Fox News Defamations: The Case for a Democratic Senator from the United States, Revisited by a High-Sensor Judge

After the first TV show to predict that Biden would win the election in 2020, millions of Trump fans abandoned Fox in favor of the other network, and now it is alleged that Fox was behind the false allegations against the company. Grossberg says Bartiromo was “obsessed” with ratings because of the importance Fox placed on it.

At a hearing, a lawyer for Fox News stated that the company is trying to have it both ways. She said that Fox is liable for defamation because it repeatedly promoted false claims of rigging the 2020 election. She said that they are going to go out of business because all of their customers agree with them.

In a ruling yesterday, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis affirmed that Dominion should receive the contracts – the point of contention in Tuesday’s hearing.

Nelson’s remarks at the hearing showed that senior Fox News executives tried to stop the lawyers for Trump from repeating certain lies on their shows. Trump’s advocates made those accusations in the late 20th century.

In his exchanges with the judge, Keller drew a line distinguishing between a host or producer “who are sometimes pre-scripting material for the show, that is going to be tethered to a specific channel’s telecast” and a network executive.

He said that the person would be far removed from the day-to-day operations of editorial control. Beyond Scott, the executives whose contracts are being sought also include Jay Wallace, Fox News’ president and executive editor and Meade Cooper, the executive vice president of primetime programming, among others.

Nelson, the Dominion attorney, retorted by citing a document obtained from Fox that “talks about the daily editorial meeting that occurs, including almost all of these executives that we’re looking at right now.”

The deposition Murdoch gave could be a game-changer for the case as he admitted that Fox hosts supported false claims about the election. To meet the standard of proof, a lawsuit has to show that the statements were false or reckless disregard for the truth.

Their summary judgment motion’s extreme views on defamation law should be seen as a blatant violation of the First Amendment, because it would prevent journalists from reporting on the allegations against the President of the United States.

Baier made an issue out of how his objection was framed, but no one at Fox would comment on that. One person inside Fox with direct knowledge of its election coverage told NPR that a technical glitch in a control room caused the delay in calling the full White House win for Biden.

Asked by a Dominion attorney whether “Fox endorsed at times this false notion of a stolen election,” Murdoch demurred, saying, “Not Fox, no. Not Fox. But maybe Lou Dobbs, maybe Maria [Bartiromo] as commentators.”

► Murdoch said he “suggested or urged” the firing of host Lou Dobbs because he “was an extremist,” but allowed him to continue hosting a program at the network until after the election. Dominion argues that’s because Dobbs was popular with Trump and his supporters and the network was fending off viewer defections to Newsmax.

The court filing also revealed that Fox News executives had criticized some of the network’s top talent behind the scenes. Jay Wallace, the network president, said that “the North Koreans” did a “more nuanced show” than then-host Lou Dobbs. Jerry Andrews, the executive producer of “Justice with Judge Jeanine,” referred to host Jeanine Pirro as “nuts.”

“Dominion and their private equity owners will create a lot of noise and confusion”, Fox News said in a statement. The freedom of the press and the freedom of speech are fundamental to the US Constitution and protected by New York Times v. Sullivan.

Fox News endorsed the election lies of President Donald Trump. But Murdoch conceded that Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Maria Bartiromo, and former host Lou Dobbs promoted falsehoods about the 2020 presidential contest being stolen.

Murdoch is accusing a smaller media outlet of defamation. He has forced the site to pay out for highly critical commentary several times previously; Crikey says it intends to use the suit as a test case for recent changes in libel law in that country. Legal cover for media outlets is less in Australia than in the U.S.

The fate of a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News lies, for the moment, in the hands of a plainspoken judge known for his unflinching poker face.

The Delaware Superior Court Judge, Eric M. Davis, has tried to temper the emotions in the proceedings between broadcasting giant and voting- technology company, which took place at the state’s bench. Both sides have accused the other of acting in bad faith.

“If he were to get a name in culture, it would be Cool Hand Daniel,” says Joseph Hurley, who has argued before Davis but has no connection with the case. “In court, he never shows any emotion, and I mean that in a good way.”

Newsmax wanted to throw out Smartmatic’s defamation claim. Davis ruled that the facts pleaded by Smartmatic lead him to “reasonably infer” that Newsmax’s airing of stolen-election claims was reckless enough to meet the high legal bar required for defamation.

Like Dominion, Smartmatic was the subject of false claims that its software had switched Trump votes to Joe Biden. Newsmax, Fox News and others broadcast those claims.

“Here, Smartmatic’s well-pled allegations support the reasonable inference that Newsmax’s reporting was neither accurate nor disinterested/unbiased,” Davis said.

John Culhane, a professor at Delaware Law School, says that the judge should not have had any of the Newsmax arguments.

Culhane cautions against drawing too strong a conclusion from the Newsmax ruling, but he says Davis is step-by-step when it comes to the law.

News Corp. Demystified in a High-Dimensional Fox News Airplay: Claims against Fox News, Smartmatic and Dominion

The most prominent stars and highest-ranking executives at Fox News privately ridiculed claims of election fraud in the 2020 election, despite the right-wing channel allowing lies about the presidential contest to be promoted on its air, damning messages contained in a Thursday court filing revealed.

Smartmatic also has sued Fox for $2.7 billion, but that suit is not as far along as Dominion’s. Fox News wanted the case against it, and several of its stars, to be dismissed, but a New York state court turned them down. The claims against Fox were dismissed because no cause was stated.

Smartmatic attorney Erik Connolly said it would file an amended complaint that “details the involvement of [Fox Corp. leaders] Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch.”

Much like Fox’s lawyers in New York and Delaware, Newsmax’s attorneys similarly cite a legal privilege, known as neutral reportage, allowing it to present “unprecedented allegations without adopting them as true, so that the public could draw its own conclusions” about “a news story of extraordinary public interest.”

While he notes the First Amendment protects reporters in order to guarantee a “robust and unintimidated press,” he also states the “First Amendment is not unlimited.” He said a neutral reportage principle does not protect a publisher who “deliberately distorts” statements to “launch a personal attack of [its] own on a public figure.”

The stakes are very high in both cases. Yet Davis does not seek to amplify his own profile. (Indeed, his court declined to make a photo of him available for this story.) The Delaware legal bar is known for its air of comity around the proceedings.

In a February 8 court hearing, Davis apologized to the rival legal teams after he said he came off as sarcastic in an email.

He pinned it on his use of a pat phrase. “That’s one of those sarcastic things that judges say?” Davis asked. Don’t tell me I’m wrong. It means that I’m making a statement. But that wasn’t why I was doing it.”

The Fox News Critics of the 2016 Presidential Election: Tucker Carlson vs Laura Ingraham, Sean Hanson and the Case for a New Fox News Anchor

The network’s top stars – Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hanson – sent disrespectful messages in group chats, but denounced their colleague who pointed out the claims publicly or on television.

Carlson said in one of the messages he had caught Sidney Powell lying and that he was representing the Trump campaign. Ingraham responded, “Sidney is a complete nut. People will not work with her. Ditto with Rudy [Giuliani].”

The court document offered the most vivid picture to date of the chaos that transpired behind the scenes at Fox News after Trump lost the election and viewers rebelled against the right-wing channel for accurately calling the contest in Biden’s favor.

“There will be a lot of noise and confusion generated by Dominion and their opportunistic private equity owners, but the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution and protected by New York Times v. Sullivan,” the network said.

Trump urged his followers to switch to Newsmax after the election, because he attacked Fox News. And, in the days and weeks after the presidential contest had been called, they did just that. Fox News shed a chunk of its audience while Newsmax gained significant viewership.

Carlson requested that the woman be fired over a text message. “Seriously … what the f**k? I’m actually shocked … It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. That is measurably hurting the company.

A person with direct knowledge of the matter told CNN that Heinrich was blindsided reading the details in the legal filing and was not aware of the efforts by top hosts behind the scenes to get her fired.

Fox News host Neil Cavuto was attacked by his colleagues when they attacked him for pulling his show away from a presentation by the White House in which she made ridiculous claims of fraud again. McEnany is a host on Fox News.

Scott exchanged messages with Lachlan Murdoch, the Fox Corporation chief executive, and outlined a plan to win viewers back. Scott said the right-wing talk channel would “highlight our stars and plant flags letting the viewers know we hear them and respect them.” Murdoch responded that the brand needed “rebuilding without any missteps.”

Investigating the “Fox News” Controversy: The Case Against Murdoch and the Cable Network’s Inaccuracies

Slaven Vlasic/ [email protected], Carolyn Kaster/ AP, Alex Brandon, Michael Brochstein and others are pictured.

Those same plots were contemptuous of by the network’s stars, producers and executives, who called them “mind-blowingly nuts,” ” totally off the rails” and ” absolutely bs”.

“[Rupert Murdoch] is responsible for Fox News. Fox News has been the largest cause of political hatred in America. I would challenge anyone … to nominate which individual alive today has done more to undermine American democracy than Rupert Murdoch.”

In a separate filing also released to the public, the cable network’s attorneys say that the damage request from the company is meant to “generate headlines and enrich the company’s controlling owner.”

The night of January 6, 2020, Fox News didn’t air: the story of the day that morning Bart Baier was let go by the Fox News anchor

On Nov. 5, 2020, just days after the election, Bret Baier, the network’s chief political anchor texted a friend: “[T]here is NO evidence of fraud. None. Allegations – stories. There is a platform for people to convey their opinion on social issues. Bulls—.”

Sammon was let go by Fox News two months after his departure, but he didn’t comment on that.

Former President Donald Trump tried to call into Fox News after his supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, but the network refused to put him on air, according to court filings from Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation case against the company.

The House select committee that investigated the January 6 attack did not know that Trump had made this call, according to a source familiar with the panel’s work.

The panel wanted to get a near minute-by-minute account of Trump’s movements on that day. Some of the gaps exist due to the obstacles that were faced by the committee.

After the Capitol came under attack, President Trump tried to get on the air, according to a legal brief.

“But Fox executives vetoed that decision,” Dominion’s filing continued. Why? Not because of a lack of newsworthiness. January 6 is considered by many as an important event. The sitting president was the key figure that day.

Yup, Fox hosts and the Murdoch family were OK with discrediting the core engine of America’s democracy — our ability to peacefully and legitimately transfer power — if it would hold their audience and boost their stock.

The Defamation Case Against Fox News: Haley, Jordan, Andersen, Korzenik, And Their Unusual Witnesses

I haven’t met Haley, but she had a decent story to tell, being Trump’s first UN ambassador and the daughter of Indian immigrants. Her mother, Raj, studied law at the University of New Delhi, and after immigrating to South Carolina, earned a master’s degree in education and became a local public-school teacher. Her father, Ajit, earned a doctorate from the University of British Columbia and then taught as a biology professor at Voorhees College for 29 years. On the side, they even opened a clothing boutique.

Legal experts cautioned that they didn’t want to see Fox News’ response, but they all agreed that the evidence in the filing represents a serious threat to the channel.

“When damages get into the billions, with a B, that can be an existential threat to a journalistic organization — even one as lucrative as as Fox,” said Lyrissa Lidsky, a constitutional law professor at the University of Florida.

A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. There is a daily digest on the evolving media landscape.

The evidence collected in the defamation case against Fox was massive, and it was described by Ron Nell Andersen Jones, a professor at Utah’s University of Utah, as “very large.” She had never seen evidence like it.

Tushnet had never seen such damning evidence in the pre-trial stage of a defamation suit.

David Korzenik, an attorney who teaches First Amendment law and represents a number of media organizations, said that the filing showed Dominion’s case against Fox News has serious teeth.

“This is a pretty staggering brief,” Jones said. “Dominion’s filing here is unique not just as to the volume of the evidence but also as to the directness of the evidence and the timeline of the evidence.”

The Murdochs, Fox News, and the Bounds on Election Fraud: An Airtime Defend for Rudy Giuliani

Similarly, Murdoch sought to distinguish between the two in his sworn remarks. When asked whether Fox News embraced the idea of election fraud, he pointed instead to his own stars: “No. Some of our commentators were endorsing it.”

The filing on Monday also included a deposition by Viet Dinh, Fox’s chief legal officer. After Mr. Hannity told his audience on Nov. 5, 2020, that it would be “impossible to ever know the true, fair, accurate election results,” Mr. Dinh said, he remarked to Lachlan Murdoch; the chief executive of Fox News Media, Suzanne Scott; and Fox’s top communications officer, Irena Briganti: “Hannity is getting awfully close to the line with his commentary and guests tonight.”

In the wake of the election, Murdoch wrote in an email to the New York Post’s Col Allan, describing election lies that Trump was pushing as “bulls**t and damaging.”

Murdoch gave the then-candidate for president a preview of Biden’s ads before they were public, in 2020, according to the filing. At most news organizations, this type of action would result in an investigation and disciplinary measures.

The documents lay bare that the channel’s business model is not based on informing its audience, but rather on feeding them content — even dangerous conspiracy theories — that keeps viewers happy and watching.

Asked whether he could have told Fox News’ chief executive and its stars to stop giving airtime to Rudy Giuliani — a key Trump campaign attorney peddling election lies — Murdoch assented. Murdoch said he could have. “But I did not.”

Emails and other communications introduced into the case by Dominion reflect deep involvement by the Murdochs and other Fox Corp. senior figures in the network’s editorial path.

Murdoch admitted in a deposition that he’s a journalist at heart. “I like to be involved in these things.”

He had been adamant about defending the call by Fox News for Biden to win the election in Arizona. Murdoch testified that he could hear Trump shouting in the background as the then-president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, told him the situation was “terrible.”

Scott forwarded his recommendation to the top executive over prime-time programming, Meade Cooper. She canceled the show over fears that guests were going to say the election was stolen and that if she pushed back it would be just a token.

Raj Shah was advising Murdoch, Scott and Dinh of the “strong conservative and viewer backlash” to Fox at the time. Positive impressions among Fox News viewers dropped to the lowest levels we’ve ever seen after the election.

Anne Dias penned a letter to the Murdochs. I think it is time for Fox News to take a stance or Lachlan to do so. It is an existential moment for the nation and for Fox News as a brand.”

“Just tell her”, was the advice given by Murdoch. Fox News, which called the election correctly, is pivoting as fast as possible. We have to lead our viewers which is [] not as easy as it might seem.”

On Jan. 26, Tucker Carlson had Lindell on his show. Murdoch told his attorneys he didn’t want to take money for MyPillow ads.

“This is one of the most devastating depositions that I’ve ever seen,” CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen said Monday. There is a malice standard when you go beyond reporting and your chairman admits there was endorsement.

The lawsuit claimed that Fox’s legal team caused Grossberg to testify in a way that portrayed the facts “in a false light” in order to shift culpability away from senior Fox News executives.

Murdoch admitted that many of the hosts promoted false statements about the presidential contest being stolen.

Who is he? Rupert Murdoch is a media magnate and the Fox News Channel’s controlling owner (as well as one of the inspirations for the protagonist in HBO’s Succession).

Fox News has a Right, but a Bad Story: The Case of Murdoch and Kagan’s “Fake News”

Rutgers University law professor Ronald Chen says that it’s common to get’smokinggun’ emails showing that persons responsible for the editorial content knew that the accusation wasn’t true, and that it was done for Fox’s own benefit.

Top executives, including Murdoch and Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott, told one another they could not bluntly confront their viewers with the facts because that could alienate them further.

Some media lawyers say Fox’s attorneys may have been correct in their predictions that a loss would diminish the media’s freedom.

“No matter how much I might personally deplore what Fox is alleged to have done, I worry a lot more about the longer term-ramifications,” says University of Minnesota media law professor Jane Kirtley, a former executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Brennan also argued Americans should have latitude to get some things wrong in talking about public officials and politics, in order to ensure free and robust debate.

Two current Supreme Court justices, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, have indicated they would be open to making it easier for plaintiffs to prevail in defamation suits. A third, Elena Kagan, published her own musings years before she joined the court that the protections for the press might be too strong.

The idea of “actual malice,” Murphy says, requires Dominion to prove specific people directly involved with the broadcasts knew the statements they aired were wrong. For instance, Murdoch’s sworn statements that he had dismissed the claims of election fraud as bogus, and affirmed under oath that some of his star hosts had nonetheless endorsed them publicly, carries no legal weight, she says.

The president and his lawyers did not seem to care whether the allegations were going to be proved or not. The journalists consider the safe ground of neutral reporting to be just telling others what’s happening to them.

Fox News anchormen were concerned about the loss of viewers and how to win them back, as well as the discovery of evidence by the New York Times’ Peter Baker show.

When news outlets do lose defamation cases, they often result in retractions or apologies and settlements while they’re still on appeal. The outcomes of the two most important defamation cases in the last few years were different.

Rolling Stone magazine settled a case with the dean of the University of Virginia after they lost standards in reporting on a story about a University of Virginia student who said she was raped by seven men.

A year ago, The New York Times won a battle against former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin after she was wrongly linked to a mass shooting.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/06/1161221798/if-fox-news-loses-defamation-dominion-media

Fox News Is A Wackadoodle: Come On, Fox, and Do It Not Matter What You’re doing, or I’m going to Keep Doing, but I Can’t Wait for It

The general rule is that strange cases are an exception, Goodale says. “Let us hope we don’t see this one again, and that it’s not quite like this one again.”

A Fox News producer on Monday filed a pair of lawsuits, accusing the right-wing talk channel of forcing her into false testimony in a $1.6 billion defamation case.

The lawsuits filed by Abby Grossberg, who worked as a senior booking producer for Maria Bartiromo and most recently head of booking for Tucker Carlson, accused Fox’s legal team of having engaged in wrongful conduct as it prepared her for a pre-trial deposition in the election technology company’s case.

According to Fox’s legal briefs, her law firm had shared a draft version of her civil complaint with Fox News’ attorneys.

The memo Powell delivered detailed allegations of fraud without providing evidence. It was written by a woman who admitted her claims were “wackadoodle”.

The lawsuits from Grossberg, who has since been placed on administrative leave by Fox, were filed in Delaware Superior Court and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

In her lawsuits, Grossberg accused Fox News of being a hive of sexism and made many other eyebrow-raising allegations.

Fox doesn’t care, Grossberg said. “It summarizes everything perfectly. They don’t care about their employees, and they don’t care about their viewers.

Grossberg said that Fox News executives referred to her as a crazy b**ch, and that she was passed over for a show because the network preferred a male host.

When she began work on Carlson’s show, Grossberg said the environment was horrific. She said that on her first day, the workspace was decorated with photos of Nancy Pelosi in a bathing suit.

The lawsuit continued to say that the Carlson program made jokes about Jewish people and that women were subjected to crude terms. Carlson and his staff were named in the lawsuit.

The Newsroom Newsroom Investigation. Newsday Reporting of Senator Eric Nelson and the Defendant’s Decision to Drop the Cable News Reporting Correspondence

“It’s constant,” she added. Ratings are crucial for the shows, the network, and the hosts. It drives coverage because it is a business.

The parties appeared in Delaware Superior Court for a second day of arguments regarding “summary judgment” after an all-day hearing on Tuesday ran long. Both sides want Judge Eric Davis to make a decision in their favor now and avoid a jury trial that is scheduled to begin next month. At a future date, the judge will issue a written ruling.

Nelson said that the decision to let it happen was made by Fox News.

Lawyers for the right-wing network wrote in a Monday filing that live testimony at a trial will add nothing other than media interest. “But this is a trial, not a public relations campaign.”

He said one of Fox’s arguments “doesn’t seem to be intellectually honest.” He questioned how Fox News had been able to argue that Lou had engaged in legally protected reporting when he signed many of his TWEETs with the #MAGA campaign.

It could have been a bigger story if the President had lost the election and made false allegations about widespread fraud.

Instead, “all we ever did was provide viewers with the true fact that those allegations were being leveled by the siting President and his lawyers, all throughout the country,” she told the judge.

A Letter from Carlson to the House Committee that Investigated the January 6th Insurrection: Mr. Epps Accused of Defaming the FBI

In its previous court filings, Dominion said that its calculation was correct. The company hired experts to evaluate its books and lost business opportunities, and that’s how they reached the $1.6 billion figure.

The fanciful notions that Carlson advances on his show about Mr. Epps’s involvement in the January 6th insurrection are false according to the letter from the attorney. Mr. Carlson continues his attack on the truth.

Conspiracy theorists speculated that the assault on the US Capitol was staged by the federal government to make Trump supporters look bad.

Some right-wing figures baselessly said that Epps is part of a secret FBI plot to stage the attack as part of the conspiracy theory. Carlson has repeatedly breathed life into those conspiracies by giving them attention on his highly rated program. On many occasions, Carlson mentioned Epps on the show, and has played footage from January 6 of him at the Capitol.

In a private deposition with the House committee that investigated January 6, Epps denied that he ever worked for the FBI or for federal law enforcement, according to a transcript of his interview. He told the committee he supported Trump in 2020 and attended the DC protest because he was concerned about widespread voter fraud.

The conspiracy theories about the client have been discredited by videos and accounts from those that attended the January 6 events, according to the attorney.

This isn’t the first time that Teter has been involved in legal issues. He has publicly pushed for professional accountability against lawyers who have spread election lies. The managing director is trying to take disciplinary action against attorneys that pushed false information about the election.

A Fox News Star Witness in Dominion Voting System’s $1.6 Billion Defamation Attorney’s Disciplinary Case

A former senior producer for Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Maria Bartiromo is offering herself as a star witness for Dominion Voting System’s $1.6 billion defamation suit against the network.

The Murdochs and Ryan must testify at the trial, as well as the chairman of Fox Corporation and chief executive of the company.

Grossberg stated in his filing that there wasn’t any evidence to implicate them in any way with respect to the reporting that was allowed to receive significant air time.

She claims that Fox executives, including Clark, didn’t support her and passed her over for promotions.

She also acknowledges receiving many messages from Dominion seeking to correct the falsehoods, but says she did not read all of them because they “all looked the same” at a glance, and she had too much to do on a show she describes as severely short-staffed.

Dominion’s potential witness list, which is not final and will surely face legal challenges from Fox’s lawyers, is part of the routine process of haggling over witnesses while both sides prepare for trial.

The judge was asked to declare Fox News the winner without a trial. The judge has yet to rule on the matter, but most legal experts believe the case will ultimately proceed to a jury trial if the two sides do not reach a settlement. Jury selection is scheduled to begin on April 13.

Fox told the judge that it would be hard for Murdoch to testify in-person, and that it presents an unfair burden on the 92-year-old media mogul.

“Mr. Murdoch has claimed that he’s traveling, and (that it’s) an inconvenience,” Davis said. He recently got engaged and I have people that say he is well enough to travel around and is not infirm.

“We are not arguing that Mr. Murdoch is infirm or unable to travel,” Fox lawyer Matthew Carter said Tuesday, arguing that Dominion should rely on Murdoch’s “seven-hour-long deposition.”

“If I think you’re just trying to interrupt testimony out of gamesmanship… you may have a problem,” Davis said. “…Be careful, people. Your powder should be dry on this stuff. This isn’t a game. This is a trial, and you’re going to be presenting to a jury.”

Both sides are also hoping to put on testimony from their handpicked experts who specialize in election statistics, the security of voting machines, journalism ethics, the impact of disinformation in public discourse, and more.