Fox News knew they were lying about election

Stacyhs said:
Yes, I know that a negotiated plea deal is different than an order from the court. My question was how is ordering a defendant to stand with an embarrassing sign (forced 'speech') legally different from ordering Fox to apologize and admit lying on air (forced 'speech')?



I think FOX will very likely go for a plea deal. I think Smartmatic would be wise to accept a plea deal IF FOX apologizes and admits fault.
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Saying "plea deal" typically refers to a criminal proceeding where the defendant pleads, or admits, guilt of some sort. In civil suits, like this liable trial, the parties are said to "settle" before trial.

IMO, Fox is very unlikely to admit wrongdoing. They have legal problems beyond Smartmatic that would make it unwise to admit to that. And Smartmatic would be advised not to push for it. Neither side wants to hold out on a fair settlement to make a political point. One problem is that in a civil suit, the rejection of a fair settlement can work against you if a jury awards damages below the settlement amount.
 
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Even if the courts could order them to read a statement about how they lied, the Fox hosts would precede the admission of lying with its own claim: “the courts have ordered us to make the following statement. Begin quote, [insert court-ordered language] End quote. That’s what the government is requiring us to say every half-hour.”
 
Ladewig said:
Even if the courts could order them to read a statement about how they lied, the Fox hosts would precede the admission of lying with its own claim: “the courts have ordered us to make the following statement. Begin quote, [insert court-ordered language] End quote. That’s what the government is requiring us to say every half-hour.”
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The law and Smartmatic, not the government. That would be lying. Smartmatic would be within rights to demand more compensation if they lied, I suspect.
 
Pooneil said:
Saying "plea deal" typically refers to a criminal proceeding where the defendant pleads, or admits, guilt of some sort. In civil suits, like this liable libel trial, the parties are said to "settle" before trial.
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Sorry..."settlement'.

IMO, Fox is very unlikely to admit wrongdoing. They have legal problems beyond Smartmatic that would make it unwise to admit to that. And Smartmatic would be advised not to push for it. Neither side wants to hold out on a fair settlement to make a political point. One problem is that in a civil suit, the rejection of a fair settlement can work against you if a jury awards damages below the settlement amount.
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According to Smartmatic's lawyer, it's not a "political" point.
 
GrandMasterFox said:
It is very much in dispute. Based on what was released from Carlson's chats, you are only half right.

They lied, sure. But it was not to get someone elected into office.

Carlson's recording makes it clear that they lied because they were afraid of losing ratings to other conservative outlets. They lied out of pure greed. They couldn't care less who was in office.
It's actually very simple. You sort of have a similar confusion to cause and effect here.

Carlson's recordings make it clear that he flat out says he knows the reason people watch them is because they want to hear that and if he won't say that, the people will go to someone else like OANN.

Hasan Minhaj put it perfectly on the daily show

People don't watch it to learn new things - they watch it to get confirmation on their already established bias. And Fox understood that more than anyone.
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Re: the hilighted, it's my contention that the right-wing-shout-o-sphere LOVES it when an Obama or a Clinton or most any Democrat is elected to high office.
 
Regnad Kcin said:
Re: the hilighted, it's my contention that the right-wing-shout-o-sphere LOVES it when an Obama or a Clinton or most any Democrat is elected to high office.
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Sure. Mindlessly attacking Democrats and liberals is much easier and more attention-catching that way. Victory is when Republicans get elected, though, even if it's shameless to heap praises on dramatically worse behavior than the things they were screaming bloody murder about Democrats doing while the Democrats were in power. They're pushing convenient narratives, not truth or principle, after all.
 
Orphia Nay said:
But even if they did pay 78,750,000, you can bet if Fox had to sell up, bloody Elon Musk would buy it.
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$7,875,000,000 actually. $7.8 billion USD. Fox is worth (Googles...) $17.4 billion. So not even 50% of Fox's worth.

And I'm sure Musk wants to take on yet another very expensive spectacularly-publicly-failing business after the Twitter debacle. ;)
 
Regnad Kcin said:
Re: the hilighted, it's my contention that the right-wing-shout-o-sphere LOVES it when an Obama or a Clinton or most any Democrat is elected to high office.
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I wouldn't bet on that. It's like how all the reporters and comedians were constantly asked "wouldn't you be disappointed if Trump is not re-elected? Cause you won't have as much material"

And they obviously said it might make their job slightly harder, but would still prefer it that way.


I'm assuming they have some preference, but it doesn't affect their (un)professional stance.

As long as they keep getting their paychecks, they don't care who is in office. Again, their motive is greed. Not actual politics.

I doubt if Trump was elected that any of them would be fired or forced to have a pay cut.
 
crescent said:
Maybe - but that impact seems to have been short lived. The recent NY Trump indictments well document strong cooperation between Trump and that very same Enquirer. Lots of "catch and kill" strategy from the Enquirer on Trump's behalf. The newspaper effectively colluded with Trump in non-reporting of campaign expenses.

I expect little change from Fox. Their reporters seem to be banned from stating the actual amount of the payoff. They'll be less likely to falsely name specific people of companies of specific crimes.

But they'll be happy to be just a little less specific. Instead of saying "Dominion did this and Symantec did that they'll instead just say that "Dominion and Symtanec and other companies did this wobbly accusation". Then they can fall back on claiming that the accusation was too general to specifically indict any specific person or company and was therefore fine. Or fall back on "Sources say" and making a habit of deliberately failing to do any due diligence at all so they can just blame the "sources" for false information.

So Fox lost about a half a year's profits. That and minor tweaks on how they lie will be the only real change.

Worse - even if they did change, new "news" sources would fill the void. It in ingrained in our culture now. Remember when people thought the solution was to get O'Reilly and Limbaugh off the air? To get Fox to drop Beck? To get Radio stations to drop Alex Jones? None of it worked. O'Reilly's off the air, Limbaugh is dead. Jones and Beck found new outlets to keep spewing and they still have millions of listeners. Tucker and others rose to fill the gaps left by Rush and Bill's exit.

I am very cynical abut all of this. The paranoid and superstitious part of American culture is alive and well and will always find ways to screw up the world.
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Maybe I was too cynical??

Tucker Carlson is leaving Fox News

The headline is a bit off, as it appears that he has already left the network:

“Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” the network said in a statement. "We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor. "

His last show was this past Friday, April 21.
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I'm still pretty sure someone else will step up to fill the void, with an equal disregard for truth and logic, just at Tucker filled the void left by Bill O'Reilly's departure. Anything else and the network loses ground to OAN and other even harder right wing "news" outlets.
 
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Ryokan said:
Carlson's out...
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I wonder if that was part of the settlement.
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Have the complete terms of the Fox/Dominion settlement been released yet? Or will they be?

Given how widespread the lies were on Fox, and how Dominion didn't bother forcing an apology from fox, I'd be surprised if it was an actual part of the settlement that they would fire Carlson.

Its possible that Fox just realized they didn't NEED Carlson, and they could build up just about anyone to be a neo-nazi loving commentator at a cheaper price (and with less baggage, who might be more appealing to advertisers other than the pillow guy.)

Heck, they might have even fired him sooner, but kept him around because they didn't want a "loose cannon" around if the Dominion lawsuit went to trial.
 
Ladewig said:
Even if the courts could order them to read a statement about how they lied, the Fox hosts would precede the admission of lying with its own claim: “the courts have ordered us to make the following statement. Begin quote, [insert court-ordered language] End quote. That’s what the government is requiring us to say every half-hour.”
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Even in the US courts system, I don't see how such blatant contempt would be worn for too long.
 
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