Facing a billion-dollar lawsuit over its airing of conspiracy theories that a voting machine company helped rig the 2020 presidential election, Fox News is trying to argue that the false claims were not so wildly improbable.
As is typical for defendants in defamation suits, the network has invoked its First Amendment rights to share its newsgathering activities, saying it merely reported on fraud allegations raised by Donald Trump and his allies rather than endorsed them.
Yet a key part of Fox’s defense strategy appears to rest on many of the conspiratorial themes that prompted the lawsuit in the first place and now pepper its recent court filings — alleged links to late Venezuelan socialist leader Hugo Chávez, an ominous affidavit from a supposed “former military intelligence officer,” claims of “glitches” in voting machines.
Advertisement
It’s a risky strategy but possibly a necessary one, legal experts say, as Fox will need to make the case that its commentators did not intentionally defame the election technology company, Dominion Voting Systems.
“In almost every case, a media defendant will argue that the reporter thought the information was true based on what was known at the time,” said Lyrissa Lidskey, a constitutional law professor at the University of Florida. But, she added, “there is a danger in this strategy if...
The Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (GMMB) has issued a formal apology to Professor Wazi Apoh, Dean of the School of Arts and Professor of Archaeology at the University of Ghana, following the c...