Late night show host Jimmy Kimmel is not a fan of Fox News. He frequently harps on the conservative network and its personalities in his opening monologue.

But Kimmel expressed disappointment on Tuesday at news that Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million to

landmark

libel case.

The reason? The agreement

did not require the network’s stars to publicly apologize for the false claims they made about the Denver-based company

using his voting machines to manipulate votes during the 2020 election.

“We naively thought this was to make Fox News take responsibility for destroying it

(

[Dominion’s

)

] reputation, because that’s what they told us it was about,” the comic said on its ABC program. to say something about it.

However, Kimmel’s joke had serious undertones and, suggesting that Dominion’s lawyers can now “go yacht shopping”,

what part of

a

chorus of commentators and presenters who questioned and criticized the company

take talk

the money without a demand for public remorse or withdrawal from the conservative-leaning network.

Fox News only acknowledged

the

Earlier, Judge Eric Davis ruled that the network made false statements about Dominion within a longer statement that it will continue to uphold the “highest standards of journalism.”

The mixed reactionIt

put down

the

lawyers for Dominion on the defense during their post-trial interviews

the

settlement was announced. On what should have been a celebratory day, they had to justify their client’s decision while annoying pundits rained down on their victory parade.

While the settlement was undoubtedly a financial and reputational blow to the network, some critics even suggested it was a win for Fox News and its founder, Rupert Murdoch, to weather such an embarrassing storm by merely writing a check.

However, the company’s troubles are far from over. Another case of a $2.7 billion lawsuit by voting software company Smartmatic has yet to go to court. And investors are lining up with their own lawsuits.

Davida Brooks, partner at the Los Angeles law firm

by

Susan Godfrey,

LLP

who is part of the team working on behalf of Dominion was behind the decision to take the deal without apology.

“I think the dollars and cents were important to Fox and we felt this number mattered,” Brooks told the Times in an interview.

Brooks noted that Dominion’s commitment to holding Fox News accountable was evident in her willingness to face justice. The settlement came after a jury was selected for the case in Delaware Superior Court,

and many legal experts were surprised the case went this far given the damaging revelations that emerged during the discovery

.

Court documents revealed that Murdoch and his top lieutenants at Fox News knew former President Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election were false, but agreed to give them continued coverage in an effort to prevent hapless viewers from fleeing .

Proceeding with a process was a roll of the dice

as prosecutors would have to convince the jury that Fox News acted maliciously in presenting the false statements about Dominion and the 2020 election. Such allegations are difficult to prove and are often the reason such cases are settled out of court.

But a ruling in Dominion’s favor would have only awarded the company monetary damages and no guarantee of an apology.

Fox News tried to run a story that Dominion was only pursuing the cause for the money, noting that

it is it

owned by a private equity firm, Staple Street Capital, in almost every

press news

statement about the case. It’s so stressed

how Dominion’s value was much less than the company’s value and

that there was no evidence

That

the company was damaged by statements on the network.

Brooks noted

That

there are easier ways for investors to make a profit than

Unpleasant

going to war with a powerful entity like Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News.

“It’s not every day that an investment fund finds itself in an incredibly heated battle over whether or not a presidential election has been stolen from the American people,” Brooks said. “The way they responded was by standing by their partner Dominion through thick and thin for years and fighting in the trenches with us.”

although

Dominion and its owners did indeed have the courage to go to court, defamation cases are primarily about the money, according to lawyers with extensive experience in the matter.

They say it’s unrealistic to believe the case could force Fox News to sacrifice its boxing image, which appeals to a large segment of its audience, though Dominion representatives often said it continued the case for the sake of it. preservation of democracy.

“The defamation law is not a mechanism for getting a referendum on American history and frankly shouldn’t be,” said Lee Levine, a seasoned attorney who specializes in 1st Amendment cases. “It’s about compensating people for damage to their reputation. A court can’t order apologies. It can’t order retractions.”

While both parties were neither

e

didn’t

publicly commented on the discussions leading up to the settlement, people close to the matter said the apology was not a major sticking point. But Levine believes Fox News would have been wise to pay more not to apologize.

“It was worth hundreds of millions of dollars not to,” Levine said. “It would have wreaked havoc on their viewers. If Sean Hannity had looked into the camera and

say said

‘I lied’ and then apologized to Dominion, there would have been mutiny among their viewers.”

The internal communications and statements collected as evidence in the libel case showed how Fox News executives and broadcast talent are attuned to the mood of their conservative audiences, and were afraid to offend them when

former president Donald

Trump and his representatives pushed his baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Fox News insisted the claims were newsworthy and that coverage of them was protected by the 1st

amendment amendment,

but the judge disagreed when he denied the network’s motion to drop the case. The network was dealt a serious blow when the judge cited the network for misconduct upon discovery after learning that conversations had been recorded with

former president

Trump’s lawyers were not turned over as evidence.

Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the

pure

settlement size the largest ever for a defamation case involving a US media company, in itself makes a strong statement about Fox News’ conduct

and his journalistic transgressions.

“Dominion may not have gotten everything they wanted, but they did a really good job,” Tobias said. “It’s like the Rolling Stones song: you can’t always get what you want, but you get what you need.”