The Fox News television network is paying John Paulos' Greek-American company Dominion $787.5 million for claims of "fraud" in the 2020 elections.
It was a rather surprising development when the out-of-court settlement was reached between the American television network Fox News and the electronic vote-counting company Dominion Voting Systems, just before the two sides were due to face off in a Delaware court. The unexpected news was announced "on air" by Neil Cavuto, one of Fox News' most well-known presenters.
As he put it, "Fox News has agreed to pay $787 million as part of a settlement after being sued for defamation by Dominion. This information comes from the Wall Street Journal. The settlement avoids the adjudication of claims that Fox, its hosts and guests, gave a platform to claims about the technological reliability of the electoral process in the 2020 election."
"Admission, but not a full apology."
In 2020, Donald Trump did not acknowledge his defeat to the Democrats and Joe Biden, attributing it to "fraud." The ultra-conservative television network Fox News seemed to partly embrace these claims, although the boundaries were often blurred. It simply recorded the current political reality, as Fox News itself claims, or acted as a propagandist for Trump, as Dominion, the company, claims, even demanding the mythical amount of 1.6 billion euros as compensation.
Ultimately, the settlement "closed" at 787.5 million dollars. This is a much smaller amount than what Dominion was claiming, but as Cary Coglianese, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, states, "it's certainly a huge amount. The only comparable case I can remember is a case that settled for $175 million. Here we're talking about almost $800 million, it seems like a record amount."
American analysts point out that with the out-of-court settlement, the 92-year-old head of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, and other top executives of the channel are spared the ordeal of appearing in court as witnesses to answer persistent questions about the company's internal operations.
The lawsuits continue...
Dominion's CEO, John Poulos, speaks of a "historic settlement," while Justin Nelson's lawyer declares that "truth prevails while lies have consequences." The story doesn't end here. Smartmatic, a vote-counting technology company, has another pending lawsuit against Fox News. But Dominion has also filed lawsuits against American networks Newsmax and OAN, as well as former Trump allies such as former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and far-right activist Mike Lindell.
As for Fox News, Professor Colianezzi believes that "on the one hand, it admits that some of its assessments of Dominion were wrong, but on the other hand, it doesn't apologize emphatically. It doesn't give the impression that it has been defeated in court. But in the final analysis, we're talking about nearly $800 million, a significant amount for a company like Dominion..."
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