Major First Amendment Case Heads For Trial

[Webster]

(The Guardian) Fox News faces major test as Dominion defamation case goes to trial
The biggest news this morning is happening in Wilmington, Delaware, where the defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News is going to trial. Dominion, which makes hardware and software used in elections, is suing the conservative news outlet on claims it knowingly defamed its business in the aftermath of the 2020 election, when Fox was a leading conduit for Donald Trump’s unfounded conspiracy theories of vote rigging. Dominion wants the huge sum of $1.6bn for the damage caused, and the trial could see top Fox executives such as owner its Rupert Murdoch appear on the witness stand. We’ll see what emerges from the courtroom today.

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The two most important words in the Fox-Dominion trial: 'actual malice'
The defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News has already led to embarrassing revelations from inside the conservative network’s newsroom, including that some of its top stars “hate” Donald Trump and did not believe his claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

But to get $1.6bn – or any sum – out of Fox for the harm it allegedly caused to its business, Dominion’s lawyers will have to prove the network acted with “actual malice” when it aired those falsehoods in the tense weeks following Joe Biden’s election win.

The Guardian’s Sam Levine is in Wilmington, Delaware, where the trial is opening today, and breaks it all down here. Have a read: The blockbuster $1.6bn defamation suit between Dominion Voting Systems and Fox is set to begin on Tuesday in a courtroom in Wilmington, Delaware, opening a six-week tribunal that represents one of the most muscular efforts to hold the powerful news network accountable for its role in spreading lies about the 2020 election.

Dominion is suing Fox News and its parent company Fox Corporation for knowingly spreading false claims about its equipment after the 2020 election. Fox repeatedly broadcast outlandishly false allegations that the company had paid government bribes, switched votes and was founded in Venezuela to rig elections for Hugo Chávez.

The trial was scheduled to begin on Monday, but Eric Davis, the Delaware superior court judge overseeing the case, pushed it back by a day without giving a reason. It was reported that both sides were engaged in negotiations over a settlement to avoid a trial.

Jury selection will be completed on Tuesday, followed by opening arguments.

The trial is likely to be a media frenzy. Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, the top Fox executives, are expected to be called as witnesses. Fox News anchors Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro are expected to testify at the trial.

At the heart of Dominion’s case is a trove of internal messages from Fox hosts and executives in which they openly say they knew the outlandish claims about Dominion were false. “Sidney Powell is lying, by the way. I caught her. It’s insane,” Carlson wrote in one such message, even as Fox continued to air Powell’s claims about Dominion. "In the coming weeks, we will prove Fox spread lies causing enormous damage to Dominion. We look forward to trial,” a Dominion spokesperson said.

Defamation cases rarely go to trial because there is such a high bar a plaintiff has to clear to win. But experts observing the lawsuit say Dominion has put together an unusually strong case. The company may have strong enough evidence to show that Fox acted with “actual malice”, that Fox knew the claims were false, or that Fox acted with reckless disregard for the truth. “It’s a rarity that we’ll see something of this caliber play out in front of a jury,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a first amendment scholar at the University of Utah.

 

[Webster]

 

[MrDawn]

The spread of misinformation needs to stop with these newstations. Stricter laws and regulations need to be set on them and enforced.

I've noticed too many reporters on the news channels are too busy peddling their bullshit opinions rather than focusing on the facts of the story they should be covering.

 

[Webster]

(The Guardian) Fox's legal troubles are far from over
Fox may have yesterday forestalled a lengthy trial by agreeing to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5m to settle its defamation lawsuit, but its lawyers will remain plenty busy for the time being. The media empire remains in legal peril over Fox News’s enthusiastic promotion of various lies regarding the 2020 election, with another defamation lawsuit from global election firm Smartmatic still pending and even the company’s shareholders reportedly pondering a trip to the courts.

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From Smartmatic to Crikey, here's a rundown of Fox's legal troubles
If there’s one takeaway from the US$787.5m settlement Fox agreed to cough up in exchange for Dominion Voting Systems’ dropping its defamation lawsuit, it’s this: it pays to be a lawyer in Rupert Murdoch’s employ. It also pays to be a lawyer suing Fox.

And there are plenty of both groups, since the media empire and in particular its conservative Fox News network remain in deep legal hot water for their enthusiastic promotion of Donald Trump’s 2020 election conspiracy theories. Below is a rundown of the outstanding cases that could wrack up the legal fees and potentially imperil outlet’s finances:

In a last-minute settlement on Tuesday, Fox agreed to pay voting equipment company Dominion US$787.5m, ending a dispute over whether the network and its parent company knowingly broadcast false and outlandish allegations that Dominion was involved in a plot to steal the 2020 election.

According to analysts, while the settlement amount is incredibly costly, Fox has avoided the more damaging spectacle of a trial and a public apology. But it still faces a number of legal challenges over the coming months.

Smartmatic
A global election technology company headquartered in London, Smartmatic, lodged a defamation suit against Fox in February 2021. The complaint’s striking opening sentence read: “The Earth is round. Two plus two equals four. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election … ”

Like Dominion, Smartmatic is suing Fox for defamation related to its coverage of Donald Trump’s stolen-election lie, but the company’s lawsuit has so far attracted only a fraction of the attention.

On paper, Smartmatic’s suit could be the more dangerous: it is demanding damages of $2.7bn compared with Dominion’s claim for $1.6bn.

In March, the New York state supreme court in Manhattan gave the green light for the case to proceed against Fox News, the Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, the former business anchor Lou Dobbs and Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

The company argues that that Fox News broadcast a series of blatant lies in support of Trump’s stolen election conspiracy theory and that hosts and guests broadcast 100 false statements: among them, that Smartmatic was involved in 2020 election counts in six battleground states when in fact it was present only at the count in Los Angeles county. Claims broadcast on Fox described Smartmatic as having been founded in Venezuela at the behest of corrupt dictators. In fact, it was founded by Antonio Mugica and Roger Piñate in 2000 in Boca Raton, Florida, in the wake of the “hanging chad” fiasco, with the aim of using technology to restore people’s faith in election results.