Fox News Lost the Lawsuit but Won the War
Nothing but lawyers all the way down
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David A. Graham, writing for The Atlantic, has the story regarding the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit, and it’s a big one.
Fox News has agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5m to avoid a defamation trial it expected to lose. The case centered on Fox News’ broadcasting of lies and conspiracy theories about the company’s voting machines, but Dominion isn’t the only company suing it. Smartmatic, another voting machine company, has a nearly-identical lawsuit in the works and is asking for even more money.
In fact, on paper Smartmatic’s suit appears to be the more dangerous. It’s demanding damages of $2.7bn, compared with Dominion’s $1.6bn. So far, attempts by Fox lawyers to have the Smartmatic case dismissed have fallen on stony ground. Last week the New York state supreme court in Manhattan gave the green light for the case to proceed against Fox News, the Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, the former business anchor Lou Dobbs and Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani.Smartmatic, a global election technology company headquartered in London, lodged its defamation suit in February 2021. “The Earth is round,” was the complaint’s striking opening sentence. “Two plus two equals four. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election … “
Let’s see if the blowback in the media that Dominion is getting for taking the money and running away (probably the smart move) will be echoed with Smartmatic. I would think corporations are going to corporate mostly because they aren’t in the business of fixing the media landscape or destroying Fox News.
It would be nice, though.
