Fox News Settles Dominion Lawsuit Out of Court
Today Fox News settled a lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems at the last moment before it went to trial. With jury selection complete, Fox asked for a brief delay and, in a last-ditch, 3-hour negotiation, settled with Dominion for $787 million dollars and change over false claims it aired that Dominion's voting machines rigged the 2020 election against Donald Trump. Dominion had asked for damages of $1.6 billion and public acknowledgement of the dishonesty.
While some marvel at the number, over three-quarters of a billion dollars, it really isn't that huge.
While some marvel at the number, over three-quarters of a billion dollars, it really isn't that huge.
- One, it's less than 8% of Fox New's revenues last year.
- Two, it's less than half what Fox News founder and chairman Rupert Murdoch paid to settle his divorce from his second wife, Anna Murdoch Mann- all the way back in 1999. (Murdoch divorced wife #4, Jerry Hall, last year and recently called off an engagement to would-be wife #5, Ann Lesley Smith.)
- Three, it avoids the enormous reputational damage of Fox News executives and star personalities having to testify in open court about how they knowingly put crackpot liars on TV and promoted their lies.
- But most importantly, $787 million is only a drop in the bucket compared to the damage done to the whole United States by Fox News's propagation of the Great Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump through widespread vote fraud.