Fox News settles defamation lawsuit with election tech firm Dominion Voting Systems : NPR

Fox Information has settled a lawsuit over false claims it aired following the 2020 presidential election. It would pay practically $790 million to Dominion Voting Programs.

A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

$787,500,000.

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That is how a lot Fox Information is paying a voting expertise firm as a part of a authorized settlement. The corporate, Dominion Voting Programs, had sued Fox for defamation over lies the community broadcast following the 2020 presidential election.

MARTÍNEZ: Here is Dominion lawyer, Stephen Shackelford, after the deal was introduced.

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STEPHEN SHACKELFORD: Cash is accountability, and we obtained that at this time from Fox.

MARTÍNEZ: NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik has been overlaying the case. He joins us from Wilmington, Del.

David, is that this settlement an acknowledgment that Fox did, certainly, lie?

DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Sure and no. And let’s begin with the no. It is a very passively constructed assertion. It says, you recognize, that Fox acknowledges the courtroom’s ruling that sure statements about Dominion Voting Programs have been false. And that is technically true. What it would not say is that Fox itself broadcast and at instances embraced these claims. And there is not any apology on the air. However that mentioned, it did acknowledge the falsity of it. And the legal professionals that I talked to from Dominion final night time pointed to that and say, look, that is actually essential. That is a part of the file. And the courtroom has discovered that, and Fox has acknowledged that.

The second factor is the dimensions of the settlement – $787 million – only a skosh underneath half of the $1.6 billion Dominion had been publicly in search of for this – is so massive that that is a part of an apology. And the actual fact that that determine was disclosed publicly – typically in such settlements, these figures will not be disclosed – the info that Fox needed to agree for that to be disclosed publicly meant that Dominion can at all times level to that and say, you recognize, individuals like Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, on the high of that company empire, certain aren’t giving greater than three-quarters of a billion {dollars} away out of charity. That is an admission of wrongdoing proper there.

MARTÍNEZ: You talked about no acknowledgment on the air. Did Fox Information point out it in any respect as a part of the information?

FOLKENFLIK: You understand, it reported it very briefly, kind of in a spartan method. It did acknowledge it on a few of its information reveals. Its chief media host and correspondent Howard Kurtz did seem. However, you recognize, in its 6 p.m. political newscast, he mentioned he hadn’t been capable of verify the determine that had been introduced simply outdoors the courthouse by a phalanx of attorneys for Dominion Voting Programs – about the one reporter in America who couldn’t accomplish that.

MARTÍNEZ: All proper. Now, this case actually supplied the general public a uncommon take a look at the inside workings of Fox Information, however the outlet is form of entangled in different litigation as effectively. The place do they stand on their different lawsuits?

FOLKENFLIK: You understand, there is a bunch of others. There was a producer – chief booker – for Tucker Carlson’s primetime present. She sued Fox, saying, amongst different issues, they’d pressured her to mislead the courtroom and Dominion in her testimony right here. She was promptly fired. Smartmatic has a $2.7 billion lawsuit teed up towards Fox. It was really filed earlier than Dominion. That is one other voting-tech firm that was equally basically described in clearly false and defamatory methods. It was concerned solely in Los Angeles County within the 2020 elections. Laborious to consider it dedicated any voter fraud. And positively, there will be shareholder lawsuits as effectively that ensue once you see management of Fox concerned in kind of getting them into this sort of hassle.

MARTÍNEZ: David, what do you suppose’s the bigger significance of this case and its decision?

FOLKENFLIK: Nicely, you recognize, had this gone ahead, it will have been an important defamation trial in lots of, many many years. However I believe the very nature of this go well with tells us lots about Fox – the way it reacted in disaster, the diploma by which there was cynicism right here and, additionally, that there are limits on what you’ll be able to say. Even with America’s extremely stringent protections for freedom of speech, there are limits to what the media can say and do in methods which might be false and defamatory and hurtful. And Fox simply bumped up towards it.

MARTÍNEZ: That is NPR’s David Folkenflik in Wilmington, Del.

David, thanks.

FOLKENFLIK: You wager.

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