With each new disclosure of files in the $1.6 billion defamation case against Fox News, the size of the hole the network finds itself in becomes clearer.
it’s deep
In more typical libel cases, the plaintiff is to blame for a negligent or unscrupulous reporter or editor, or perhaps a flawed fact-checking system or other safeguards. The Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox is unique in that the evidence increasingly presents a thoroughly corrupt organization that systematically attempts to spread lies and influence elections.
Dominion’s latest motions have caught Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch and celebrity host Tucker Carlson, among others, slandering Donald Trump. As it turns out, their true opinion of the president they’ve tirelessly defended is that he’s a destructive lunatic.
Carlson was blunt when he texted, “I hate him passionately.” Of Trump’s presidency, he said, “We all act like we have a lot to offer because it’s too hard to swallow to admit what a disaster it was. But come on. Trump really has no advantages.”
Really doesn’t exist – that is, other than cynically selling it to millions of listeners and raking in the profits.
Murdoch wrote after the 2020 election that Trump seemed “increasingly crazy.” Elsewhere, Fox supporters characterized the big lie that Trump won re-election – which their network was actively promoting – as “devastatingly insane”, “completely derailed” and “utter nonsense”.
This week’s Dominion filing exposes Fox in a different way. It exposes the main cable network as a den of vicious infighting and slander, especially between the prominent primetime anchors and the supposedly objective news department. And it reveals unabashed roots of the Republican cause and cheerleading for GOP candidates for positions outside the presidency. Murdoch addressed this in a statement, admitting, “We were concerned that Mr. Trump would lose the election.”
In response to the piles of scathing words pouring out of his players’ mouths, phones, and keyboards, Fox replies that Dominion is picking out quotes and distorting the recording. There are two problems with this reasoning.
First, defamation is identified statement by statement. When a media organization knowingly pisses off a public figure, the fact that they reported nicely and truthfully elsewhere is not a defense.
In addition, Dominion’s highlighted statements are rarely nuanced or ambiguous. No context can take away the essential meaning of characterizations such as “magnificently insane” and “complete nonsense”.
Set for trial next month in Delaware, the Dominion lawsuit is perhaps the most significant case against a major media defendant since the 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan case, the landmark press freedom case that set a high standard for defamation. of public figures.
In a sense, the integrity and boundaries of the media itself are at stake. For Fox to escape liability for this level of deliberately misleading libel would be an indictment of the strict standard set by the Supreme Court in Sullivan for giving the media a break from honest coverage of matters of public interest.
The problems Dominion uncovers go much deeper than the defamation law. In addition to being a fraud, Fox is complicit in the serious challenges to the rule of law and democratic standards that we have been grappling with since Trump came on the scene.
Fox’s lies tend to; Their goal, like Trump and a long line of fascists and autocrats, is to fuel the grievances and prejudices of voters who feel left out. But nothing in the politics promoted by Fox and the MAGA right—if they promote politics at all—is designed to uplift these voters. Her deliberate deception of her viewers reveals her basic contempt and contempt for them.
And even as Fox stares in the face of massive negative judgment, the network remains at least somewhat unrepentant. It is outrageous that just this week Carlson repeated the big lie by calling the January 6, 2021 riots a “spectacle” and the 2020 election a “serious betrayal of American democracy.”
Dominion’s request for compensation for the willful damage caused by Fox is fair. But that won’t be nearly enough to solve the serious social problems the network has deliberately committed for ratings and profit. The hunger for accountability for the abuses and abuses of democracy that peaked on Jan. 6 extends beyond Trump and his circle to his pioneers at Fox.
Harry Litman is the host of the Podcast Talking Feds.. @harrylitmann
Source: LA Times
Roger Stone is an author and opinion journalist who writes for 24 News Globe. He is known for his controversial and thought-provoking views on a variety of topics, and has a talent for engaging readers with his writing.
