The issue could cut both ways for Fox, which argues that hosts who aired false claims of election fraud acted as pundits with the leeway to express opinions — but also seeks to protect their private communications with ‘sources.’

Sean Hannity does not consider himself a journalist. “I’m a member of the press,” he said on his Fox News show last year, “but I don’t claim to be a journalist.”

His boss, however, feels differently. “Ultimately, they’re journalists,” Fox Corp chief executive Lachlan Murdoch said of Hannity and his fellow prime-time opinion hosts in a deposition in December. “They report a strong opinion.”

Murdoch’s comments, taken together with the sworn testimony of key Fox News lieutenants and hosts recently made public, paint a muddled picture of what exactly Fox’s most popular hosts do. Are they pure pundits or opinionated journalists? In other words, are viewers expected to believe them?

That distinction could be a factor in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News, which is expected to go to trial in Delaware next month — and it’s an issue that could cut both ways for Fox.

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Fox argued in a recent filing that commentators who aired false claims that Dominion rigged voting machines to help Joe Biden were not acting irresponsibly because they were presenting their opinions on newsworthy allegations, as opposed to reporting on them. “To the extent Dominion suggests that a reasonable viewer would expect only sober...

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