Dominion sued Fox for $1.6bn in damages for knowingly broadcasting false information about the company after the election. The money from the settlement, one of the largest libel payouts in media history, was just the icing on a cake Dominion had, in many ways, already won.
Yet, while Fox doled out an unprecedented sum, it was able to avoid something priceless: the public humiliation of a trial and an apology. Over recent months, Dominion has created a valuable historical artefact, publishing an internal trove of messages that showed Fox hosts and executives knew their claims about Dominion were false yet advanced them anyway. It laid bare how America's most powerful media outlet lies and distorts the truth to whip up its conservative base.
"The interesting and important aspect of this settlement is that it came well after we might have expected Fox wanted it to occur. All of the sordid details from behind the scenes - about what key Fox players said about Fox sources, about Trump, and about the network's own audience - came to light," said RonNell Andersen Jones, a first amendment scholar at the University of Utah. "It seems clear that Dominion was motivated not just to win compensation for its own injury but to have a public-facing accountability for election denialism and disinformation. The timing of the settlement reflects that."
This story is from the April 28, 2023 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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This story is from the April 28, 2023 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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