Yes, Dominion might not have seen a penny for four years or better, what with appeals. And of course deep-pocketed malefactors like Murdoch count on exactly that with those who sue them: the litigants must settle because they have to pay their lawyers and get on with their business.
Dominion’s case was so good that Murdoch couldn’t get away with offering chicken feed–that’s the only comfort here.
Yes. The only change will likely be instructions to the on-air talent that they can’t lend verisimilitude to their lies by picking out some innocent small business and pretending that business is the tool of The Devil/Soros/Venezuela. Instead they will have to stick to generalities and not dress up their lies with colorful details—since those details could come back to bite.
It’s been interesting to observe the media reaction to this. I’d had Nicolle Wallace’s MSNBC show on when the news broke and she had the honest reaction of ‘this is very disappointing—a big payout for Fox but NO admission of guilt and no real accountability for them.’
Then the next hour, MSNBC producers must have leapt on the host (a sub for Ari Melber) and said NO NO THIS IS A DOWNER YOU MUST PAINT THIS AS A BIG WIN FOR THE LEFT. So the woman was all “Fox caved!” and “now they’re exposed as liars” and similar bullshit.
Well, Fox did cave. They didn’t have the guts to put their people on the witness stand, and paid a lot of money to prevent that from happening. I’m as disappointed as anyone that we don’t get to see this trial, but it’s not a bad result for Dominion at all.
The frustrating thing is that Fox is now carrying this as a minor story of no significance – Fox followers are currently seeing it as #30 in their current web list of news stories, well below the ranking of the major news story about how some sitcom star that nobody ever heard of managed to lose 150 pounds. And it’s being portrayed as an “amicable” settlement, made in accordance with “FOX’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards”. The extraordinary amount of the settlement isn’t in the article anywhere. IOW, just a small misunderstanding that’s now been amicably resolved. Nothing to see here.
In a statement issued shortly after the announcement, Fox News said the network acknowledged “the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.” - SOURCE
That seems to be it. That is the extent of their admission what they said was a lie. No retraction or admission on air needs to be made.
I have to agree with wolfpup rather than with Procrustus. Putting “their people on the witness stand” was not a matter of guts, it was a matter of ‘it’s a lot cheaper to pay out 3/4 of a billion than to let this go on’----particularly in view of Fox News being weeks away from securing their major profits. Those profits come from the deals (carriage fees, charged to every cable subscriber) they make with cable companies–not from advertisers.
Those negotiations will go better for Fox now that the Dominion suit is behind them. (The Smartmatic case remains, but now that the settlement example is out there, may be considered to be no bar to Fox negotiating its traditionally-high carriage fees with the cable companies.)
I do agree with you, Procrustus, that this settlement might be considered the best possible outcome for Dominion. But in this discussion the outcome for the wider world (for democracy, for example) is also relevant–and that outcome is NOT good.
I agree. On one hand, Fox has been exposed. Tucker hates Trump passionately, etc. But on the other hand, a trial would have revealed more, and been noticed more. It’s not Dominion’s job, unfortunately, to save us from Fox. (For all I know, they are conservative assholes too). We have to find other ways. Dominion did us a small favor, but the big job remains.
Absolutely correct. And as you say, Dominion did do us a favor. We can hope that their model of pre-trial strategy–sharing much of what they received in discovery from Fox with the public–will be followed by Smartmatic, too.
Very true. Unless Fox News news chiefs go on the air to explain the settlement, none of their viewers will ever know about it, unless they see it on Fox News’ website.
Incidentally, regarding the Smartmatic suit against Fox, although neither Dominion nor Smartmatic is particularly huge, the latter is more than twice the size of Dominion, presumably with commensurate financial clout. And lots of the lying bullshit that Dominion uncovered is likely relevant to their case, too. Indeed, just a few days ago Smartmatic filed suit to obtain from Fox all the relevant documents that they had to turn over to Dominion.
Can a law firm share its discovery with another law firm or are there rules against that? E.G. Could the Dominion lawyers drive to the Smartmatic lawyers’ offices with boxes of the discovery Dominion lawyers had already done? (really asking)
It makes them not subject to shareholder lawsuits and similar actions, and I would think much freer than a public company to chart their own path in this lawsuit, money be damned. A public company is highly regulated financially. We know very little on the other hand about DVS’ internals.
That’s easy to say when it’s not your money, and when you aren’t the one with a responsibility to 250 employees who will have no job if you go out of business because your crap shoot of a lawsuit failed or didn’t garner as much as you’d hoped or or or. There are so many uncertainties to bringing such a case.
I don’t blame the investor for settling.
I’m as sorry as anyone that the trial didn’t go forward, but I do understand the massive pressure on both sides to settle.
On the whole, I’m not disappointed with the settlement. Was it a homerun? No, but it’s surely a double. Some of the inner workings of Fox news got exposed to the public, and the large monetary judgment will put Fox and other media sources intentionally spreading lies and disinformation on notice and maybe prevent them from engaging in their worst excesses.
As for devoted Fox news viewers themselves, the gif above says it all. A judgment in favor of Dominion wouldn’t alter that a bit.
Wait, didn’t you say they had no responsibility for anyone but their shareholders? Now they’re also responsible for their employees?
Personally I think everybody is responsible for fighting fascism, especially when the only thing you have to risk by doing so is money. They could have been heroes, but they chose to cash in instead.
Counter argument: Seeing the scum testify would have been entertaining, but enough information is already public about this case to permanently ruin Fox’s reputation for credibility, to whatever extent it had any.
The only thing they gave up a shot at was forcing them to recant their lies on the air and admit to being lying liars. But would even that really cause their viewers to stop trusting them? Nothing else has, after all.
A few days before this (see article below) the judge in the case was to sanction Fox News for withholding evidence and was going to appoint a special master to look into how far that went.
Will the judge continue with that or is it all over because the case was settled? ISTM the judge should still press forward with that since it is separate from the civil case but I do not know how this works.
