Dominion’s $1.6B Defamation Suit vs Fox

Jurors are set to hear $1.6B defamation suit involving Fox’s Jan. 6 coverage. Could the missile aimed at conservatives blow up the entire MSM that’s been hiding behind Times v Sullivan’s “actual malice” bar since 1964?

At stake is nothing less than the media’s historical rights to report the news as it sees fit under the First Amendment. As the WSJ warns, a “Delaware jury is slated to decide [however] whether the network acted with “actual malice” in broadcasting false election-fraud claims against the Dominion voting-machine people via coverage claiming it helped “rig the outcome of the 2020 US presidential election in favor of Joe Biden.” The plaintiffs, of course, say they’ve more than met the Supreme Court’s traditional standard for imposing liability & point to internal Fox memos suggesting the company brass was skeptical of the rigging claims yet worried about offending its conservative viewers if it didn’t include them in aired segments. The defense, as in all past defamation suits against the media, insists the Times v Sullivan test is nowhere near being met; it concedes some of its anchors bought in to the debunked conspiracy theory, yet most did not, while the company itself certainly did not.

So, assuming there’s no 11th hour “settlement,” will Fox’s repetition of a falsity along with countering facts & opinions that would be presented at trial be enough to make Fox pay up? Does nearly every story by any MSM involves such a mix of lies, truths &/or half-truths uttered by anchors, reporters, sources & assorted pundits? Has anyone watched The View lately? Does anyone give Donald Trump much of a chance in suing CNN for its anchors repeatedly “smearing” him with vulgar references to “Hitler”? As even a recent NPR article concedes, “Media outlets rarely lose defamation cases in court” thanks to that exceptionally high “actual malice” standard. The Delaware jury might think Fox must pay, yet even oft-sued CNN must silently be hoping the Supreme Court would overturn any such outcome.

Davd Soul