The Fox News-Dominion settlement does not end the crisis in Rupert Murdoch's empire (2023)

Fox Corp. settled a defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, but the company's troubles are far from over.

Exceed$787.5 million in expensesTo end the Dominion case, Fox must now contend with another defamation lawsuit filed by rival voting machine company Smartmatic USA, which is seeking $2.7 billion in damages.

Fox investors are also filing their own lawsuits accusing Rupert Murdoch and other board members of negligenceAllow Fox News to promote election lies,This damaged the network's reputation as a news organization.

Revelations from emails and text messages disclosed in the lawsuit cast a pall over Murdoch and prominent broadcasters, including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Maria Bartiromo. Murdoch and others say privately that they knew their exesPresident Trump's "stolen election" claim is false,But they seem more interested in protecting Fox News' huge profits than telling the truth to millions of viewers, according to court documents.

Tuesday's resolution acquits the 92-year-old tycoon; his son Lachlan, a company director; and the inconvenience of standing on the witness stand in a courtroom full of journalists. It will discuss why the network's lies have served Trump and his ardent supporters after the 2020 election.

But the settlement — one of the largest payouts ever in a defamation case —Another blemish marking Murdoch's 70-year legacyA pioneering tycoon who built a global empire from a single newspaper in his native Australia.

The Dominion case is the latest costly scandal for the company, which has spent millions of dollars over the past decade paying victims of phone hacking at Murdoch's now-defunct British tabloid.

"There is compelling evidence that Murdoch is not at his peak," Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a management professor at Yale University, said on Tuesday. Control over the monster Stan."

Sonnenfeld and others argued that Murdoch's own testimony, given during his testimony at Fox studios west of Los Angeles in late January, hurt the company's case. In that testimony, Murdoch acknowledged that Fox News anchors, including Bartirom and Hannity, "endorsed" the lies — far more than passively listening to or refuting the claims of Trump supporters.

The emails show that Murdoch, the company's chairman, was upset by the allegations of election fraud, calling them "crazy things" - but the lie continued to grow.

Asked during his testimony whether he had the right to stop distorting the facts, Murdoch replied: "I could. But I don't."

This admission shows Fox News management's indifference to the truth and further weakens their position in the Dominion case.

On January 5, 2021, ahead of Trump's rally on the Washington Mall and riots at the Capitol, Murdoch told Fox News anchor Suzanne Scott that Fox primetime anchors Hannity, Carlson and Laura Ingraham might announce "something along the lines of 'The election is over , Joe Biden won," Murdoch reportedly said, noting that "it would go a long way toward ending the Trump myth" that the election was rigged.

Instead, Scott told the lieutenant, "I told Rupert that in private everyone was there - we had to be careful with the show and get the crowd mad, but they knew how to manage."

While other news outlets drool over the details of the case, Fox News has largely avoided it in its programming.

Fox News business anchor Neil Cauto interrupted his regular coverage Tuesday afternoon to announce the settlement and invite media commentator Howard Kurtz to discuss the case live.

"We acknowledge that the court found certain claims about Dominion to be false," the network said in a statement. "This settlement reflects Fox's continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards. We hope our decision to resolve the dispute with Dominion amicably, rather than a bitter split-lawsuit dispute, will allow the country to move forward with these issues."

Tuesday's settlement ended the damaging revelations.

The court testimony that has been released has been heavily redacted, prompting some legal experts to speculate that more bombs could be dropped.

"It's clear that Fox paid to ensure that the evidence was not for public display," said attorney Ryan Saba, a Los Angeles attorney. “There could be more incriminating information on the horizon ... Fox has a lot of power to solve this case.

Another big blow to the Fox case came late last month, whenDelaware Supreme Court Dommer Eric M. Davis Fox News Defense ReporterStolen election lies are "newsworthy" because they were invented by the president at the time and thus protected by the First Amendment.

Davis said he would not allow Fox to make such an argument at trial.

"The evidence developed in this civil case shows that [it] is abundantly clear that none of the statements made by Dominion regarding the 2020 election were true," Davis wrote in his March 31 decision.

Davis also ruled that the Murdochs must testify if called during the trial, which is expected to last until May.

The question that remains is whether Fox acted recklessly or with actual malice — the standard in defamation cases.

"Now Fox will also refrain from publishing the verdict," Saba said.

Dominion CEO John Poulos called the massive settlement "historic."

"Fox has admitted that it lied to Dominion, which caused tremendous harm to my company, our employees and our customers," Prowse said in a statement. - Nothing will make up for it.

In addition to the upcoming Smartmatic lawsuit, which also accuses Fox News of defamation after the 2020 election, lawyers representing Fox Corp. shareholders. are preparing a lawsuit to seize some of the evidence presented by Dominion.

The first shareholder lawsuit of its kind was filed last week in Delaware.

"Fox executives and managers knew that Trump's claims of election fraud were 'pretty crazy stuff,' as Rupert Murdoch, the head of Fox's media empire, put it, but they pushed their case anyway," the lawsuit filed by Fox said. shareholder. , Robert Schwartz.

"Fox is more concerned about short-term ratings and market share than long-term damage from its failure to tell the truth," Schwartz's lawsuit says. "The board's decision to reach out to viewers by promoting fake, stolen election results exposed the company to public ridicule and adversely affected Fox News' credibility as a media organization that should accurately report newsworthy events."

It's unclear whether the settlement will keep Fox News viewers from tuning in to the popular channel — or whether it will change minds about high-profile anchors. So far, the Dominion lawsuit has not affected the network's ratings.

The judge announced the settlement three minutes before the market closed. Fox shares closed at $31.20, down 2 cents.

"Fox has done a good job of not releasing any information about this case on their channel," said former Fox News contributor John Ellis. - It's like old East Berlin.

But the network is in trouble because Trump currently leads the polls among likely Republican presidential candidates in 2024. Documents released in the Dominion case show Murdoch and others are willing to put Trump in the back seat.

For example, Carlson privately admitted in his messages that he hates Trump.

"I hate him so much," Carlson said in a text message.

But Ellis and other experts say such announcements are unlikely to change Fox News' mainstream ratings — largely because Fox outsells other conservative-leaning channels.

"The fact that Tucker Carlson was attacked by this polling company didn't really get much public attention," Ellis said. "Tuck is their man."

"Their audience will get over it," added Saba.

The Dominion case is not the first time Fox News has been accused of pandering to conspiracy theories.

The network has provided a platform for past false claims — including Trump'sThe baseless claim more than a decade ago that President Obama was not born in the United States,Or falsely blame Seth Rich, the young DNC aide who was murdered in Washington in 2016.Because Hillary Clinton's emails were leaked.

Fox News paid his family millionsequipsolve the matter.