I’d love to see them channel The Fonz.
A settlement has been reached.
What happens to the special master?
Just announced through presser on msnbc settled, for 787.5million.
I’m sure they did what was right for the company but I was looking forward to some squirming on the stand. Darn.
Yes. If that whimpy statement is all fox needs to do, that is seriously disappointing.
On to the smartmatics suit.
I was listening to NPR on the way to work this morning, and the guy they were interviewing said he was shocked that they hadn’t reached a settlement already. And now they have. I suspect the settlement came about because a jury was seated. (In my experience, juries are used as a threat. ‘OK, if you two can’t come to an agreement, this is going to trial. See? I’m calling a jury!’ Makes me feel like a pawn.)
I’m greatly disappointed that we won’t see these slimeballs testify under oath. This is the headline on Foxnews.com right now. Nothing about the settlement anywhere. I am shocked, I tell you. Just shocked.
Special counsel finds Biden Cabinet secretary violated federal law during 2022 election cycle
Now they care about the Hatch Act?
Here is the Fox News article:
I see there is nothing in the article where they admitted that they lied on the air, knew they lied, and continued to lie.
What the hell really happened to get this settlement? If it were a whole “don’t let the newscasters testify” thing, why not ask for more money? And if Murdoch didn’t want to testify, they don’t have an on-air apology… It seems too neat to me.
It is hard to pass up $800M in money now than who knows how much at some distant point in the future. Fox could tie up the payment for who knows how long.
Dominion has a responsibility to its shareholders, and no one else. Juries are notoriously fickle and unpredictable, even in what appear to be slam dunk cases. I’ve seen it many times, and wondered if we all sat through the same trial.
As much as I would have liked to see this case go forward for the principle of the thing, I can understand why it settled. 3/4 of a billion dollars on the table today is a lot to walk away from, against the prospects of a fickle jury, 10 years of appeals, a judge who may decide to reduce your verdict even if you are successful and so on.
It’s not “too neat.” It’s the way our civil litigation system works – for better or worse.
Yes, on that front, I can’t really blame Dominion. Additionally, paying nearly $800 million isn’t like paying $500K, which can be covered by a liability insurance policy. This is something that’s going to make the shareholders at NewsCorp. wince a little. Also, hopefully it’ll make the on-air mouthpieces at Fox a little less reticent to keep calling for New York Times v. Sullivan to be overturned.
Dominion had to keep in mind that it’s entirely possible you could end up with some MAGA cultist on the jury which could screw you over, even if the evidence is overwhelming. Ultimately, I view this a little like the settlement the city of St. Louis made with the NFL a couple of years ago. It’s blatantly obvious what happened here, even if there isn’t an outright allocution by Fox.
Exactly. This would have dragged on for years.
But I do think Fox was getting a bit desperate to avoid testimony from their on-air personalities as well as Murdoch. They would have been forced to admit under oath that they lie to their audience for money and ratings. And this would have been in the news for weeks. Not to mention the special master who was about to uncover even more lying - this time lying to the court.
This way, Fox gets to bury the whole thing, and continue to lie to their audience for money and ratings.
Their desperation is why they were willing to pay 787 million dollars. I’m sure that’s a huge increase over what they had been offering along the way. And this case had the potential to end up as a bad Supreme Court opinion that would gut defamation law.
All of us would have loved to see those fuckers on the witness stand, but that doesn’t mean it was the right decision for the Plaintiff
ETA: Fox undoubtedly really wanted a confidentiality clause for the settlement, and apparently couldn’t get Dominion to agree to that. So, be grateful to Dominion for that.
I wanted a trial, but am not surprised Foxnews has to pay out a huge sum of money. And admit that their claims were untrue.
Still, a trial would have been very nice.
This is something a lot of people don’t understand about how businesses work. Yes, businesses are there to make money, but their fiscal responsibility isn’t to the neighborhood or their employees, it is only to the shareholders. If they can make more money for their shareholders by taking care of their employees and/or local neighborhoods, this is what they will do, but only for the money, not because they care.
Thanks so much for reminding folks of this…I tend to forget about then when it comes to emotionally charged decisions like this.
Maybe not. Smartmatic is next at bat.
Thanks for the thanks. And I do think @Procrustus’s point is extremely well made, about the potential for this case to gut defamation law:
This would not have been a good thing for democracy.
This isn’t over. There are many more suits for Fox to cope with. I’m also certain Judge Davis is not done with Fox for withholding discovery.
I believe only in the statement of settlement. Sadly, in return for giving Dominion a vast sum of money, Fox anchors will not be required to acknowledge any of this on the air. They’ll even be able to brazenly continue their election lies, as long as they are now careful not to defame any particular business interests, and blame anything else instead, like mail-in ballots and crooked poll workers or whatever the hell else Trump invented.