New York – Fox News has agreed to pay more than $787 million in settlements to Dominion Voting Systemsthe software company that had taken care of recording votes in 2020, falsely accused of rigging the presidential election that gave victory to Joe Biden. Tycoon Rupert Murdoch, 92, preferred to pay hundreds of millions of dollars immediately rather than see the image of his network demolished by the embarrassing testimony expected in the courtroom.
Murdoch Admits: Fox New Hosts Endorsed False Trump ‘Stolen’ Victory Narrative
edited by the Foreign editorial staff
The deal to avoid an embarrassing trial
The agreement was reached at the last minute, before the lawsuit for defamation began in Delaware. Dominion had asked for $1.6 billion. The hearings would go on for six weeks, covered by all American media. It would have been up to all the main conductors to parade in the courtroom to explain their double standards: privately, in chats, they made ironic jokes about Donald Trump and on his baseless accusations, but then they went live and relaunched them in front of millions of viewers.
The parade of former Trumpians
One of them was Tucker Carlson, the most Trumpian of Fox hosts, a fan of Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin and everything that was part of the Trumpian galaxy. But privately the anchorman had commented in the chats that he “can’t wait to stop talking” about Donald Trump. And then the others, like Laura Ingraham, considered among the ‘hawks’ of American journalism, publicly a great supporter of the tycoon, privately certain that he had lost his way and had sought help from “crazy lawyers”, a reference to Rudolph Giuliani and Sydney Powell. The same had happened for Sean Hannity, and many network managers, and Murdoch himself. No one had given credit to the story of fraud, but on TV the team’s order was to inflame the audience. Fox’s loyal viewers don’t pay attention to the details of the reliability of the journalism, the network is unanimously considered a propaganda TV, but seeing the anchors, and Murdoch himself, parade every day and having to admit that he had lied to the public could have devastating effects especially on advertisers.
No direct apologies
Fox has achieved not having to issue an apology on air, and considers this step a success. “But he admitted to having said falsehoods – commented the CEO of the software company, John Poulos – lies that have caused enormous damage to my company, our employees and our customers. Nothing can ever erase it”. Poulos however defined the agreement reached with Murdoch as “historic”, who acknowledged that he had sent false information online for weeks, between 2020 and 2021, amplifying the allegations of fraud launched by the then US President Trump. The conservative network said it was “satisfied” with the agreement. “We recognized – declared the network – that the accusations against Dominion were false” and added that the agreement “reflects the commitment of Fox to the highest standards of journalism. We hope that having avoided the bitterness of a divisive process will allow the country to move forward”.
Record figures
The 787.5 million represent a fifth of the liquidity in the company’s coffers, equivalent to around four billion. The fee is one of the highest ever paid in a defamation lawsuit, but more records could be written in the coming months. Dominion still has other legal battles ahead: it has also sued two other conservative networks, Newsmax e Onand to Trump’s two lawyers in 2020, Giuliani e Powell. Fox’s troubles don’t end there. In February, the New York appeals court ruled a second damages lawsuit filed by another software company, Smartmaticwhich asked for 2.7 billion.