In key hearing in defamation case, Fox counters that network simply covered allegations by Trump associates
Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch authorized a plan for Fox News to embrace Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud in 2020 in a bid to win back viewers angry with the network, a lawyer for the voting technology company Smartmatic argued on Tuesday.
“The conservative viewers, their bread and butter, abandoned them,” J Erik Connolly told the New York state supreme court judge David B Cohen. “So what do they do? They return back to what they know best: they return back to disinformation, pro-Trump propaganda and xenophobia. The election story and the election fraud claims was the perfect vehicle for them to get back onto their core messaging.”
During oral arguments in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday afternoon, both sides pleaded with the judge to decide key aspects of the case – Smartmatic’s $2.7bn defamation lawsuit against Fox – in their favor before a potential trial next year.
Connolly laid out the argument the company has been making since it filed the suit in early 2021: that Fox executives hatched a plan to “pivot” to embrace Donald Trump’s claims of a stolen election in a bid to win back pro-Trump viewers who had grown frustrated with the network for calling the state of Arizona for Joe Biden on election night.
K Winn Allen, a lawyer for Fox News, strongly contested Smartmatic’s claims about the Murdochs. “No disinformation campaign was ordered,” he said. “It...
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