In a historic and surprising last-minute agreement, the chainFox Broadcasting Company/Fox News agreed this Tuesday to pay $787.5 million dollars to the companyDominion Voting Systems to avoid a defamation trial that implicated her in transmitting falsehoods about theUS presidential elections in 2020.
”The truth matters. Lies have consequences,” Dominion attorney Justin Nelson said in remarks leaving court.
The unexpected pact came hours before the legal process against Fox News began in a superior court in Wilmington, Delaware, and puts an end to a bitter dispute between the conservative network and the voting machine company.
The details of the agreement are still unknown. The trial was to begin this Tuesday afternoon with the initial arguments of both parties, after the jury had already been selected.
The amount Fox will pay is less than the $1.6 billion compensation amount Dominion claimed with alawsuit filed in March 2021 against the station for having spread false complaints about alleged electoral manipulation in favor ofJoe Biden.
The announced settlement is one of the largest settlements in defamation cases in United States history.
In fact, the resolution of the dispute constitutes theTV network's admission that it lied by reporting that Dominion voting machines enabled voter fraud against thePresident Donald Trump.
For defenders of the values of journalism, this is a significant victory over those who promote lies to manipulate society for political purposes.
“"Fox has admitted to telling lies," he said.John Poulos, president of the company's board of directors.
Fox's statement when closing the agreement had to assume thespread of falsehoods after the presidential elections, although the language of the company's statement was careful enough in its acknowledgment of the information fiasco.
“We are pleased to have reached a settlement in our litigation with Dominion Voting Systems. “We recognize the court’s rulings declaring certain claims about Dominion to be false.”
The television station added that the agreement reflects “Fox's continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards,” although the episode of the US elections really reflects at least one discontinuity.
And there was no shortage of ridicule over Fox's elusive admission, like that of the CNN host,Jake Tapper, who said it was "difficult to read the statement with a straight face."
“We hope that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, rather than the acrimony of a divisive trial, will allow the country to move forward on these issues,” the statement concluded.
But this is a respite for Fox, as the network still facesanother much larger demand in a New York court. The computer company Smartmatic claims $2.7 billion for having also involved it in fraudulent accusations without providing evidence.
Fox News, which is the most watched news channel in the United States, openly welcomed coverage of thefraud accusations launched by Trump and his lawyers and advisors, which was endorsed by some of the station's main presenters.
Dominion alleged in its lawsuit that star hosts such as Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity on their shows allowed Trump lawyers such as Rudolph Giuliani to hypothesize that the company used algorithms in its machines to allegedly transfer Trump votes to Biden's count. .
The implications of the fraud affected Dominion, based in Denver, Colorado, and compromised its reputation as a voting equipment manufacturer.
The trial had created widespread expectation in the United States and, especially, among the media, at a time of growing debate about the spread of false news, the loss of informative values in the current press and the freedom of expression that it supports. the First Amendment of the Constitution.
It is unusual for defamation lawsuits against media outlets to go to trial, as the parties regularly reach out-of-court agreements to avoid difficult-to-resolve processes.
Under constitutional protections, plaintiffs against news outlets must prove – beyond a reasonable doubt – that the reports were disseminated with intent and malice.
But apparently, the evidence presented as evidence against Fox was compelling enough.
Internal messages from Fox journalists and executives in the days after the 2020 election reveal that they did not believe Trump and his supporters' allegations of fraud, even though they fed the falsehood to coincide with the prevailing opinion of their audience.
During a pretrial deposition, Fox's founding president,Rupert Murdoch, testified that he believed the 2020 election had been “clean and not stolen from Trump.”
One of Murdoch's messages that appeared in the case file indicates that the magnate ordered messages contrary to the losing president to be moderated. “We do not want to antagonize Trump any further,” Murdoch wrote in a Nov. 16, 2020, memo.
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