Fox News will pay electronic voting machine company Dominion $787.5 million after a last-minute deal on Tuesday (April 18) that spared it an embarrassing trial over its coverage of the 2020 presidential election.
“We are pleased to have reached a settlement of our dispute with Dominion Voting Systems”said in a press release the favorite chain of American conservatives, shortly after the announcement of an agreement between the parties by the judge who was to preside over the trial, before a superior court in the State of Delaware.
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The channel also said “note a court decision finding certain claims about Dominion to be false”while the judge had declared in an order of March 31 that he was “crystal clear that no claim about Dominion in the 2020 election (was) true”.
For his part, John Poulos, the boss of Dominion, said that Fox News had “admitted to telling lies” who have “caused enormous damage to my business, our employees and our customers”. “Nothing can fix this. »
embarrassing text messages
Dominion initially claimed $1.6 billion. The company, whose machines operated in 28 states during the presidential election won by Joe Biden, was the pet peeve of Donald Trump’s close guard, who accused him at length and without proof of having been used to rig the ballot.
According to media reports, the terms of the agreement spare the hosts of Fox News a humiliating exercise: to apologize on the air, or admit having broadcast lies. It also saves the pearl of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire from suffering “the libel suit of the century” as the “New York Times” called it.
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Even before the proceedings, the procedure had given rise to an embarrassing unpacking for Fox News, with the publication of exchanges of emails or text messages showing that stars of the chain, and even Rupert Murdoch, hardly believed, in November 2020, to the scenario of a rigged election, while the accusations flourished on the air.
The trial was eagerly awaited in the United States, where it was seen as a test for the limits of freedom of expression, guaranteed by the first amendment to the Constitution, as well as for the fight against disinformation. The selection of the jury had ended on Tuesday and the debates were to begin in stride.
Even though the trial won’t take place, the bill Fox News will have to settle is ” unprecedented “ to be present “in itself a sizeable punishment” for the channel, explained to AFP Mark Feldstein, professor of journalism at the University of Maryland.
” Really crazy “
To win, Dominion would have had to establish a deliberate willingness to lie at Fox News.
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Essential in the conservative camp but regularly accused of echoing conspiracy theories, the chain played big and wanted to make the trial an emblematic case of freedom of the press. For her, it was legitimate to give the floor to the Trump camp when he contested the vote and “essential for the search for truth” to allow all parties to express themselves.
But Dominion relied on internal discussions to argue that Fox News was lying on purpose, so as not to lose its viewers won over to Donald Trump. A “Really crazy stuff. And damaging”wrote on November 19, 2020 about the Trumpist accusations the big boss, Rupert Murdoch, to the boss of Fox News, Suzanne Scott.
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“We have to fire her”also said one of the stars of the chain, Tucker Carlson, speaking of a tweet from a journalist of the chain brushing aside the accusations of fraud. “This is hurting the business considerably. The stock price is down »he added.
Fox News accused Dominion of having made a truncated and biased selection of messages.
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After the deal was announced, Media Matters for America president Angelo Carusone said the channel had “shown that she is a partisan propaganda organ willing to do anything for profit and power”.
Even if Fox News will soon be able to turn the Dominion page, it may not be at the end of its troubles. The channel is being sued by another company, Smartmatic, in a similar case.
