2023-04-19 15:29:14
Fox agreed on Tuesday, at the last minute, to pay 787.5 million dollars (about 719 million euros) to the Dominion voting systems company to end a lawsuit against the chain and its parent company for knowingly disseminating , outlandish and false allegations of alleged Dominion involvement in a plot to rig the 2020 election result.
A trial corners Fox News for its lies about voter fraud in the defeat of Trump
Further
Although the amount of the agreement is very high, analysts explain that Fox with the agreement avoids a trial and a public request for an apology that could have been more damaging. But the chain still has months of legal problems ahead.
Smartmatic
The London company Smartmatic, which sells voting equipment around the world, filed a lawsuit against Fox in February 2021 for defamation. “The earth is round. Two plus two equals four. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election…” the lawsuit stated in its startling first sentence.
Like Dominion, Smartmatic sues Fox for having defamed them by giving space to Donald Trump’s lie about an electoral punch.
The Smartmatic accusation has garnered the least attention so far, but it could be the most dangerous for Fox. Facing Dominion’s $1.6 billion claim [unos 1.460 millones de euros]Smartmatic is demanding compensation of 2.7 billion dollars [unos 2.460 millones de euros].
The Manhattan Supreme Court granted the SmartMatic lawsuit against Fox News in March; against Maria Bartiromo, presenter of Fox Business; against Lou Dobbs, former host of Fox Business; and against Rudy Giuliani, a former Trump attorney.
Smartmatic alleges that Fox News aired a series of blatant lies in support of Trump’s conspiracy theory about an election stunt, and that its hosts and guests made 100 false claims. Among them, that during the 2020 elections Smartmatic technology was present in the recount of six of the disputed states, when the truth is that it was only present in the count of Los Angeles County.
Fox claimed that Smartmatic had been founded in Venezuela at the behest of corrupt dictators, when the truth is that it was created by Antonio Mugica and Roger Piñate in Boca Raton [Florida] in the year 2000, in the aftermath of the fiasco of the punched cards in the electoral system of Florida [que terminó dando la victoria a George W. Bush sobre Al Gore]. The goal was to use technology to make people believe in the election results again.
The company claims that Fox’s “disinformation campaign” has caused it to lose customers, and Fox News counters that Smartmatic has vastly inflated its estimate of multi-billion dollar losses.
To win the defamation trial in New York, Smartmatic will have to meet a very high bar. In that state, the plaintiffs cannot simply convince the jury that the news outlet spread false information. They also have to show that there was “actual intent.”
“Freedom of the press is fundamental to our democracy and must be protected, in addition to the fact that claims for damages are abusive, unsubstantiated and not based on conclusive financial analysis, so they are nothing more than a clear attempt to discourage our journalists from doing their jobs,” Fox News said in a statement. “There is nothing more newsworthy than allegations made by the President of the United States and his lawyers.”
Smartmatic’s trial against Fox News does not yet have a date.
Abby Grossberg
In March, former Fox News producer Abby Grossberg filed two lawsuits accusing the network’s lawyers of coaching and intimidating her into giving misleading testimony in the Dominion trial.
Fox News filed its own countersuit, seeking a restraining order preventing Grossberg from disclosing his conversations with the network’s lawyers.
Grossberg was the senior producer and head of booking for Tucker Carlson and also worked on the Maria Bartiromo show. In her lawsuit, she alleged that the network tried to hold her and Bartiromo accountable for Fox News’ airing of election conspiracy theories. According to Grossberg, the attempt was part of a pervasive culture of machismo and misogyny within Fox News.
Grossberg accuses Fox News lawyers of training her “in an intimidating and coercive manner” before her testimony in the Dominion case.
“Fox News Media engaged independent outside counsel to immediately investigate the concerns raised by Ms. Grossberg, raised after a negative performance review occurred,” a Fox spokesperson said at the time. “Her allegations in connection with the case Dominion are baseless and we will vigorously defend Fox against all of their allegations.”
Crikey
Fox Corp CEO Lachlan Murdoch launched defamation proceedings against Crikey, an independent news portal in Australia, in August 2022. The lawsuit had to do with an article published in June 2022 by Crikey where the Murdoch family was mentioned as a “co-conspirator and not charged” party in the attack on the United States Capitol.
Crikey’s publishing company, Private Media, based much of its defense on evidence provided by Dominion in its defamation suit.
Private Media alleged that Lachlan Murdoch “closely monitored the way Fox News Network handled election information,” according to his testimony during the Dominion trial, and that he was “aware of the allegations Sidney Powell was making in Fox News Network, at the same time it was doing it, about voter fraud to rob Mr. Trump of the 2020 US presidential election.”
Private Media’s expanded defense includes Rupert Murdoch’s recent admission that Fox News hosts endorsed Trump’s lies.
Sue Chrysanthou SC, Murdoch’s lawyer, said at an earlier hearing that she would seek an overturning of the defense based on contextual truth. [una figura del derecho australiano que permite defenderse de la acusación de difamación demostrando la veracidad de la descripción supuestamente difamatoria], calling it imprecise. “This defense is not rational, it is not something that can be argued, it is a waste of everyone’s time and it does not contribute to any legitimate purpose within the litigation,” said the lawyer.
Fox Investors
This week, Reuters reported that Fox Corp shareholders were demanding a search of the company to try to determine whether its directors and executives adequately monitored Fox News’ coverage of Trump’s claims of voter fraud. According to Reuters, it could be the first step in a series of lawsuits that would require executives to answer for compensation.
Investors were demanding internal records to investigate how the network’s leaders behaved while Fox devoted slots of its programming to reproducing Trump’s lies, according to people Reuters spoke to.
Shareholders could use these records, as well as evidence presented in other lawsuits, to build an indictment in which Fox leaders would be held personally liable for the cost of the defamation cases to the network.
A Fox spokesman did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Translation by Francisco de Zárate
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