Since the trial was not going to be televised, I wonder really if it would have any impact. It is one thing to hear about testimony. It is quite another to see it
787 million seems like a lot of money, to me. But I just read that Facebook has reached a tentative settlement in a class action suit that will pay nearly that much to users for playing fast and loose with their personal data -- this after being fined 5 billion by the gov't. So, by comparison, it looks like Fox got off easy.
Fox may have defamed Dominion to their insular MAGA viewers, but Dominion defamed themselves and lost everyone else's respect by not using their leverage to get Fox to set the record straight and confess to their fraud. IMO, they've done more harm to their own name than Fox did. I'll be interested to see how Smartmatic's settlement plays out, but I'll expect the same pathetic result.
No one in the media has made this point, but if I was the mediator I would have gone to Dominion and asked them if they wanted to roll the dice on a government debt default. Fox has unbelievable sway over the GOP House and if they really wanted to play hardball they could have pushed the rightwing nut jobs like Gaetz and MTG et al into forcing a debt default. Dominion's money down the road might have not been worth half of what it is today. I would have settled with or without a direct apology.
That a Fox News could do so much damage to America with its promotion of the Big Lie, and the only recourse is a private party suing (and now settling with) them is not a sustainable path for the country.
It is like with pollution - there needs to be accountability for damage to the commons.
I understand why Dominion blinked on the courthouse steps, took the money and ran. I understand why their lawyers spin it as a win (it is, in the sense of why one goes to trial, for damages, is a win).
But FOX is the BIG winner here! (And we still don't have a definition of Actual Malice and there will probably never be another one as clear as this one! That is a loss for legal nerds.)
Sure, 3/4 billion dollars is a lot of money and it can't be appealed, it has to be paid. But FOX has four billion so writing a big check doesn't hurt Fox, or Murdoch, or Tucker or Sean or the rest of the corruption. And they can go on lying -- just not about Dominion. They have suffered no punishment from all this. They have learned no lesson other than "we can lie and write a check for it; cool"! And I know we are all disappointed by that. Put away the popcorn.
Hey Dominion, my price would have been waaay higher for that non-apology, non-retraction settlement. Maybe 1.3 bil, min. And I'm just an annoyed, scared American.
Ahhh, justice in America, for even, or especially ill gotten gains, money makes all problems disappear. Fox not only pushed the Big Lie, they keep the anger raging and they sell guns. Their business model kills people. If a Black guy in Oklahoma gets stopped for speeding he immediately has to pay a fine. If he doesn’t have the money he could go right to jail. That’s if those boys on the tape don’t beat him to death. So far, attempting to overthrow an election — no consequences. Just another fund raiser.
I heard a commentator last night—can’t remember where—suggest that Fox shareholders might have a legitimate claim against them. This and forthcoming settlements may reduce their dividends, no?
Dominion and their lawyers might have made a "sound business decision" in accepting Fox's settlement offer, but the monetary damages Fox paid is, at best, only a short term fix. Since Fox did not have to acknowledge that its prime time talking heads continuously promoted the Big Lie, Fox got out of a very sticky wicket. OTOH, Dominion might walk away with about 3/4 of a billion dollars but IMO they still lost, they got zero in terms of reputational repair - which was the supposed reason for the lawsuit in the first place. Fox admits no wrong, doesn't have to apologize on-air nor does it fire the main promoters (and why should they fire *any* of them, they all bring in major advertising dollars, even Jeanine Pirro) and so skates with a minimum amount of corporate pain.
Bottom line, no matter how you spin it, Fox won in the long term.
Here's hoping Smartmatic will also get a huge amount of money out of them. I just want them driven out of business 😑 Fox nooz is a cancer. They should not be allowed to broadcast anything.
People just don't seem to get the reason for the settlement, which was anyone who practiced law knew that was almost certain to happen. Let me offer my two cents as someone who has been an attorney for 35 years, much of it spent in litigation.
To succeed in a defamation case you need 2 things: 1) that the defendant did something wrong (in this case that the defendant defamed the plaintiff) and 2) that the plaintiff was injured as a result of that defamation.
It doesn't matter how much evidence you have on #1 and how outrageous the evidence of the defamation is, if you don't have damages, you don't have a case. The case as to #1 in this case is overwhelming. The problem is Dominion didn't really have much in the way of evidence as to #2, that the company had been damaged. It has actually gained in value since the alleged defamation.
So, you had two countervailing pressures that were pushing toward settlement. Fox News desperately didn't want its stars and Murdoch on the stand having to admit to lying to its viewers. On the other side, Dominion knew that if it went to trial, it would win, but the damage award wouldn't be that large. (Or, if it was, an appellate court would reduce it on appeal.)
Dominion walked away with a settlement of $787.5 million far more than it would have gotten if it went to trial. The settlement spared Fox News embarrassment.
I think it's a bunch of nonsense that people think because Fox News didn't have to publicly admit lying to its viewers, the network somehow scored a victory. Give me a break. Anyone who by now doesn't believe Fox was lying, wouldn't believe such a public apology anyway. The amount of the settlement and that it was made public, leaves no doubt that it's an admission of guilt.
"The lawyers for Dominion are not tribunes of democracy; they were serving the interest of their clients. "
Yeah, but.... dammit someone has to! This is the most disappointing outcome since two impeachments that led to nothing. I wish the heads of Dominion had felt it more important - essential! - to bring the truth about Fox to light than to collect a settlement. I strongly believe they could have done both. This is an incredibly tragic missed opportunity.
Re: kids being shot. What about the poor kid who got shot knocking on the door at the wrong house and the girl who was shot sitting in a car that pulled into the wrong driveway. I hope both these people who shot without evidence spend a long time in jail.
Off topic, but it was just announced that Tuck is leaving Fox. His last show was Friday...
Since the trial was not going to be televised, I wonder really if it would have any impact. It is one thing to hear about testimony. It is quite another to see it
787 million seems like a lot of money, to me. But I just read that Facebook has reached a tentative settlement in a class action suit that will pay nearly that much to users for playing fast and loose with their personal data -- this after being fined 5 billion by the gov't. So, by comparison, it looks like Fox got off easy.
Fox may have defamed Dominion to their insular MAGA viewers, but Dominion defamed themselves and lost everyone else's respect by not using their leverage to get Fox to set the record straight and confess to their fraud. IMO, they've done more harm to their own name than Fox did. I'll be interested to see how Smartmatic's settlement plays out, but I'll expect the same pathetic result.
No one in the media has made this point, but if I was the mediator I would have gone to Dominion and asked them if they wanted to roll the dice on a government debt default. Fox has unbelievable sway over the GOP House and if they really wanted to play hardball they could have pushed the rightwing nut jobs like Gaetz and MTG et al into forcing a debt default. Dominion's money down the road might have not been worth half of what it is today. I would have settled with or without a direct apology.
That a Fox News could do so much damage to America with its promotion of the Big Lie, and the only recourse is a private party suing (and now settling with) them is not a sustainable path for the country.
It is like with pollution - there needs to be accountability for damage to the commons.
I understand why Dominion blinked on the courthouse steps, took the money and ran. I understand why their lawyers spin it as a win (it is, in the sense of why one goes to trial, for damages, is a win).
But FOX is the BIG winner here! (And we still don't have a definition of Actual Malice and there will probably never be another one as clear as this one! That is a loss for legal nerds.)
Sure, 3/4 billion dollars is a lot of money and it can't be appealed, it has to be paid. But FOX has four billion so writing a big check doesn't hurt Fox, or Murdoch, or Tucker or Sean or the rest of the corruption. And they can go on lying -- just not about Dominion. They have suffered no punishment from all this. They have learned no lesson other than "we can lie and write a check for it; cool"! And I know we are all disappointed by that. Put away the popcorn.
"No one has been fired."
Lou Dobbs was fired... but that's no where near enough. Jeannine Piro continues to be an embarrassment to carbon based life forms, everywhere.
Hey Dominion, my price would have been waaay higher for that non-apology, non-retraction settlement. Maybe 1.3 bil, min. And I'm just an annoyed, scared American.
Ahhh, justice in America, for even, or especially ill gotten gains, money makes all problems disappear. Fox not only pushed the Big Lie, they keep the anger raging and they sell guns. Their business model kills people. If a Black guy in Oklahoma gets stopped for speeding he immediately has to pay a fine. If he doesn’t have the money he could go right to jail. That’s if those boys on the tape don’t beat him to death. So far, attempting to overthrow an election — no consequences. Just another fund raiser.
| We will always have the massive document dumps. The emails. The texts.
As if that mattered to more than 0.1% of Republican voters and/or 0.01% of Fox News viewers.
When one's been guzzling the Kool-Aid for years, one tends not to care what's listed in the ingredients.
I heard a commentator last night—can’t remember where—suggest that Fox shareholders might have a legitimate claim against them. This and forthcoming settlements may reduce their dividends, no?
Dominion and their lawyers might have made a "sound business decision" in accepting Fox's settlement offer, but the monetary damages Fox paid is, at best, only a short term fix. Since Fox did not have to acknowledge that its prime time talking heads continuously promoted the Big Lie, Fox got out of a very sticky wicket. OTOH, Dominion might walk away with about 3/4 of a billion dollars but IMO they still lost, they got zero in terms of reputational repair - which was the supposed reason for the lawsuit in the first place. Fox admits no wrong, doesn't have to apologize on-air nor does it fire the main promoters (and why should they fire *any* of them, they all bring in major advertising dollars, even Jeanine Pirro) and so skates with a minimum amount of corporate pain.
Bottom line, no matter how you spin it, Fox won in the long term.
fnord
Here's hoping Smartmatic will also get a huge amount of money out of them. I just want them driven out of business 😑 Fox nooz is a cancer. They should not be allowed to broadcast anything.
There is no chance these settlements will put them out of business. Zero.
People just don't seem to get the reason for the settlement, which was anyone who practiced law knew that was almost certain to happen. Let me offer my two cents as someone who has been an attorney for 35 years, much of it spent in litigation.
To succeed in a defamation case you need 2 things: 1) that the defendant did something wrong (in this case that the defendant defamed the plaintiff) and 2) that the plaintiff was injured as a result of that defamation.
It doesn't matter how much evidence you have on #1 and how outrageous the evidence of the defamation is, if you don't have damages, you don't have a case. The case as to #1 in this case is overwhelming. The problem is Dominion didn't really have much in the way of evidence as to #2, that the company had been damaged. It has actually gained in value since the alleged defamation.
So, you had two countervailing pressures that were pushing toward settlement. Fox News desperately didn't want its stars and Murdoch on the stand having to admit to lying to its viewers. On the other side, Dominion knew that if it went to trial, it would win, but the damage award wouldn't be that large. (Or, if it was, an appellate court would reduce it on appeal.)
Dominion walked away with a settlement of $787.5 million far more than it would have gotten if it went to trial. The settlement spared Fox News embarrassment.
I think it's a bunch of nonsense that people think because Fox News didn't have to publicly admit lying to its viewers, the network somehow scored a victory. Give me a break. Anyone who by now doesn't believe Fox was lying, wouldn't believe such a public apology anyway. The amount of the settlement and that it was made public, leaves no doubt that it's an admission of guilt.
Thanks for the explanation. Yeah, the fine points of a law can be bummers.
"The lawyers for Dominion are not tribunes of democracy; they were serving the interest of their clients. "
Yeah, but.... dammit someone has to! This is the most disappointing outcome since two impeachments that led to nothing. I wish the heads of Dominion had felt it more important - essential! - to bring the truth about Fox to light than to collect a settlement. I strongly believe they could have done both. This is an incredibly tragic missed opportunity.
Re: kids being shot. What about the poor kid who got shot knocking on the door at the wrong house and the girl who was shot sitting in a car that pulled into the wrong driveway. I hope both these people who shot without evidence spend a long time in jail.