Fox News settles Dominion defamation lawsuit for $787.5 million | DW News

Fox News has reached a settlement with voting machine maker Dominion in a defamation case over 2020 election coverage, a US judge announced on Tuesday. A jury had been selected just hours before the announcement. "The parties have resolved their case," Eric Davis told the Delaware Superior Court. The judge announced that there would be no trial in the $1.6 billion (€1.5 billion) lawsuit. A lawyer for Dominion said that Fox News had settled the case for $787.5 million.

What did Fox and Dominion say about the settlement?
Fox News said that it was pleased to have reached the "amicable" settlement. "We acknowledge the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false. This settlement reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards," Fox Corp said. "We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues," the broadcaster said. Dominion CEO John Poulos welcomed the settlement, calling it "historic." "Fox has admitted to telling lies about Dominion that caused enormous damage to my company, our employees and our customers," Poulos said. "Nothing can ever make up for that. Throughout this process, we have sought accountability and believe the evidence brought to light through this case underscores the consequences of spreading and endorsing lies," he said.
"Truthful reporting in the media is essential to our democracy," Poulos declared.

What was the defamation case about?
The defamation case pertained to claims aired by Fox that Dominion voting machines used in the US 2020 presidential elections had rigged the outcome in favor of Joe Biden, who defeated former President Donald Trump. In February court filings, Dominion cited internal communications in which Fox Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch and other prominent figures in the company privately acknowledged that the claims of vote-rigging were false. Dominion filed the lawsuit against Fox in 2021. The primary question for jurors was to be whether Fox knowingly spread false information or recklessly disregarded the truth. For a defamation case to succeed in the US, the standard of "actual malice" must be met. Fox News is the US' most-watched cable news network, according to the Nielsen data firm.

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[koenigkorczak]

That's a shame. They should have been on trial.

[hardcore]

I would have loved for Sean hannity and Murdock haft to take the stand

[tiffanyi]

I wish Dominion wouldn’t have settled!! This was an important opportunity to create needed case law for these kinds of situations! Smh

[infantiltinferno]

Roughly half of the amount sued for, not bad at all. People disappointed about the settlement have an unrealistic idea of what a defamation case can achieve beyond monetary incentive. Look at Alex Jones, if that man can survive with his core audience intact you can bet Fox can do the same.

[emikomina]

lies are cheap, consequences are expensive

[jjsc]

Yeah, you pay a fine, then immediately lie about lying.

[memarks]

Also this leaves a taste of travesty in my mouth. Dominion may feel that it has been made whole (or half) but Fox is now in a position to claim they settled without admitting guilt (they can maintain with impunity that an unspecified portion of the claim is false), There is no real reversal of the damage to public perception of elections, no apology, no recantation. In my opinion Dominion also suffered a defeat in terms of the settlement figure. If you think about it, 1.1 billion would have sent the right message. (Think of charm pricing). But the real damage is to the US. Truth only barely protrudes beyond the foreskin of lies, a locust plague of delusion still clouds the judgement of the good people of America, and we are all still worse off for it.

[Simsimmer]

This proves that justice is up for sale to those who can afford to pay

[dm]

Hopefully Smartmatic will have more guts than Dominion!

[billyponsonby]

I am disappointed. I think seeing Murdoch, Carlson and Hannity face cross examination would have been good for democracy.

[MFH]

Why would Dominion settle for half of what they were asking for? And they didn't demand that Fox apologize. There must have been something that Dominion didn't want to come out during a trial.

[phajgo]

Such crimes should be prosecuted ex officio

[yapandasoftware]

If this is the case, then CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, CNN all owe Trump $1 Trillion Dollars.

[noncompulsoryl]

Great, finally that trash factory gets taken to court and instead of doing something meaningful with it, it ends up as an exchange of money.

[cybersaint]

We all know msnbc, cnn, cbs, bbc, abc, Are the same as fox news or even worse in some cases

[sandylee]

Interested to see a court case displaying the evidences and presenting the arguments. This deserves public knowledge.

[francisng]

Fox should’ve defended themselves and won the case.

[artel]

Money talks louder than the lie being retracted on record as an everyday person hears a large number & moves on.
It's pleasing dominion won, but more powerful is a simple visual truth aired succinctly by the offending presenters.
Arguably then, any news network could replay over & over again any of the retractions publicly, driving home the point.

[torablack]

All news sources have their biases, Including DW news! best thing anyone could do is to follow a couple of different news sources to try and make it easier to tell what's the news and what's the biases.

[ChrisAlbertH]

Fox is an organization that makes billions in yearly revenue. 800 million, while not an insignificant sum, is not going to hit them so hard that they're going to be discouraged from doing the same thing should they feel the need to once again pander to their fickle audience. They'll just be smarter about it next time. Real accountability would've been about forcing their talking heads and execs to explain why they felt the need to lie to their audience, and having the *malice* aspect proven in court.