Tucker Carlson’s Fox News Exit Was Not a Part of Dominion’s Defamation Settlement, Sources Say
24.04.2023 - 17:57
/ thewrap.com
settled its $1.6 billion defamation case against Fox News for $787.5 million, did not have any influence on Fox and Carlson’s decision to part ways, people with knowledge of the situation tell TheWrap. Dominion has already collected its payout from Fox News and had no comment on Monday’s development.Carlson was a centerpiece of Dominion’s defamation suit, but his role was less as a provocateur and more as one of the dissenting voices internally disparaging the network for indulging the 2020 election conspiracy theories of Donald Trump and supporters Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.
While other hosts like Lou Dobbs were openly “endorsing” lies about electronic voting machines, Carlson was more dubious in his on-air comments, noting that there was no evidence of voter fraud.But behind the scenes, Carlson was clearly furious that his network continued to pursue the stolen-election narrative, according to text messages that Dominion submitted as evidence. That was an important piece of Dominion’s defamation-case puzzle, as they positioned Carlson and other Fox News leadership’s distaste for the reporting as proof of “actual malice” – or knowingly spreading defamatory statements, the legal standard set by New York Times v.
Sullivan in 1964.Legal settlements can contain all sorts of non-monetary stipulations; for instance, it was clear when Fox and Dominion announced their settlement – just as a jury had been seated – that Fox was compelled to halfheartedly concede that it had made “false statements” in its reporting.As a matter of pure speculation, it could turn out that the Dominion case, as well as another pending from Smartmatic, made Rupert Murdoch & Co. decide that it’s time for a tone shift at Fox News, and Carlson
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