(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Reminder: FOX News' legal woes aren't over. [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: 2023-04-19 Of course DKos and the internet in general has been abuzz with the news of the Dominion settlement, and I think it’s fair to say there has been a lot of disappointment that Dominion settled. Who among us didn’t look forward to Tucker Carlson being put on the stand and having to explain how he could say such opposite things in his private emails versus what he publicly proclaimed to his viewers, for example. And we looked forward to FOX being exposed to potentially many billions of dollars in damages. But, settle Dominion did. And, to be fair, there have been a lot of explanations as to why, from Dominion’s point of view, This Was A Good Idea, as much as we personally may hate it. I won’t go into those reasons here, but they’re out there for anyone who cares to look. But still, I want to remind folks that this isn’t the end of FOX’s woes, and in fact might just be the beginning. For one, Smartmatic still has their defamation lawsuit out there, and certainly Dominion has already done a lot of the heavy lifting for them on discovery. Unfortunately, there’s currently no real time line out there for when this one might finally get to court, but maybe now that Dominion is out of the way, maybe that will light a fire under this one. And yes, Smartmatic might decide to do like Dominion, and take a settlement. But I doubt they’d ask for less than what Dominion got, and ¾ of a billion is still a lot of money even for a company like FOX (and yes it, I know some will argue that but it’s not chump change, it’s a decent chunk of their annual net profits). And who knows, maybe they’ll decide they want a pound of flesh and really take it all the way to court. But FOX settling TWICE for such hefty amounts of cash? That’s going to sting, and also be a reminder to everyone paying attention to what they did, and that they’d rather pay that kind of money rather than risk going to trial. And remember, when all this started a LOT of people said Dominion had a huge uphill battle because proving actual malice is a really high bar. If FOX thought they could snow the court and win, they’d do it. The fact that they’re willing to pay this kind of money NOT to go to trial tells you just how much they want to avoid it. But things don’t end with Dominion and Smartmatic. There are still a couple of other lawsuits out there against FOX related this. First is the lawsuit by the fired former producer Abby Grossberg, who FOX tried to throw under the bus. And the latest news there is that she announced she has a couple of audio clips pertinent to the suit. And then there’s a suit by a high-dollar shareholder Robert Schwarz against Rupert Murdoch and four FOX board members, accusing them of not preventing FOX from reporting falsehoods and thus damaging FOX’s brand and credibility (I know, I know, once you stop laughing, take a deep breath and get up off the floor and keep reading...). And now the news is that another group of shareholder are demanding records from FOX related to the Dominion suit, in what could well be leading to another shareholder suit against Murdoch and the board. And every suit like that keeps this in the headlines (except at FOX, of course. They’ll continue to report on the relative sexiness of chocolate candy mascots or the gender of potatoes). Frankly, these could just be the beginning trickle of an opening of the floodgates. Imagine, if you will, if you were a Capitol Police officer injured during the January 6th riot. Imagine you were an election official or election worker who got death threats after the election. Imagine you’re a state who had to spend large sums on recounts and legal fees and maybe additional security because of FOX’s lies. Maybe you’d want a piece of FOX as well? And this will give ammo to those who argue that cable customers shouldn’t be on the hook to pay for subsidizing FOX. Or for those who want to keep FOX off of screens on military bases. Of course, no one has a crystal ball, so maybe that won’t happen. But it’s certainly now a much bigger possibility than it was a couple of days ago. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/19/2164716/-Reminder-FOX-News-legal-woes-aren-t-over 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/