And compensation record, agreed to avoid an even more embarrassing trial that risked bringing the same Rupert Murdoch on the dock. The conservative broadcaster Fox will pay 787.5 million dollars a Dominion Voting Systems for defaming her. The company, which operates the voting machines in the United Stateshad asked the TV for compensation for $1.6 billion for spreading baseless allegations of Donald Trump and its allies on alleged fraud in the 2020 election.”Fox he admitted that he told lies about Dominion which have caused enormous damage to my company,” explained the CEO of the company John Poulosdefining the settlement historic. to the center of litigation the conspiracy theories about the rigged 2020 election ridden by Fox which, on the air, he called rigged several times in favor of Joe Biden the voting devices of Dominion and accused the company’s employees of paying bribes to election officials. Some at home Fox they also said live that Dominion he had previously worked for the Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. The Cnn he calls it the largest libel settlement in U.S. history involving a media company.
The agreement came after the opening of the trial had been postponed by a day and the 12 jurors who were supposed to decide the fate of the defamation lawsuit had been chosen. In the morning the judge had given instructions to the jurors and granted them a lunch break: the proceedings should have officially started at 1.30pm local time with the opening arguments. But the jurors only returned to the courtroom at 16.00, when the judge announced that the “parties had resolved the case”. A announcement simultaneously with the closure of Wall Streetdove Fox is listed and where, in trading after hours, it loses 1%. The plea agreement reflects the “commitment to high standards of journalism. We welcome the decision to resolve the dispute with Dominion in an amicable way, so that the country can move forward,” Fox commented. For the network the plea bargain avoids a process potentially embarrassing which could have created difficulties a Rupert Murdoch and to the son Lachlan, exposing them to criticism for their oversight of news coverage.
The credibility of Fox has already been significantly damaged by the investigative material that emerged in recent weeks, private messages and emails that showed how its own managers did not believe the theories conspiratorialbut continued to spread them for reasons of audience. Not just the president of Fox Corporation Rupert Murdochbut also ultra-conservative conductors such as Tucker Carlson e Sean Hannitybig supporters of Trumpthey knew that the former president’s lies about the election were completely disconnected from reality, but they continued to focus their shows on this because, they claimed, this was what they wanted. listeners. Indeed, other messages reveal that the few journalists of Fox who tried to challenge the Trumpian arguments they then suffered measures disciplinary.