Fox News settled a $787.5m (£635m) libel suit with Dominion Voting Systems, avoiding a high-profile lawsuit over reports of false allegations of fraud in the 2020 US presidential election.
The announcement of the settlement was made at the very last minute, as jury selection had taken place in Delaware just hours earlier, and the trial was to begin with opening statements.
Dominion initially sought $1.6bn (£1.3bn) in damages in a lawsuit, alleging Fox News damaged its reputation by spreading false claims that its voting machines stole Donald Trump’s presidency.
Here’s what you need to know.
What is dominance?
Dominion Voting Systems Corporation is a company that manufactures and sells electronic voting hardware and software, including voting machines, in Canada and the United States.
A total of 28 states used Dominion voting machines to count votes in the 2020 presidential election, including most swing states.
After the election, Donald Trump and his lawyers made unsubstantiated far-right claims linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory that Dominion Voting Systems software had been compromised.
Trump supporters said that millions of votes for their candidate were taken away or given to Joe Biden.
Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, made a number of false claims about the company during a press conference, including that the machines used software developed by competitor Smartmatic, which he falsely claimed was developed by a former leader of the Venezuelan Socialists. Hugo Chavez. .
He also falsely claimed that Dominion was a “radical left” company associated with the left-wing anti-fascist and anti-racist political movement Antifa.
Why is Dominion suing Fox?
Fox News aired programs in which its own hosts and guests, including Giuliani, repeated several false claims about the Dominion’s role in the election.
In 2021, Dominion sued the network’s parent company, Fox Corp, alleging that the airtime claims caused the company “enormous and irreparable economic damage.”
The ballot counting company stated that Fox knew the claims were inaccurate but still promoted them to attract a mostly conservative audience and prevent viewers from switching to more far-right contestants.
Dominion gathered evidence from Fox’s internal communications and testimonies to prove that producers, hosts and even top executives knew their guests were repeating lies.
Rupert Murdoch internally described the allegations of voter fraud as “really insane” and “harmful”, but refused to use his editorial powers to stop them, and admitted under oath that some Fox anchors nonetheless “supported” the unsubstantiated claims, which the Dominion informed the court in a statement. .
Under interrogation by a Dominion lawyer, he testified that he thought everything about elections was in its infancy, and that, according to the Dominion files, he had doubts about fraud from the very beginning.
Fox defended its reporting, saying it had the right to cover Trump’s allegations of voter fraud and that an “extreme” interpretation of the Dominion’s defamation law would “stop the media.”
Why did Fox settle down?
Respectively I Writer Daniel Bates, Rupert Murdoch, decided he’d rather solve the case than let his most profitable TV network go through the mud for the next month and a half.
The case may have forced him to testify about why Fox promoted Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claims about the 2020 presidential election, even though he knew they were false.
Fox’s biggest anchors may have been forced to go to court to explain why they privately said they were disgusted by Donald Trump, potentially alienating the network’s viewers.
Dominion CEO John Poulos called the settlement “historic”.
He said: “Fox confessed to lying about Dominion, which caused massive damage to my business, our employees and our customers.
“Nothing can ever make up for this. Throughout this process, we have sought accountability and believe that the evidence uncovered in this case highlights the consequences of spreading and condoning lies.”
Fox said it accepted a court ruling that some of the network’s claims about Dominion were false.
The statement added: “This agreement reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest standards of journalism. We hope that our decision to resolve this dispute peacefully with the Dominion, and not the bitterness of the process of disagreement, will allow the country to move forward in resolving these issues.