Fox News and its parent company face serious threats to their financial and reputational health from a blockbuster defamation lawsuit tied to coverage of the 2020 election that legal experts believe has a solid chance of succeeding.
Dominion Voting Systems, which brought the $1.6 billion suit, is a voting technology provider that argues Fox News defamed it by knowingly repeating falsehoods from former President Trump and his aides and allies that Dominion’s services were used to fraudulently elect Joe Biden to the White House.
A slew of internal communications and depositions taken by Dominion as part of its discovery process has left many legal experts warning that Fox could be on shaky legal footing.
Dominion argues the vignettes contained in its court filings demonstrate how top hosts and executives at Fox knew the claims being pushed by Trump’s associates about Dominion were false but aired them anyway.
“One just doesn’t see cases like this in defamation,” said Catherine Ross, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University who specializes in First Amendment issues.
“Fox does not appear to have any plausible defense particularly in light of what Dominion uncovered in discovery of real-time knowledge of falsity,” she said.
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Outside observers say the internal communications revealed through the discovery process, however, are a real problem for Fox.
“You can cover this without giving a platform to people like Sidney Powell because when you invite her on her show, you’re responsible for her lies if you don’t correct them in real time,” Ross, the legal expert said. “There are many, many ways of framing and covering that do not involve actually giving a platform or labeling something as actual news or a fact.”
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Among the explosive revelations made in the recent filings was a never-before-published acknowledgement from Murdoch that some of his hosts endorsed Trump’s election lies because they were, as he allegedly wrote of Sean Hannity in particular, “scared to lose viewers,” according to the filing.
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One thing most media and legal observers agree on is that the case is shining a spotlight on how the world’s largest news organizations cover dubious claims being promoted by prominent people and how failure to vet them can lead to drastic consequences.
“When you know that something is false or … if you are reckless in taking the steps to make sure that it is true and accurate then you may be held accountable,” said Joseph Russomanno, a journalism professor and expert in the First Amendment and media law at Arizona State University’ Walter Cronkite School. “What it will do is drive home that point that being careless or frivolous about facts and the truth will not stand.”
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Legal experts say Fox News on shaky legal ground in Dominion lawsuit https://t.co/JIUI956wCt pic.twitter.com/q0ZPUMCmLo
— The Hill (@thehill) March 3, 2023
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