“Fox News” is a misnomer. Rupert Murdoch’s cable network isn’t really a news organization. It just plays one on television — and deserves to lose the $1.6 billion Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit that soon will go to trial.
I generally root for the defendant in libel and defamation suits. Journalism is a human endeavor, which means that however hard we try to get everything right, sometimes we fail. The Supreme Court has rightly set a high bar for plaintiffs who claim they were wronged by the media, recognizing that the First Amendment’s protection of press freedom must allow for tough reporting, sharp commentary and honest mistakes.
This case, for me, is a glaring exception. What Fox did to Dominion was not journalism. It was more like a mugging.
After the 2020 election, Fox repeatedly aired wild, unsubstantiated and patently false allegations about Dominion’s voting machines having “stolen” votes — and, by extension, the presidency — from incumbent Donald Trump.
Erik Wemple: Fox News is worse than you thought
In a ruling on Friday sending the case to trial, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis wrote that the evidence produced so far makes it “CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.”
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