It's been a minute since I looked outside at what's going on in the world. So far this week I've looked inward at myself ("I am old! Wah! Wah! Wah!") and the blog itself ("The blog is old! Blah! Blah! Blah!") so let's take a moment to retrain my focus to the world outside.
Which this post will do. Warning: "This news is old! Nyah! Nyah! Nyah!"
Last week, Fox Corp settled with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million over defamation charges. This was just a smidge under half of the $1.6 billion that Dominion was seeking.
Proving defamation against a (real or alleged) news organization is tough. You can't just show that a newscast or a newspaper said something incorrect or malicious or harmful. You have to prove intent, that the news entity knew damn well that what they were saying was incorrect or malicious or harmful.
And Dominion appeared to be able to prove just that.
In advance of the trial date, Dominion's lawyers were offering up a shit ton of evidence that Fox on air talent knew damn well that what they were putting in the air about Dominion voting machines being rigged to turn Trump votes to Biden votes was bullshit.
The trial that was scheduled to start last week offered the tantalizing prospect of seeing the likes of Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity having to testify under oath that they knew the wild conspiracy theories about Dominion voting machines were totally baseless and yet allowed these insane theories be expressed on the air unchallenged.
A jury was selected last Tuesday and was ready to get to working hearing testimony and evidence after lunch. Once lunch time was over, the jury was thanked for their service and told to go home.
Fox News offered to settle and Dominion took it.
Click here where Devin Stone summarizes the Fox News/Dominion Voting Machines settlement.
So what did Dominion get out of this other than just under $800 million? Well, not much.
Fox issued a statement that was so absurd, CNN's Jake Tapper was not able to read it with a straight face.
Fox's statement is vague and non-committal at best. "Certain claims about Dominion were false" is right up there with Ronald Reagan's "Mistakes were made" about the Iran Contra scandal.
Also another thing about Fox's statement? Guess who didn't get to hear it? The settlement with Dominion did not require an on-air apology. The idiots who rely on Fox News and ONLY Fox News, you know, the very people who were being lied to and were believing those lies, didn't hear shit about this settlement.
This history making payout for a defamation case didn't make the news on Fox News.
And how much of this nearly $800 million dollars is coming out of Fox's pocket? The likelihood is that Fox News has insurance for this sort of contingency and on top of that, may be able to write off as much as $200 million of that settlement as a tax deductible business expense.
So for just under $800 million which Fox will likely not have to pay for with it's own money, the network avoided having it's contemptuous disregard for truth being exposed and dissected in open court. $800 million is chump change to allow Fox to have no consequences for no truth.
Unless you're Tucker Carlson who was fired on Monday.
I know it's been a bit much to expect a corporation to put it's self interest on the back burner instead of saving American democracy. Yes, Dominion took the money and ran and it was for them probably the right call to make.
But Fox News can toddle off with it's financial pain mitigated by insurance and tax write offs while it can continue to do what it has always done and tailor it's message to what the audience wants to hear.
Fox News is not quite out of the woods yet. Another voting machine company, Smartmatic, has it's own law suit still pending.
I fully expect to learn Fox knowingly lied to it's viewers about that company. Actually some of the damaging evidence against Fox presented by Dominion also name checks Smartmatic.
And I fully expect Fox will buy it's way out of trouble.
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