The courtroom showdown between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems is being dubbed the media trial of the 21st

century and that is no exaggeration.

In one corner, Rupert Murdoch’s conservative cable network, which exerts a powerful and often polarizing influence on US political discourse, antagonizes liberals and lends support to Donald Trump’s supporters.

On the other side of the ring is the Denver-based voice device maker, who says

believes

Fox News damaged

the

its $1.6 billion reputation when guests and hosts on the network falsely said the company was a central player in rigging the 2020 election for President Biden, a myth promoted by the Trump administration. camp.

Dominion claims the network perpetuated Trump’s lies through his attorney Sidney Powell and adviser Rudy Giuliani to prevent the hapless viewers from fleeing to fledgling conservative channel Newsmax.

Opening arguments begin Monday in the Delaware Superior Court, a development that is startling in its own right, as legal experts noted that such defamation cases rarely go to trial.

If sportsbooks offered a settlement, most attorneys would have bet it would happen before evidence for discovery was gathered. As a result, the mischievous internal communications of Fox News talent and executives have been sprayed by the press like candy from a piata.

I’m very surprised it didn’t settle down before discovery and before Fox had to produce all this stuff that generated all this publicity, said Lee Levine, a veteran 1st Amendment attorney.

Texts, emails and testimonials gave a glimpse into the inner workings of Fox News and showed how

executives and hosts

tried to balance their own disbelief about Trump’s accusations with the

ir

perceived need to appease his supporters, who usually watch the network.

Documents also revealed disparaging remarks about Trump and Powell and tensions between the network’s right-wing commentators and journalists.

The skepticism and fact-checking within Fox News didn’t stop the network from presenting false claims about its programs in the weeks following the 2020 election. The abundance of evidence is highly unusual in defamation cases,

weakening of the network’s defenses

legal experts have said.

making them vulnerable.

Judge Eric Davis has already ruled that Fox News provided false information, citing programs hosted by

Tucker

Carlson, Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro and Lou Dobbs. Murdoch acknowledged this in his testimony he gave in January.

The ruling dismisses the network’s defense that the false claims were newsworthy because they were made on behalf of the president, which legal experts say is a huge benefit to Dominion.

The 12-member jury in Delaware will have to decide whether Fox News acted maliciously by presenting the allegations knowing the information was false or by displaying a reckless disregard for the truth.

She

Jurors will likely see the network talent take the stand to defend their actions. Murdoch, 92, could be one of the first witnesses called with his son Lachlan, executive chairman of Fox News parent company Fox Corp, not far behind.

The high-profile nature of the case and its witnesses will put courtroom sketches and videos into heavy rotation on the network’s evening news and cable channels CNN and MSNBC, eager to cover a competitor’s troubles. (So ​​far, Fox News has not seen any ratings erosion related to the case, as it has maintained its dominant share of the cable news audience).

The defense will likely rely heavily on the on-air talent turned witness to show they were trying to get answers to the voter fraud claims that were being made and not presenting them as fact. Their experience in front of the TV camera is expected to help.

“They’re going to have these stars and these people are very polished performers and that can be very appealing to a jury,” said Stuart Brotman, a journalism professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Dominion will claim that executives and producers throughout Fox News knew that Powell and Giuliani’s allegations were false and often described them as “crazy” and “crazy” in private, but failed to act to avoid being repeated on the air .

Fox News lawyers will also likely argue that Dominion’s business was not harmed by any of the network’s rulings.

in a

preliminary investigation

Heard on Wednesday, Fox News attorneys noted that Dominion had its second-best year of revenue in its history in 2022, outperforming the company’s projections. The point will likely be part of their argument that the $1.6 billion in damages the company is seeking is out of proportion to its asset value.

But the lead up to the trial hasn’t gone well for Fox News. On Wednesday, Davis sued Fox News attorneys for misconduct in discovery after it was revealed that taped conversations with Giuliani, Powell and an unnamed Trump campaign official had not been submitted as evidence.

The recordings were on the mobile phone of Abby Grossberg, a former producer of Bartiromo’s Sunday Morning Futures program, “who has filed a lawsuit against the network for discrimination and harassment. Grossberg also

claims claims

Fox News lawyers forced her to give misleading statements in her testimony for the case.

Davis considers a special master to investigate whether Fox News has withheld other evidence. Dominion may also make further statements at Fox’s expense.

“I think it’s a lawyer’s worst nightmare to arrive on the eve of a trial and realize you’ve so utterly offended the judge,” says Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law.

If the court finds other evidence that has not been presented, Davis could inform the jury and damage their confidence in the defense.

“It would be a very serious penalty for him to tell the jury that Fox withheld information,” Brotman said

said

. “That would hurt.”

Fox News is trying to show that a Dominion victory would weaken First Amendment protections.

While Dominion has pushed irrelevant and misleading information to make headlines, Fox News remains steadfast in protecting the rights of a free press, as a verdict against Dominion and its private equity owners would have dire consequences for the entire journalism profession. the company said in a statement.

Dominion has challenged Fox News’ First Amendment defense.

“As long-established laws make clear, the First Amendment does not protect broadcasters who knowingly or recklessly spread falsehoods,” said one

Dominion representative said in a statement.

“The Court has rejected Fox’s First Amendment ‘newsworthy accusation’ defense and ruled that the Dominions lawsuit is consistent with the First Amendment.

But

Levine believes that if Dominion is victorious, it will defeat New York Times vs. Sullivan, to overturn the groundbreaking decision that sets the standard for malice in defamation cases will temper. Some conservative leaders have expressed a desire to change the law because they believe the burden of proof is too high.

“Nobody sees this as any kind of threat to mainstream news organizations and in fact most people, myself included, ironically see it as a boon to press freedom,” Levine said. “There will probably be a brief period of copycat business where people are out there

WHO

have been criticized in the press and trying to see a payday. They will be addressed in due course, and in the long run I don’t think it will have any impact.

”