(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Fox News could be seriously damaged by the defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion / Smartmatic. [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-17 Thank you Shockwave! Fox News Corp media liars parroted Trump's claims despite no evidence to support the claims and much evidence to deny their veracity. They were warned in real time to stop promoting these lies. It’s very difficult to win a defamation lawsuit against a media giant like Fox News. For Dominion to prove defamation, the company must show that Fox acted with “actual malice,” meaning that Fox knew the allegations made about Dominion were false or that Fox acted in reckless disregard for the truth. That’s a high bar. Again, it’s difficult to prove defamation against a media company. . . . . I recommend reading the whole story because they provide many examples. However, here is a sampling of what can be found: Fox’s internal “fact checks” about Dominion allegations reported they were “incorrect” and “not evidence of widespread fraud.” [11/13/20; 11/20/20] After canceling Pirro’s November 7 show, Fox executive David Clark told Executive Vice President of Primetime Programming Meade Cooper: “Her guests are all going to say the election is being stolen and if she pushes back at all it will just be token.” Ingraham’s producer Tommy Firth texted Fox executive Ron Mitchell: “This dominion shit is going to give me a fucking aneurysm—as many times as I’ve told Laura it’s bs, she sees shit posters and trump tweeting about it.” [11/8/20] Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott to Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch: “Viewers going through the 5 stages of grief. It’s a question of trust—the AZ [call] was damaging but we will highlight our stars and plant flags letting the viewers know we hear them and respect them.” Murdoch replied: “Yes. But needs constant rebuilding without any missteps.” Scott responded: “Yes today is day one and it’s a process.” [11/9/20] Fox News Washington, D.C., Managing Editor Bill Sammon to Fox Political Editor Chris Stirewalt on the network’s coverage of “supposed election fraud”: “It’s remarkable how weak ratings make[] good journalists do bad things.” [12/2/20] Carlson to Ingraham: Powell’s “a nut, as you said at the outset. It totally wrecked my weekend. Wow... I had to try to make the WH disavow her, which they obviously should have done long before.” Ingraham responded to Carlson: “No serious lawyer could believe what they were saying.” [11/22/20] . As a result of the evidence that was gathered and presented, Fox News Corp lost its bid to have the lawsuit dismissed. While the failure of Fox News Corp to have the lawsuit dismissed does not alone guarantee victory by the plaintiffs, it does show that Dominion is in a strong position and has a good chance of winning. . Fox Corp had attempted to have the suit dismissed, but a Delaware judge said Dominion had shown adequate evidence for the suit to proceed. Dominion is already suing Fox News, as well as OAN and Newsmax. “These allegations support a reasonable inference that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch either knew Dominion had not manipulated the election or at least recklessly disregarded the truth when they allegedly caused Fox News to propagate its claims about Dominion,” Judge Eric Davis said. Davis’s ruling is not a guarantee that Fox will be found liable. But the judge made it clear that this isn’t some frivolous attempt by Dominion – and media and legal experts think Fox could be in real trouble. “Dominion has a very strong case against Fox News – and against OAN for that matter ,” said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor who teaches constitutional law at Stetson University and a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute. “The reason Dominion is suing is because Fox and other rightwing news outlets repeated vicious lies that Dominion’s voting machines stole the 2020 election from Trump for Biden. But all of these conspiracy theories about Dominion’s machines were just pure bunk, and Fox as a news organization should have known that and not given this aspect of the big lie a megaphone. “What’s particularly bad for Fox is [that] Dominion asked them to stop and correct the record in real time, and Fox persisted in spreading misrepresentations about the voting machine company.” Indeed, in his ruling, Davis noted that “other newspapers under Rupert Murdoch’s control, including the Wall Street Journal and New York Post, condemned President Trump’s claims and urged him to concede defeat”. . . Both Smartmatic and Dominion are in a strong position in their respective cases as both prevailed against Fox News Corp when they attempted to have the lawsuits dismissed. . . NEW YORK -- Fox News lost an attempt Tuesday to shut down a multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuit that accuses the network of spreading lies that a voting-technology company helped “steal” the 2020 election from then-U.S. President Donald Trump. New York's Supreme Court Appellate Division, a mid-level appeals court, ruled against the network, which wanted judges to dismiss the $2.7 billion defamation case. The five-judge ruling concluded there were “significant allegations” that Giuliani and Powell defamed the company. “The complaint alleges in detailed fashion that in their coverage and commentary, Fox News, Dobbs, and Bartiromo effectively endorsed and participated in the statements with reckless disregard for, or serious doubts about” whether there was any reliable evidence for them, five judges wrote in a unanimous opinion. Citing “the same reasoning,” they also reinstated Smartmatic's claims against Pirro, which a lower court had thrown out. Federal and state election officials, exhaustive reviews in battleground states and Trump’s own attorney general found no widespread fraud that could have changed the outcome of the 2020 election. Nor did they uncover any credible evidence that the vote was tainted. Trump’s allegations of fraud also were roundly rejected by dozens of courts, including by judges whom he had appointed. The ruling comes as Fox News fights a separate, $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit from Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems, with a trial date in April. The network also is fighting lawsuit from a Venezuelan businessman who said he was wrongly accused of trying to corrupt the election. Florida-based Smartmatic said that in the 2020 presidential election, its technology and software were used only in California’s Los Angeles County. . As Nicolle Wallace noted yesterday, the claim against Smartmatic is particularly problematic because their only participation in the 2020 presidential election was in Los Angeles County. She further stated that neither plaintiff has shown any interest in a settlement . Even a media giant like Fox News Corp could be hurt by losing two different approximately two billion dollar lawsuits for defamation. This represents a significant percentage of Fox News Corporation’s value. . Another election technology company, Smartmatic, has sued Fox for defamation to the tune of even more: $2.7 billion. This spells heavy duty trouble. Consider this statement from a brief filed in New York State Supreme Court by Smartmatic’s lawyer, J. Erik Connolly. It’s instructive from both legal and media points of view: “The First Amendment does not provide the Fox defendants a get-out-of-jail-free card. [They] do not get a do-over with their reporting now that they have been sued.” Taken as a whole, these suits total roughly $4.3 billion in potential damage for Fox. This represents close to 20 percent of the net worth of Rupert Murdoch, the overlord of News Corp., Fox’s parent company. Again, from Wikipedia: . If Dominion and Smartmatic win, then it could chill right wing media’s desire to promote election denialism and that would be a very big win for democracy. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/17/2153482/-Fox-News-could-be-seriously-damaged-by-the-defamation-lawsuit-filed-by-Dominion-Smartmatic Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/