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April 18, 2023 02:30 PM UTC

Dominion Settles With Fox News Over 2020 Election Lies

  • 23 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

WEDNESDAY UPDATE: One of the prime movers of the Dominion conspiracy theory, local gun store owner and wannabe hangman Joe Oltmann, is most displeased with Fox News for settling:

F@ck those shitbags at Dominion and f@ck Fox… listen to this. No question, Fox sold out the American people. F@ck them. I will never stop fighting these liars, terroristic 🗑 heap radical leftists.

To the extent that Oltmann will be seeing Dominion in court again, that’s true.

—–

TUESDAY UPDATE #2: The terse statement from Fox: “We acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.”

In making the announcement, the network said, “We are pleased to have reached a settlement of our dispute with Dominion Voting Systems. We acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false. This settlement reflects FOX’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards. We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues.”

We sincerely hope that isn’t all they have to say.

—–

TUESDAY UPDATE: The New York Times reports that a settlement has been reached between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems over the 2020 presidential election falsehoods promoted by the former about the latter. No word yet on what record-correcting measures are included in this settlement, but Fox is paying up almost $800 million, which says a mouthful by itself:

The judge in the Fox News defamation case said on Tuesday that the case was resolved, abruptly ending a long-running dispute over misinformation in the 2020 election just as a highly anticipated trial was about to begin.

It was a last-minute end to a case that began two years ago and after the disclosure of hundreds of thousands of pages of documents that peeled back the curtain on a media company that has long resisted outside scrutiny. The settlement included a $787.5 million payment from Fox, according to Justin Nelson, a lawyer for Dominion.

Updates coming, stay tuned. To us, not Fox.

—–

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson mythologizing the Tina Peters case.

Today was supposed to be the first day of the much-anticipated trial in the defamation case against Fox News from Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems, who is seeking over a billion dollars in damages for the network’s knowing promulgation of the “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump in a conspiracy involving Dominion products. But as CNBC reports, the trial was delayed until tomorrow amid rumors of a possible settlement in the works:

In a brief hearing in Delaware Superior Court, Judge Eric Davis said Monday he made the decision to delay the jury selection process and the start of opening statements. News of the delay came Sunday night, just hours before the trial was originally set to begin.

The judge offered little explanation for the postponement. “This is not a press conference, I don’t do that,” Davis told a courtroom that was mostly filled with journalists…

The trial delay came as some news outlets have reported Dominion and Fox are meeting to discuss a possible settlement. Spokespeople for Fox and Dominion have not provided statements about the possibility of settlement talks.

The voluminous documentation leading up to this trial of top Fox News executives and talent acknowledging freely that Trump’s campaign was lying and Trump’s claims of a stolen election were meritless despite continuing to humor their audience convinced otherwise has wrecked what remained of the network’s reputation outside their core group of faithful viewers. What’s more, many of those faithful viewers have been in turn sent packing to even more shameless propaganda mills like Newsmax when Fox failed to deliver the red meat as unequivocally as they demanded. As a result of these competing pressures, Fox News’ viewership (although still the highest-rated cable news network) has dropped about 15% in Q1 of 2023 compared to the previous year.

Dominion has repeatedly stated that their goal is to maximize Fox News’ pain by taking the case to trial and forcing the network’s executives and anchors to testify. The response from the network from the damning discoveries in the Dominion case was Tucker Carlson’s universally-panned attempt to rewrite the history of the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol as “mostly peaceful chaos,” and most recently welcoming Donald Trump back for softball interviews. Locally, conspiracy theorist and aspiring mass hangman Joe Oltmann, one of the principal agents behind the Dominion conspiracy theory, continues his unrepentant threat-laden misinformation campaign despite his own pending defamation suit.

Although no evidence has ever surfaced to validate any of these contentions about Dominion Voting Systems hardware, the harm done by the lies about this Colorado company is extensive–and not just to the company’s bottom line. In addition to a majority of Republican voters still convinced without evidence that the 2020 election was not decided fairly, former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters faces the possibility of a longer prison sentence than she can expect to naturally live due to her fruitless pursuit of evidence to prove the “Big Lie” was true. Peters’ guileless sincerity that her alleged felony crimes were perfectly justifiable is backed up by a whole culture of election denialism created to service Trump’s denial. Despite her indictments, Peters continues to enjoy star status (and a paycheck) in an executive role at the Colorado Republican Party.

With all of this in mind, it’s not for us to judge whether Dominion should accept a settlement from Fox, especially with no idea what the terms of any such settlement might be. What we will say is that the disclosure Dominion has already extracted from Fox News is devastating to their credibility, and effectively refutes the lie still believed by a majority of Republicans better than anything achievable by another news outlet.

If there is a settlement, every recorded word from their own executives debunking the “Big Lie” uncovered by Dominion’s discovery should play on repeat until every Fox News viewer across the nation has seen it. Fox News must clearly articulate not only that they lied, but that they did so knowingly in order to pander to their radicalized audience. Some of their viewers probably still won’t believe it, and they can’t be helped. But this case is about the truth winning the battle for the historical record.

For Dominion’s sake and American democracy itself, they must not stop until that is achieved.

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23 thoughts on “Dominion Settles With Fox News Over 2020 Election Lies”

  1. Dominion could lose the lawsuit so settling is an attractive alternative if Fox is willing to eat a murder of crows and fork over a lot of cash.  It could also be gaslighting by Fox so who knows.  Fox has nothing to lose dragging this out.

    1. Dominion needs to add conditions to its settlement position besides receiving $$$. (Although $1 billion would speak rather eloquently when it comes to blame. Fox, however, will label it "nuisance value".)

      Perhaps a condition in the settlement agreement could be that Fox fire Tucker Carlson, Shawn Hannity, and Laura Ingraham, and that Fox agree never to rehire any of them on pain for having to pay some fairly high amount of money in liquidated damages.

      Otherwise, cry havoc and slip loose the dogs of war!

  2. If there is a settlement agreement, I hope there would be a condition that Fox admit to manipulating viewers by broadcasting Republican/right wing propaganda and that before the start of any “news” show that they would have to air a disclaimer that this is not news but entertainment.

    1. That is not going to happen. Fox is certainly willing to pay lots of money to avoid an embarring trial and perhaps a brutal verdict, but only on the condition that the terms of the settlement be confidential. Dominion will counter that it wants a public acknowledgment that Fox's "reporting" about Dominion was false. I would think that Fox would do that, at the right price, if Fox can include its own self-serving statement that it did not act out of malice toward Dominion and, relied to its detriment on the statements and credibility of others. 

  3. The damage that FAUX has done to American, and world, democracy is incalculable.  I really can’t think of any settlement, or a verdict, that I would feel even begins to constitute adequate justice for their crimes and irresponsible actions??

    So, whatever.

    In my perfect world there would be a trial, and evidence of collusion and conspiracy with the former fuck and his campaign would be brought into the light.  I guess that’ll be a judgement written in the future by historians, perhaps?  I just hope there’ll be enough left of this country for it to be read.

    1. Maybe worse than Goebbels ever did to influence US.  Sadly in line with Father Coughlin,Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford who had less of a mouthpiece.  All driven by racism and white supremacy.  Kinda like the 80 YO in KC MO who didn't just shoot the 16 YO through the screen door but walked out and put another round in the kid while he was down…..Oh Amerika the beautiful.

    2. The settlement news hit me hard because, naively, I held hope that Dominion wasn't in it just for the cash. Silly me, cash ruins everything.

      Sitting on the news a bit, I realized it made me furious because the only way we start repairing and moving forward past all the radicalization is to go after rightwing media. Not doing so is like watering the lawn while the house burns. The more we allow rightwing media to continue in its current form, the worse everything gets -the more friends and family we lose to their lies -the more everybody else radicalizes into violence.

  4. Daily Kos had an article from someone who said they were part of a massive settlement:

    Rumors Of Fox Settlement With Dominion? It's Tougher Than You Think.

    What would my starting position be as a Dominion lawyer? I’d start with something like this:

    • Each Fox personality that lied, Tucker, Hannity, Ingraham, Pirro, etc must admit they knowingly misled about Dominion, on the same programs they did so, with the same timing and emphasis that they did so.
    • Fox must generally acknowledge it knowingly misreported about Dominion and to consistently report that in the future when commenting on anything to do with Dominion.
    • Fox must agree to cooperate in the continuing lawsuit against codefendants. Giuliani, Powell, etc.
    • Finally, there would be the matter of money. I'd start at a billion.Everything after is a tradeoff in greater admissions for less dollars.

    My point is that ironing out the detailed specifics of everything suggested above, of making the tradeoffs suggested in that last point, is a matter of complex, time consuming lawyeresque dialogue.  Been there, done that, got the early retirement. 

    The update on that article:  UPDATE: Monday, Apr 17, 2023 · 12:02:19 PM MDT · KeithDB

    The judge in the case just announced that the trial will resume tomorrow (Tuesday) with jury selection. Quite clearly, any settlement negotiations have failed to reach a resolution.

     

  5. My hope for an outcome is for essentially the corporate death penalty for Fox.  A settlement so large by a jury that it puts them out of business.

    2. Someone over at Daily Kos says Fox is a $16 billion entity, with ~$4 billion in cash & liquid assets.  Latest annual statement press release says “Fox annual net income for 2022 was $1.205B.”

      On the other hand, Dominion Systems apparently has about $40 million in annual earnings.  [hard to fathom how the defamation would be found to have caused damages 10x, 20x, or 40x their total annual income.]  One comment said this settlement would be an equivalent of 200 years of profits to the owners and their heirs.

      For those dissatisfied with the minimal impact on Fox — I take some comfort in realizing that findings of the judge and the settlement admissions in this case may well play a part in the on-going suits by Smartmatic and the Fox shareholders.

      1. 2/3 of annual profit is not a slap on the wrist, so I'm pretty satisfied with that. Not to mention they have to pay this now, where a judgement would have been subject to the inevitable appeals.

        I'm hoping that this opens the floodgates for other law suits – how about Capitol law enforcement who were injured and traumatized? How about 1/6 insurrectionists who are currently imprisoned based on believing Fox News?

        1. The only floodgates this is going to open, is the floodgates of GOPer sponsored legislation to keep FAUX and other “conservative” exemplars from being subject to these kinds of harassing, “political” nuisance lawsuits.

          Opening those victimhood floodgates in 3, 2, 1 . . .

          1. Collision course?

            At the same time as the RWNJ want to eliminate NY Times v. Sullivan – which would make defamation suits easier – they want to protect their Party Organs (Fox, Newsmax, OAN) from being held accountable for their lies.

            Their cognitive dissonance is extraordinary.

      2. The one bright spot in this settlement is that Dominion now has crazy amounts of mad money to go after all their other suiters — Giuliani, Lindell, Newsmax, et al.  Let’s hope there’s plenty of burning personal revenge in the mix.

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