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Fox News knew they were lying about election

Stacyhs said:
I don't agree with the judge on this. The threats made by people to Dominion are a direct result of the lies that FOX spewed about the company.
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This gets into some of the fun details of defamation. Two elements of defamation are implicated here. First, the allegedly false statement must have been communicated to at least one third1 party. Second, the plaintiff has to prove injury to his reputation. Ostensibly, pointing to people who endangered Dominion and its employees on the basis of Fox News' reporting seems to establish both elements: communication and injury.

However, there are certain categories of statement that are considered defamation per se. That is, by their very nature they are considered injurious to one's reputation without having to prove the element of injury. One of those exceptions is being accused of a "heinous crime," (a felony). Accusing a company falsely of fixing an election is defamation per se. So in the fact-finding portion of the trial, it's superfluous to show that people acted on the false statements and threatened or otherwise took steps against Dominion. In this context that makes it prejudicial. Fox's accusation—if it satisfies the other elements of defamation—is presumed in this case to cause injury to Dominion's reputation. Fox is entitled to a ruling in limine that prevents irrelevant damaging evidence.

Further, Fox News wouldn't be liable for how people acted upon statements they made on air, unless it rose to the level of incitement. That's pretty hard to prove. You have to show the statements caused "imminent lawless activity." Hearing something on Fox News and then later doing things based on believing what you heard, is not imminent enough. Informally we all agree that Fox should bear some responsibility for the effects of their influence on their viewers. But in formal law, this is addressed more meticulously.

The check on this is to imagine an alternate universe where Dominion did influence the election and Fox accurately reported this. Viewers who, upon that information, made death threats against Dominion employees would still be criminally liable for those threats even if the information that motivated them were true. Legally, the behavior of viewers must be considered separate from the behavior of the broadcaster.

Now in the penalty phase—when the jury is considering the amount of damages—the consequences of Fox News' defamation become relevant. Presuming Dominion prevails in the verdict, the idea that people who watched Fox News subsequently made death threats and did other things becomes arguably relevant in determining how much compensation Fox owes to Dominion, because Fox should have known that their reporting might cause some of their viewers to act in that way. And because a verdict against Fox would establish malice, you could show that those viewers would not have acted as they did but for the malicious behavior of the defendant. But generally the people who made threats etc. are individually liable for their actions, not the sources of information that those actors looked to for inspiration. So for the fact-finding phase, the judge is correct to disallow that evidence.

And it may even be legally irrelevant in the penalty phase too. That's one of those "lawyer-brain" ways in which procedural justice and substantive justice don't perfectly align. There is no question Dominion was injured by Fox's irresponsible reporting, and by the behavior of those who believed the reporting. But a court will want to correctly apportion blame among Fox and its rowdy viewers, and this trial considers only Fox's liability.
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1 A 1L drinking at my bar, closest to our law school, amused her colleagues by having become confused over the phrase "one third party." She initially parsed the professor's statement as "one-third party," i.e., 1/3 or 33% of a party. She was puzzled at the notion of a fractional party.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
Fox's Strategy seems to be to avoid an Admission of Guilt by all means.
Clearly, they could have settled for a pile of money, but Dominion most likely insisted on an Admission of Guilt plus the right to publish the terms of the settlement including the amount of compensation.
That would be a lodestone around Fox's neck forever, advertising to everyone that they can be milked for billions in order to avoid ding to trial as well as killing their mojo with their viewers.
The current option to be found guilty and having to pay billions is actually the better outcome for Fox, as they can (and will) always claim that is was a political witchhunt against them for their support of Trump by the (((MSM and Deep State))).
If the recent years have shown anything, it's that right-wingers will gladly open their wallets to poor billionaires in need.
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Highlighting mine...

Not necessarily as Fox will just not report on it therefore, to their viewers, it never happened, since their viewers either don't watch other news sources and / or don't believe anything on them anyway unless Fox says it's true.
 
I hope there is no settlement and Dominion takes Fox to the cleaners. They deserve every penny they get and Fox deserves to be found guilty.

ETA: Gretchen Carlson tweeted:

Gretchen Carlson
@GretchenCarlson

Here's my take on Fox-Dominion case-(as I'm sending telepathic messages to Dominion to not settle!) I can talk about the current case-but I can't then answer next logical question (b/c of my NDA)-"Did Fox ever ask you to make up **** when you were there?" Therein lies the problem
7:06 PM · Apr 16, 2023
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Last edited:
New audio shows Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo followed Trump campaign directives to promote January 6

The Trump campaign told Bartiromo to push January 6, 2021, as the date to overturn the 2020 election. Then she did it.

New audio revealed as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News — which Fox allegedly failed to provide to Dominion in the discovery process — shows how Fox News and Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo took directives from the Trump campaign to promote the campaign’s plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election results on January 6, 2021.

The new evidence was revealed by former Fox producer Abby Grossberg as part of her separate lawsuit against the network for allegedly setting her and Bartiromo up as scapegoats for Fox’s clear pattern of spreading lies and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. While the paper trail released so far in the case shows that Grossberg herself promoted conspiracy theories in the pursuit of ratings, she has also brought forward additional evidence that has already produced big legal results in the Dominion case. The judge in the case reportedly sanctioned Fox on Wednesday for failing to turn over Grossberg’s audio recordings in a move that will give Dominion an opportunity to conduct further legal discovery at Fox’s expense.

On Wednesday night, MSNBC host Alex Wagner played exclusive audio excerpts from the key pieces of evidence that Grossberg had preserved and Fox had allegedly withheld from Dominion, including a phone call on November 8, 2020, in which then-Trump campaign attorney Rudy Giuliani admitted that he did not have evidence for his outlandish claims about Dominion. (Bartiromo and other Fox hosts continued to host Giuliani, anyway.) In another phone call, from December 5, 2020, an unnamed Trump campaign official admitted that Georgia’s statewide recount of ballots was “pretty darn close to what the machine count was,” and that the secretary of state’s office found that “that there weren’t any physical issues” with the voting machines. In a key piece of audio that Wagner played Wednesday night, the Trump campaign official also gave one of the earliest signals that the campaign intended to use the January 6, 2021, joint session of Congress in an attempt to overturn the election results, and that then-Vice President Mike Pence would supposedly “have to decide” which votes to count.
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There's a lot more damning evidence in the link.
 
I mean where's the bombshell here? Fox has always admitted they aren't a legit news organization when they get backed into a corner over their spread of disinformation.

Fox News IN THEIR OWN WORDS has been spreading disinformation by pretending they are an entertainment network that just pretends to put out news, knowing full well that people believe it. That's always been their whole routine. How is this any different.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I mean where's the bombshell here? Fox has always admitted they aren't a legit news organization when they get backed into a corner over their spread of disinformation.

Fox News IN THEIR OWN WORDS has been spreading disinformation by pretending they are an entertainment network that just pretends to put out news, knowing full well that people believe it. That's always been their whole routine. How is this any different.
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Their lies provably caused material damage to a corporation.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I mean where's the bombshell here? Fox has always admitted they aren't a legit news organization when they get backed into a corner over their spread of disinformation.

Fox News IN THEIR OWN WORDS has been spreading disinformation by pretending they are an entertainment network that just pretends to put out news, knowing full well that people believe it. That's always been their whole routine. How is this any different.
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This is costing a business real money instead of just throwing mud at politicians?
 
JayUtah said:
This gets into some of the fun details of defamation. Two elements of defamation are implicated here. First, the allegedly false statement must have been communicated to at least one third1 party. Second, the plaintiff has to prove injury to his reputation. Ostensibly, pointing to people who endangered Dominion and its employees on the basis of Fox News' reporting seems to establish both elements: communication and injury.

However, there are certain categories of statement that are considered defamation per se. That is, by their very nature they are considered injurious to one's reputation without having to prove the element of injury. One of those exceptions is being accused of a "heinous crime," (a felony). Accusing a company falsely of fixing an election is defamation per se. So in the fact-finding portion of the trial, it's superfluous to show that people acted on the false statements and threatened or otherwise took steps against Dominion. In this context that makes it prejudicial. Fox's accusation—if it satisfies the other elements of defamation—is presumed in this case to cause injury to Dominion's reputation. Fox is entitled to a ruling in limine that prevents irrelevant damaging evidence.

Further, Fox News wouldn't be liable for how people acted upon statements they made on air, unless it rose to the level of incitement. That's pretty hard to prove. You have to show the statements caused "imminent lawless activity." Hearing something on Fox News and then later doing things based on believing what you heard, is not imminent enough. Informally we all agree that Fox should bear some responsibility for the effects of their influence on their viewers. But in formal law, this is addressed more meticulously.

The check on this is to imagine an alternate universe where Dominion did influence the election and Fox accurately reported this. Viewers who, upon that information, made death threats against Dominion employees would still be criminally liable for those threats even if the information that motivated them were true. Legally, the behavior of viewers must be considered separate from the behavior of the broadcaster.

Now in the penalty phase—when the jury is considering the amount of damages—the consequences of Fox News' defamation become relevant. Presuming Dominion prevails in the verdict, the idea that people who watched Fox News subsequently made death threats and did other things becomes arguably relevant in determining how much compensation Fox owes to Dominion, because Fox should have known that their reporting might cause some of their viewers to act in that way. And because a verdict against Fox would establish malice, you could show that those viewers would not have acted as they did but for the malicious behavior of the defendant. But generally the people who made threats etc. are individually liable for their actions, not the sources of information that those actors looked to for inspiration. So for the fact-finding phase, the judge is correct to disallow that evidence.

And it may even be legally irrelevant in the penalty phase too. That's one of those "lawyer-brain" ways in which procedural justice and substantive justice don't perfectly align. There is no question Dominion was injured by Fox's irresponsible reporting, and by the behavior of those who believed the reporting. But a court will want to correctly apportion blame among Fox and its rowdy viewers, and this trial considers only Fox's liability.
____________________
1 A 1L drinking at my bar, closest to our law school, amused her colleagues by having become confused over the phrase "one third party." She initially parsed the professor's statement as "one-third party," i.e., 1/3 or 33% of a party. She was puzzled at the notion of a fractional party.
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Thank you for the details. I love the legal issues discussed dispassionately as it's very educational.
 
There's a concept in legality called Estoppel that has many legal applications but one is that it essentially prevents you from claiming you are something and then arguing that the thing isn't clearly defined as a way to get out of being accused of doing it.

The classic example is that I live in an area that has harsh anti-smut laws but what is "smut" is not clearly defined. I am arrested for distributing smut and my defense is that what smut is is not clearly defined will not work if I had already been advertising my store for years as "Joe Smut House: Home of the Smuttiest Smut You Can Find." The law does not have to define smut to my satisfaction if I've previously openly admitted what I deal in is smut. And importantly this legal concept still applies if even yes what Smut is not clearly defined in the law I'm being held accountable to.

The same thing should theoretically apply here. Fox News in theory shouldn't be able spend decades calling itself "Fox News: The Most Trusted Source In News" and then in anyway mount a defense that has "Okay but are we technically news?" as an argument anywhere in it.
 
The ad appears to be based on a very subjective sampling. Note the numbers below add up to about 148%. How is that possible? The Washington Post explains it very well.
The description of the data in the ad, in fact, shows that the pollster asked about media outlets people watch and then “which do you most trust for news? Check as many as apply.” So 41 is the percentage of people who cited Fox as being among however many outlets they cited as being their most trusted. You begin to see how this framing might make Fox look good. It is a go-to news source for conservative-leaning Americans, whereas left-leaning Americans split their choices among a number of other mainstream outlets. Washington Post news link (may be paywalled)
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