Dominion Voting Systems and Fox offered dueling views of defamation law in their latest filings, as each side seeks a summary judgment ruling that could forestall a planned trial in April.
17.02.2023 - 07:57 / thewrap.com
since it filed suit in November 2021.Dominion says Fox defamed it by allowing guests like attorney Sidney Powell and Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani to repeatedly appear in the weeks after the Nov. 2020 election, suggesting that Dominion’s software was compromised to digitally tilt the election to Biden.A necessary pillar of any defamation case is showing “actual malice” – meaning the plaintiff must be proven to have known it was spreading harmful untruths.
Dominion says the emails, text messages and other communication it collected shows that behind the scenes, Fox’s top-ranking shot-callers were horrified by the unfounded claims appearing nightly on their network – and were deeply worried that they would case trouble down the road.The notion that Fox’s own hosts and top brass were not on board with the election-fraud narrative has been reported before. But details about the degree to which they disagreed – and were unanimously concerned about the potential for damage to their network – were new to Thursday’s filing.Examples abound:“Sidney Powell is lying,” Carlson texted to his producer Alex Pfeiffer on Nov.
16, less than two weeks after the election.“Sidney Powell is a bit nuts. Sorry but she is,” Laura Ingraham texted to Carlson and Sean Hannity the day before.“That whole narrative that Sidney was pushing,” Sean Hannity texted later that month, “I did not believe it for one second.”And after Murdoch watched Giuliani and Powell on Nov.
Dominion Voting Systems and Fox offered dueling views of defamation law in their latest filings, as each side seeks a summary judgment ruling that could forestall a planned trial in April.
Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Someone has to handle the truth. In the 1992 legal drama, “A Few Good Men,” a senior military commander played by Jack Nicholson is asked over and over if he ordered a “code red,” or an off-the-books dictate that sent underlings scurrying to do something they probably should not have done. Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch and many of the top executives and anchors at Fox News Channel may feel like they are stuck in a reboot of that film. In a remarkable series of depositions that have been made available from much-scrutinized litigation between voting-technology company Dominion Voting Systems and Fox Corporation, top officers at Fox and its most lucrative subsidiary, Fox News Media, are grilled over whether they have direct responsibility for stories, talent and reporting that airs on Fox News Channel or Fox Business Network. In many instances, the executives say they do not.
that here.“Thanks to the former president, there’s a whole industry of people who make a good living trying to make you think you’re insane,” Colbert said as he kicked off his monologue. “Well, I make a very good living reminding you that you’re not.”Then he got to his explanation for Fox News’ actions.
A huge release of text messages, emails and deposition transcripts dropped today in the Dominion vs. Fox litigation sheds further light on the scramble among Fox News personalities and Fox Corp. executives to respond to the backlash in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election and then the repercussions after the attack on the Capitol on January 6th.
Fox News is citing newly found emails from Maria Bartiromo’s personal account that they intend to use in their defense of Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit.
The New York Times examined the response of those networks to the private messages that were made public in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News. According to the NY Times findings, only four publications – Gateway Pundit, Newsmax, the Washington Examiner and the Western Journal – mentioned the suit in some way. However, none of them worked the Fox employees’ private comments into their coverage.
Katie Reul editor On the heels of a close victory at Super Bowl LVII, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce is once again taking over global television screens as this week’s host of “Saturday Night Live.” The episode opened with a mock “Fox & Friends” segment, featuring Mikey Day as Steve Doocy, Heidi Gardner as Ainsley Earhardt and Bowen Yang as Brian Kilmeade. The sketch comes amid a cascade of embarrassing revelations around Fox News and its major stars in recent days as the litigation grinds on in the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems after the 2020 election. As Earhardt, Gardner says of the network’s founder Rupert Murdoch: “Rupert Murdoch would never murder anyone. They sent him away for life. Look how sad he looks.” An image of convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh then appears on the screen as Earhardt realizes her mistake.
filing earlier this month: That top hosts including Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Jeanine Pirro and Maria Bartiromo were privately horrified that their network was pushing Trump’s “stolen election” narrative – but went on-air with it anyway.“Is there really that much going on at two in the afternoon on Fox News that you can’t cover him live?” the popular “War Room” podcaster asked the crowd. “They don’t respect you, read the depositions.
own CEO recently admitted it lied to its viewers about the 2020 election — and all the times Conway lied on television herself.“Being lectured about the truth by Kellyanne Conway is like getting lessons on conflict resolution from M3GAN,” he mocked. “They should start spelling Kellyanne the same way.
Semafor. Fox did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday evening.Meanwhile, his main rival (as yet unofficial) candidate, Florida Governor Ron Desantis, has been on Fox regularly.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries seized on the latest revelations from Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against Fox News, as they called on Rupert Murdoch to curb hosts from spreading election conspiracy theories.
explosive texts from Fox News hosts revealed in February as part of Dominion Voting System’s defamation lawsuit against the network, Hasan Minhaj is still a bit gobsmacked. On Tuesday night, the “Daily Show” guest host joked that, in reality, it seems Fox personalities are more like those on MSNBC.A quick refresher on those messages: in a court filing on Thursday, February 16, Dominion Voting provided texts, emails and other forms of communication between Fox News hosts from after the 2020 election, in which they called out some of the network’s guests for perpetuating unsupported claims that voting was electronically rigged against twice-impeached former president Donald Trump.Among the messages were ones that said things like “Sidney Powell is lying,” sent from Tucker Carlson to his producer Alex Pfeiffer on Nov.
Fox News dominated its rivals in February viewership and landed the top ten shows in total viewers and a key demographic.
Donald Trump went on the attack against Fox Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch following the latest revelations from Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against the media company.
filing earlier this month: That top hosts, including Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Jeanine Pirro and Maria Bartiromo were privately horrified that their network was pushing Donald Trump’s “stolen election” narrative – but went ahead with it anyway.“I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it in hindsight,” Murdoch told the Superior Court of the state of Delaware, according to the filing.The documents revealed that top executives also reacted with incredulity – bordering on contempt – to various fictitious allegations about Dominion, including that a secret algorithm in its voting machines allowed ballots to be switched, and that the company was founded in Venezuela to help its former president, Hugo Chávez, fix elections.“Executives at all levels of Fox … knowingly opened Fox’s airwaves to false conspiracy theories about Dominion,” the filing states.Murdoch also said in his testimony that it was wrong for Fox hosts to “endorse” lies if they knew them not to be true: “Fox has a role in making sure people can agree on a basic set of facts,” he said last month. “Yes.
Rupert Murdoch said in a recent deposition that he “would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing” Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 presidential election, conspiracy theories that the Fox Corp. executive chairman at once called “bulls— and damaging.”
John Oliver started off Last Week Tonight roasting Fox News for the second week in a row. The HBO Max host showed started off by noting that Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg attended the train derailment in Ohio.
Fox News is a very profitable organization, and so are its stars.