The judge won’t declare the early winner in the Fox News defamation case
The Murdoch Case: Defending Donald Trump with the Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, and Fox News in the Early Stage of Election Riggedness
That was the short but powerful headline on The New York Times’ scoop Thursday afternoon that surprised the former president, sent newsrooms into a flurry, and set into motion a historic and uncharted course for the country.
CNN quickly went into breaking news mode after the shocking news came out and devoted hours of programming to coverage on the major developments.
Murdoch once said that he should not have his name used on his network because he was contemptuous of Trump.
Murdoch and his group of right-wing hosts and commentators painted an ugly portrait of America, one in which supposedly George Soros- controlled prosecutors are targeting conservatives in an unjust manner for the sole purpose.
The first version of this article appeared in theReliable Sources newsletter. Sign up for a daily digest of the evolving landscape of media.
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, which is known to echo Murdoch’s personal views, published a piece calling Trump’s indictment a “sad day for the country.” The editorial states that the action was carried out for political reasons.
“There is no doubt that Mr. Bragg is doing what most Democrats want,” The WSJ’s editorial board wrote. “They want Mr. Trump in the dock and at the center of the political debate. They think the spectacle and indictment will help him become the Republican nominee, even if he is not convicted. They think he is the easiest candidate to beat because he motivates Democrats and divides Republicans and independents.”
The New York Post also appeared in Trump’s corner. The outlet has a story on Bragg that says he has a bad case of bias.
Emails that lawyers for the company used to build their case give a glimpse at how Murdoch shapes his news organizations.
The messages released in the case show network leaders were terrified of their audience changing the channel for scrutiny of Trump. He is very focused on his bottom line.
If there is an out-of-court settlement, jurors will need to decide whether Fox News defamed the voting tech company by repeating false claims that it rigged the election against Donald Trump.
Both sides had asked Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis for a pretrial ruling in their favor, declaring them the winner at this stage. But after thousands of pages of documents, and a number of courtroom battles, Davis decided that the case should go to trial.
There is evidence developed that proves that the statements about the 2020 election are not true.
While rejecting Dominion’s motion for a full-blown victory, the judge granted a partial win to Dominion on some key legal questions, which will give the company a boost at trial.
Defamation of Fox News after the 2020 Election: Fox Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch, Newsmax, and Lou Dobbs Tonight
The defamation case is considered to be the most consequential in recent memory. Fox said a loss will eviscerate press freedoms and some scholars agree that the bar is high to prove defamation. Other analysts said that holding Fox accountable won’t have a threat to objective journalists who wouldn’t lie in the first place.
Fox executives, hosts and producers didn’t believe the claims of the network when they were first made. There’s a belief that it isn’t journalism but ratings that are the focus of Fox News.
Rupert Murdoch, the Fox Corporation chairman, conceded in his sworn deposition that several of his top hosts endorsed election lies on the air that he knew were false. And after the 2020 election, its most prominent stars and highest-ranking executives privately trashed the conspiracy theories that were being spread on-air, according to internal text messages and email exchanges that became public as part of the lawsuit.
The legal filings showed how worried Fox News executives and hosts were of losing viewership to Newsmax, a smaller right-wing talk channel that was saturating its airwaves with election denialism.
Grossberg has accused Fox News of coercing her into giving false testimony in the case. Fox News has refuted her allegations and has said her lawsuits are “riddled with false allegations against the network and our employees.” She was fired shortly after filing her lawsuits.
For example, in a “Lou Dobbs Tonight” broadcast on Nov. 24, 2020, Mr. Dobbs said: “I think many Americans have given no thought to electoral fraud that would be perpetrated through electronic voting; that is, these machines, these electronic voting companies including Dominion, prominently Dominion, at least in the suspicions of a lot of Americans.”
Fox News Discerns Right-Wing Defamation in 2020: Correspondence with a High-Decision Judge
Ron Nell Andersen Jones, a law professor at the University of Utah and First Amendment scholar, said that the judge disagreed with many of the arguments made by Fox.
The text message made public on Friday revealed that Donald Trump’s election-denying lawyers were banned by Fox News from appearing on the right-wing channel in December 2020, after they were threatened with a defamation suit.
The senior producer told Maria Bartiromo that David Clark, the Fox News executive, had called to inform her that Rudy Giuliani and other right-wingers would be banned from air.
Grossberg’s text message was dated December 14, 2020. On the same day that Smartmatic sent Fox News a notice requesting full and complete redemption of the false and libelous statements that they had made on the air, Fox News also received a notice from the voting technology company. That’s also the same day members of the Electoral College met in statehouses across the country, affirming Joe Biden’s victory.
Emails sent by senior Fox News executives and the star talent were also included in the new materials made public on Friday.
