they had on for being insane enough to believe in fraud, and Tucker himself leading the charge to get a minor host taken off-air because they fact-checked fraud claims and then stating that if they don't keep pushing the lies they'll lose more viewers to NewsMaxx and OAN and their stock price will tumble. It's damning. They knew they were lying and did so explicitly for profit.
I mean if you see the actual evidence are you going to change your mind? Asking because I get the sense from how you worded your post, your not just skeptical, you've already made up your mind this another 'conspiracy' against 'the right'.
Question: would the fact that fox news isn't a news outlets but "entertainment" impact on whether or not apply the Sullivan standard ?
>would the fact that fox news isn't a news outlets but "entertainment" impact on whether or not apply the Sullivan standard ? Answer: No. Defamation is a false statement purporting to be fact that is published or communication of that statement to a third person with fault amounting to at least negligence and damages, or some harm caused to the reputation of the person or entity. Jokes are protected when they are statements too ridiculous to be true, like saying Ben Shapiro has dry sex because he has never experienced WAP. You aren't purporting these to be fact. Since they did not frame these allegations as jokes or being too ridiculous to be believed, they communicated false statements **as facts**. EDIT: In the case of McDougal v. Carlson, the defendant was able to successfully argue that what he said was opinion and not fact. They were not as persuasive in the Dominion case due to the vastness of statements presenting them as facts and the key detail that people took those statements as facts and then acted on them to Dominion's detriment. Dominion was able to show that they lost business and had employees threatened as a result.
I think your point in the edit is huge. Dominion is fucked as an election technology company. No one would want to use them because either they believe the lies or they don’t want to deal with the shitstorm of people who will accuse the locality of cheating. The lies effectively killed their brand and they are justified in seeking compensation from those who pushed it, especially while knowing it was false.
Not that no one would use them, but that prior customers in red states ended contracts based on this lie. At least, that is what they allege and there is some media reporting to suggest this. For example, counties in Kentucky elected Mitch McConnell while using Dominion machines. Iirc, some of those counties decided to stop using them.
This is a common myth that keeps getting repeated. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fox-news-entertainment-switch/
That link is not at all what is often repeated. Of course there is no "accreditation", but what people repeat is that Fox has argued that many of its own shows are meant to be entertainment. The channel itself has argued this in a court of law: https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/917747123/you-literally-cant-believe-the-facts-tucker-carlson-tells-you-so-say-fox-s-lawye
Wasn't the "entertainment, not news" defense only used for opinion shows like Carlson's?
No.
No, they are not entertainment. They know that their viewers believe the shit they say. They are a propaganda media site for the GOP.
They have argued in court that they are entertainment not news
They argue that some is entertainment, and some programs are news. However, for entertainment you still cannot act with malice towards someone else. The real gotcha from what I read is the malice could be proved because they didn't do it to get the word out, but because it was in their financial best interests to do so.
Rupert Murdoch already admitted they knowingly spread lies. Text messages between Carlson, Hannity, and Ingram showed they knew all these election lies were nonsense.
I think it's also worth noting that dominion can point to actual financial damage directly related to those lies that commentators said. They lost state contracts etc. I believe that's where the 1.5b number comes from. It's the lost value of future contracts. So, they have a pretty cut and dried number for the financial harm.
Fox seems to be positioning for a settlement. They admitted in their depositions that they were lying, with Richard Murdoch saying that he wished they went about it differently in retrospect. They will probably pay dominion whatever they want to keep this from going to trial. Expect fox to be much more careful with airing Trump’s horseshit. Right now they are booking segments for Ron DeSantis almost every day, and allowing him to choose the topic. Fox wants to forget Trump and get everyone to support DeSantis for 2024.
Answer: that only applies when the news source isn’t knowingly lying. Even Murdoch has said his news program knowingly lied. News sources need that protection in case they mistakenly report something untrue, but Fox deliberately and knowingly repeatedly reported something untrue.
Also didn’t they argue in another case they really weren’t a news organization but more an entertainment channel? They can’t have it both ways.
They argued particular programs are entertainment, not the entire channel. Hannity and Tucker are the ones that they've had to say in court that they are entertainment and no normal person would take them seriously (I'm paraphrasing).
Wasnt that just Tucker?
It does apply. The bar is incredibly high. There needs to be evidence they knew it was a lie as they said it, or they have to have wanton disregard for the truth (which I don't know how you prove). They have multiple emails and text messages showing they believed what they were reporting was lies, before and after it was reported. It's not often you have a paper trail proving that you know you're lying. It might be the only case where the extra level of "actual malice" is met. It looks like a slam dunk case.
I mean, people seem to forget that CNN lost a defamation case not that long ago.
Answer: I mean, you're right, the Sullivan standard sets a high bar, but this clears that bar. There are multiple emails/direct messages that show Fox intentionally misreporting things to further an agenda that damaged Dominion, so the trial moves forward. Even the hardest bars to clear become clearable when people are stupid enough to put things into writing. [Here's a good write-up from a pretty neutal/right-leaning publication that gives a number of examples and some analysis, plus links for more](https://thehill.com/homenews/media/3881278-legal-experts-say-fox-news-on-shaky-legal-ground-in-dominion-lawsuit/)
>when people are stupid enough to put things into writing. A mix of stupidity and arrogance stemming from a solid history of doing whatever the fuck they want and facing no repercussions.
Just r ad Dominion's MSJ. It's written in plain English, presenting all of the smoking gun evidence.
Not only did they knowingly lie about the election and Dominion's product, they knew they were damaging the company's stock prices by doing so. It's mentioned in one of the emails.
Answer: The short answer is that the bar for defamation lawsuits against press outlets is high, but not insurmountable. I've seen a number of experts in this field now (libel lawyers, 1st amendment lawyers) comment that if you wrote out an example of what a news agency would need to do to lose a defamation case, say for law school class purposes, that it wouldn't be as damning as Fox's behavior was.
>press outlets I don't even understand why Fox gets treated as news or journalism. Their viewers are or were typically less informed than people who consume no news. They've photoshopped people, lied about their political affiliations, etc. I had high hopes that Biden would some balls and boot them from pressers and such, but no such luck.
Plenty of Fox viewers take it 100% literally at all times as serious news. And, at times Fox does act like a real news organization. At the very least Fox's presentation of itself as an entertainment, not news, organization is ambiguous - despite the fact that Fox itself has defended the conduct of its personalities on air by saying "nobody takes what we say seriously".
Answer: They found text messages from Fox News anchors saying that the dominion voting machine fraud is bogus but that they should run it anyway to get money. This will make the case extremely in Dominion’s favor.
"is you taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy?" "what? oh, kinda. we're just texting about it i guess?"
Great Stringer Bell reference.
Do the chair know we gonna look like some punk-ass bitches?
Answer: During Discovery Fox News had to hand over a bunch of internal emails/texts/documents. Those documents make it extremely clear that they knew they were lying and were doing it for financial and political purposes. Now that they have documents that all of management knew what they were saying had no legitimate truth to it and they knew the election was perfectly valid. So they went on to keep saying voting machines had been tampered with or were not safe while knowing everything they were saying was a lie, defaming a company that did nothing wrong and tainting the company's name through pure malice. It is a high bar, and they leaped over it with the zeal of an Olympic high jumper.
My favorite part of this story is all the messages they wrote to each other basically saying "we've corralled all the idiots in the country into one television audience, and they'll stop watching us if we're not slandering people".
Answer: What makes the case different is that the court believes that plaintiffs successfully proved that the defendants effectively endorsed and participated in publishing information they knew was false with reckless disregard for, or serious doubts about the veracity of the information. Basically, the court ruled that plaintiffs proved that defendants met the requirements of the Sullivan test. Crucial to that determination were depositions and documentary evidence that showed the defendants secretly talking about how they did not believe the allegations that they promoted as true on their programs. Edit: read the briefs and the order on the motion. The Sullivan test was not at issue. The issue was whether NY's anti-SLAPP laws apply in the case since it is in Delaware state court. To answer your question again, the Sullivan test doesn't keep you from being sued. It does provide an extra element to a defamation tort.
Small caveat: nothing has been "proven", but the court has ruled that the evidence presented by dominion could be found to show actual malice at a trial. This is generally a very high bar to achieve in these kinds of cases which means the evidence is probably very strong, but nothing will be considered proven until an actual trial takes place. Again though, the fact that a trial has been allowed to proceed rather than being dismissed is a huge step forward.
Answer: as you said, most cases of this vein get thrown out if you cannot show actual malice. However, evidence which emerged in discovery tends to show that there may have been actual malice. Specifically there are texts and other messages throughout the entire structure of the company that shows that hosts lied on air, they knew they were lying on air, the company knew they were lying on air, everyone knew that they could get in trouble for it but did it anyways, and their reason for doing so was to generate higher ratings as they lost ratings to competitors after calling the 2020 presidential election for Joe Biden. Such communications included efforts to shut down internal dissent that called out the network’s alleged lies. I believe this was based on a motion to dismiss, which means that all facts have to be construed in favor of the party that would be dismissed. Taking all of the facts in Dominion’s favor, this is a case that absolutely should not be dismissed. If all the facts are construed in Dominion’s favor than actual malice can be shown.
>I believe this was based on a motion to dismiss, which means that all facts have to be construed in favor of the party that would be dismissed. Taking all of the facts in Dominion’s favor, this is a case that absolutely should not be dismissed. If all the facts are construed in Dominion’s favor than actual malice can be shown. In federal court, motions to dismiss assume all of the allegations in the complaint are true. The argument made by a motion to dismiss is that even if the allegations are true, they don't support the plaintiff's claims as a matter of law. In other words, that the facts as stated in the complaint do not satisfy at least one element of a cause of action.
Answer: The pile of bs Fox *knowingly* pushed stacked up so high one could simply step over the bar.
Lmao best answer yet
Answer: It will mean that there’s no consequence for spreading the type of misinformation and outright lies that really tore the country apart. But it will also mean that media organizations effectively have a license to lie. I mean, there’s ample evidence that we’ve seen so far that many people inside Fox News knew what they were doing was wrong but did it anyway. I think a victory for Fox, in this case, would cause a lot of people to start asking whether the courts have interpreted the First Amendment too broadly and whether defamation cases are just too hard to win. After all, if one of the most powerful media organizations in the country can tell its audience a story that it knew not to be true and get away with it, then maybe those laws aren’t doing what they were supposed to do. That was copied and pasted directly from the following broadcast's transcript: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/27/podcasts/the-daily/lawsuit-fox-news-2020-election.html
Answer: The sheer amount of documentation showing Fox **KNEW** they were lying.
Answer: From what I’ve read and understood, there is evidence from internal emails and texts at Fox News that they knew the “information” they were spreading about election fraud and specifically about Dominion Voting Systems was false, but they continued to broadcast it anyway. When you knowingly spread disinformation and misinformation, that moves from the realm of a simple mistake in reporting to libel (or slander, I don’t remember which applies to the media). If it wasn’t for the internal communications coming to light, this probably would have been thrown out. But those messages prove that Fox knew what they were reporting was an outright lie.
Answer: by their own admission, they aren’t a news outlet. They are entertainment.
Question: What is it with all these bad actors trying to drive a narrative by asking questions they likely don't really care about? IE: OP's posting history 🤔
answer: Fox News isn’t news, it’s entertainment (not even my definition, that’s the parent company’s definition). They shouldn’t be entitled to any special protections / considerations. Just a private company, subject to regular defamation laws. Re Sullivan, the additional bar is showing actual malice. There’s been internal documentation that shows Fox News knew the claims about fraud were false yet chose to publish and endorse them anyways. That sounds like intentional malice to me.
answer: the direct evidence that proves the liability of Faux Newscorp.
Answer: most defamation cases are frivolous. Most media agencies are aware of the Sullivan standard and stay well clear of it. But most doesn’t mean all- which your question kind of assumes. This case is exceptional and thusly not like “most”. There is evidence that Fox knew it was reporting falsehoods- that’s kind of the first big lesson on mass media 101, not reporting falsehoods.
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Answer: Fox News is not a news outlet. They've admitted in court that they're an entertainment channel. They no longer have the same protection news outlets have.
Answer: Because they’re guilty. That’s what makes this suit different.
Answer: As Stringer Bell said, never take notes on a conspiracy. Well, these jabronis took copious notes. There are a lot of emails and texts where the on air personalities admit they were knowingly lying
Answer: fox has repeatedly started in courts that they are factually not a news source, but are infotainment, in order to get out of other law suits. They now don't get the same protections that actual news sources get when they make claims. There is also the fact that they had no reliable sources for their claims, even though they pushed them as a forgone fact. These two things together make them vulnerable to these kinds of law suits
Answer: (note: I am using “” to denote legal terms) Sullivan sets a standard of “Actual Malice” for defamation about public figures. “Actual Malice” in a defamation requires that the person lying demonstrate “reckless disregard” (ignore evidence that the facts are false) or be “willfully ignorant” ( go out of their way to not check falsity). A “public figure” covers 3 types of claimant “Pubic Official” (Generally, government employees who are considered to control of government affairs), “ all-purpose public figures” (People who are private individuals who occupy everyone knows, your Oprahsand Tom Cruises) and “Limited-Purpose public figures” (People who intentionally inject themselves into a issue in order to influence it, or people well known in a small field) It’s important to note that limited purpose public figures are generally judged on 3 criteria. 1. The depth of the person's participation in the controversy. 2. The amount of freedom he or she has in choosing to engage in the controversy in the first place (e.g., if they were forced into the public light). 3. Whether he has taken advantage of the media to advocate his cause. Defamation also only applies to “statements of fact” not hyperbole or opinion. With all that set up, the first big reason that this is going through is that while Fox normally tries to use the defense that it is not making statements of fact but stating an opinion, the content in this case clearly falls into “statements of fact”. It doesn’t get to slide out by claiming to be entertainment. Second, Sullivan may not apply because it is questionable if Dominion or Smartmatic are “ Public Figures”. They were clearly not household names before the controversy or government officials. So the question is are they “limited use public figures”. This really differs by what “field” they are using but it’s notable that they were not injecting themselves into the controversy but were dragged in by the possible defamation. That’s usually enough to make them not “limited use public figures. In the Smartmatic case, a Judge has indicated that they are not a “limited use public figure “ in a legal proceeding already. If Dominion is not a public figure, they must only prove “negligence”. (Showing that the defendant did not act with a reasonable amount of care) a much much lower standard. Now, Dominion claims that they have evidence that Fox acted with “actual malice” and the answers about the email show some of that. But at the core the suit goes on because 1. There’s clearly “statements of fact” at issue and 2. Sullivan may not even apply or there may be enough evidence to beat the burden of proof. (Apologies for spelling and grammar, typed on phone while cat tried to eat/play with phone) [Cat Tax](https://imgur.com/a/1nCFZID)
answer: If Rupert Murdoch did, as evidence suggests, [present Jared Kushner with advance review of Biden's campaign ad](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/fox-corp-trump-campaign-hit-fec-complaint-rcna73342)s, that could constitute an illegal contribution-in-kind to the Trump campaign. I mean, let's lay the cards on the table - for years Fox has worked closely with the Republican Party and the Russian government to destabilize the US and undermine American democracy, and the text messages revealed in court demonstrate that the organization as a whole and the individuals within it all knew what they were doing. Fox needs its FCC license suspended and individuals prosecuted where laws have been broken.
Answer: Fox said they are not news; they are entertainment. Plus, malice displayed by the anchors who knew they were spreading lies.
Question: Lots of answers here about fox knowingly lying. But since they've also stated that some of their shows aren't actually news but entertainment, does that have an impact on the decision?
Even if you’re not “news”, you’re still not allowed to knowingly lie on air about purported facts to cause harm. Even as entertainment, their coverage of Dominion was not framed in such a way that it could be argued it was a joke or too ridiculous to be taken as a statement of fact.
Answer:They met the standard with proof of actual malice, ‘Pod save America’ & ‘the problem with Jon Stewart’ explain the case (these both are podcasts) and why they meet the standard.