- Fox News settled Dominion’s defamation lawsuit on Tuesday for $787.5 million.
- Fox News detractors wanted Dominion’s lawsuit against Fox News to move forward for democracy’s sake.
- But Dominion is a private company with a profit motive and an interest in restoring its reputation.
Fox News critics waiting for Dominion Voting System’s blockbuster defamation trial against the network were likely disappointed Tuesday: At the last minute, the parties agreed to settle the case for $787.5 million.
Even before the news was final, whispers of a possible settlement put multiple commentators on edge.
On Twitter, former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson — who herself received a $20 million settlement and public apology after accusing Roger Ailes, the network’s former CEO and chairman, of sexual harassment — begged Dominion not to settle the case.
“PLEASE Dominion — Do not settle with Fox! You’re about to prove something very big,” she wrote.
Journalism professor and media commentator Jeff Jarvis pleaded with Dominion to ensure a “public trial.” “Democracy needs Fox on trial,” Jarvis said.
MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan said the courtroom is the only way to “stop the ‘Big Lie'” that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and handed to now-President Joe Biden.
It was a common sentiment on Twitter: Fox News has disgraced American democracy by pushing lies that the 2020 election was stolen, Fox’s detractors say. A reckoning in a courtroom, where a judge has no patience for falsehoods, is an important way to bring a reckoning, these people say. A settlement — on the eve of a trial, no less — would let Fox News escape accountability once again, the argument goes.
In the cold logic of a court case, though, Dominion has nothing to do with democracy.
Dominion is a private company founded in Canada and now headquartered in Colorado. It is an item on a balance sheet of a private equity company, Staple Street Capital, which owns a majority of its shares.
The election technology company filed a civil defamation lawsuit against Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corporation, and asked for $1.6 billion. That money, the company argued, would cover what Dominion said are losses to its business operations as well as security costs for employees who became targets because of pervasive false conspiracy theories that Dominion rigged the 2020 election.
Fox will pay $787.5 million to end the case.
Dominion also wanted Fox to set the record straight on its broadcasts. While the network did air a bizarre, hostless segment where a professor said there was no evidence the election was rigged, Dominion saw that as laughably unsatisfactory. In an interview with Insider in December 2020, several months before the lawsuit was filed, Dominion lawyer Tom Clare said Fox’s retraction and apology should be given the same prominence as its false claims.
“If you accuse somebody falsely on a prime time slot, or in the host’s own voice, or a 10-minute segment, then you need to have equal prominence and equal dignity in the retraction and apology,” Clare said at the time.
The exact terms of the settlement are not yet known to Insider, but Dominion CEO said at a press conference Tuesday that Fox has admitted to spreading lies about the technology company.
That is basically what Dominion wanted: Money and a restored reputation. With those two things in the bag, there’s no need for a trial.
Even if Dominion had won at trial, it could have been years before it got paid
A trial, to be sure, would likely have been enormously satisfying for detractors of the conservative media organization. In court filings and courtroom arguments, Dominion said it planned to call hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Maria Bartiromo, Bret Baier, executives Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, Suzanne Scott, Jay Wallace, and other boldfaced names to the witness stand. Court filings spilled numerous embarrassing revelations about the inner workings of Fox News and its relationship with Trump. There is nothing Fox detractors wanted more than to watch its top brass forced to explain themselves in front of a jury — and the American people.
First Amendment experts largely agreed that Dominion’s case was extraordinarily strong for a defamation lawsuit, which is hard to win in the United States because of strong First Amendment protections. Davis, the judge, also ruled repeatedly in Dominion’s favor and admonished Fox’s lawyers over withheld evidence.
But there was always the risk that a jury, at the end of a six-week trial, just wouldn’t agree with Dominion’s case. And even if Dominion did win, Fox signaled a plan to appeal, including up to the Supreme Court, which means the case could have been tied up for years before Dominion saw any money.
Legal experts also point out that courtrooms are not perfect vehicles for establishing the entire truth. While they are great at putting new facts on the public record, they are limited by the laws of evidence and the judge’s decisions.
“You’ll never get the full picture,” Jane Kirtley, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s journalism school and former executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told Insider before the trial. “If you try to use a libel suit as a means to determine what the truth is, it’s just not going to be very effective.”
Fox had many incentives to settle, experts say
Some experts had been saying for months that Fox ought to settle and have been puzzled by why the company didn’t do so sooner.
“The facts are just plain terrible,” James Goodale, a former lawyer for the New York Times and other news organizations, told Insider. “And when you got really bad facts, you ought to get rid of the thing.”
Other companies run by the media baron Rupert Murdoch, who owns Fox News, have a track record of settling major lawsuits, including claims for sexual harassment and hacking private voicemails. A Washington Post analysis found that over the past 13 years, Murdoch’s companies paid nearly $750 million in settlement funds.
But just because Fox settled Dominion’s lawsuit doesn’t mean it’s now free of legal risk. It has another major lawsuit pending from Smartmatic, also an election technology company that alleges Fox News and Fox Corporation defamed it when they invited Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani to share election conspiracy theories.
Smartmatic has asked for $2.2 billion in damages for its lawsuit, which also includes Giuliani as a defendant. (It filed a separate lawsuit against Powell, in Washington, DC, federal court, for jurisdictional reasons.)
“Dominion’s litigation exposed some of the misconduct and damage caused by Fox’s disinformation campaign. Smartmatic will expose the rest,” Smartmatic’s attorney J. Erik Connolly said in a statement Tuesday. “Smartmatic remains committed to clearing its name, recouping the significant damage done to the company, and holding Fox accountable for undermining democracy.”
Fox News’ attorneys are almost certain to be weighing how much the payout to Dominion will affect its dispute with Smartmatic, as well as the prospect it could become the target of future defamation lawsuits if it’s seen as caving.
There are also risks that Fox shareholders will sue the company for settling. One lawsuit, alleging the company violated its fiduciary duties by being named in Dominion’s suit in the first place, has already been filed.
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