On Tuesday, at the eleventh hour, Fox News settled Dominion’s defamation lawsuit. The chickens are finally coming home to roost for Fox. In this case, the chickens are the lies it peddled about the 2020 presidential election.
Fox did so to entertain rather than inform its viewers. And peddling lies was good for business. So Fox peddled them religiously.
One of the many entities and people Fox lied about is Dominion Voting Systems. It accused Dominion of helping Joe Biden steal the election from Donald Trump. That is, by using its voting machines to switch votes. Dominion pleaded over and over for Fox to correct the record. Fox refused – with evident malice.
Fox News settles Dominion defamation case
That’s why its lies became defamation and landed Fox in court. But no one who knows about such cases thought it would go to trial. That Fox and its hosts would suffer more reputational damage was prohibitive enough. But it also feared a jury verdict. Because, instead of the $787.5 million it paid to settle, punitive damages could have been ten times as much.
As it is, that amount is the largest defamation settlement in US history. But you’d never know it by reading the statement Fox issued. That’s because it admitted nothing more than reporting “alternative facts” about the election. Which it claims, rather speciously, is protected by the Constitution.
The judge issued a damning pre-trial ruling. He declared everything Fox reported about Dominion a lie. But Fox couldn’t care less about that truth, either. That’s because it’s doing business in an alternative universe. And there, the truth is whatever Fox reports or Donald Trump says.
Fox News faces other defamation cases
Settling this case betrayed Fox’s intent to avoid trial at any cost necessary. It also laid bare the hollowness of its trademark bluster.
But Fox will pay any price to spare Rupert Murdoch a humiliating cross-examination. He, of course, is its geriatric chairman. But Fox had no reason to think its prime-time hosts would fare any better.
That’s why it’s so stupefying that Fox waited until the eleventh hour to settle. Because this is like closing the barn doors after the horses have bolted. After all, thanks to pre-trial disclosures, “Everybody Knows What Fox News Is Now.” So all settlements now will be pyrrhic at best.
Dominion was only seeking $1.6 billion in damages. Smartmatic Voting Systems is seeking $2.7 billion. And its case is based on the same facts. So Fox is bound to pay over $1 billion to settle that case.
More to the point, any entity or person with similar claims can bank on Fox settling. It’s all about limiting losses at this point.
Fox News settles but will it change?
Fox’s business model is peddling lies and conspiracies for profit. Doing so generates over $3 billion in revenue each quarter. That’s why Fox would rather pay than repent. Hell, it managed to avoid even having to issue a friggin’ apology.
So all indications are that it intends to continue business as usual. It said as much in the statement mentioned above. Because Fox promised to continue its commitment to the highest journalistic standards. Except that’s like Donald Trump promising to continue his commitment to the truth.
No number of indictments will force Trump to change his brand of politics. And no amount in settlements will force Fox to change its brand of news.
Pundits are all over TV imparting hindsight wisdom about this settlement. Yet none can say they presaged it. But I did when I called Murdoch out for
- aping Trump by tweeting that Obama is not a real Black man;
- lording over misogyny and Racism at Fox News; and
- being the wizard of Trumpism.
I also did so in the Fox News poisoning America podcast episode.
Their theme is my abiding contention that Murdoch is hell-bent on destroying America. (This he has in common with declared enemies like Vladimir Putin.) But Murdoch’s motivation is simple greed and Aussie resentment.
That puts this settlement into perspective. And only father time will stop Murdoch from chairing his mercenary corporate mission.
But Murdoch and his Fox hosts have no shame. And they peddle lies and conspiracies with a brazen dose of hypocrisy – as if those are all virtues. Above all, they know they can rely on the Fox viewers they ridicule as gullible rubes to keep watching them. That is just as Trump knows he can rely on the MAGA supporters he exploits as cash cows to keep supporting him. Sad. Sick.
But pre-trial disclosures of their emails and text messages have caused incalculable damage. I cannot overstate this, mainly because it was self-inflicted.
Murdoch and his Fox hosts are now like emperors with no clothes. And the public scorn and contempt those disclosures evoked will haunt them for the rest of their lives.