Fox admits lying and settles for $787 million.

[Bradskii]

Fox News admits to lies about Dominion, settles case for $1.17 billion

“This settlement reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards,” the company, owned by Rupert Murdoch, said at the conclusion of the case.

www.smh.com.au

Dominion’s CEO disclosed the settlement figure and said Fox had admitted to telling lies about his company.

Fox statement: 'We acknowledge the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.'

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

Fox statement: 'We acknowledge the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.'

Pretty big of them.

 

[durangodawood]

Thread title is off by a factor of 1000.

But its Fox's admission that they were lying to their audience thats the bigger deal.

Fox viewers, you were lied to. They knew it was false but fed it to you anyway to keep you from drifting.

 

[Fantine]

I agree that the admission of guilt was the most important part of the settlement--although Fox's agreeing to a settlement of that size would certainly indicate that there was an overwhelming possibility they could lose in court whether there was an "admission" of guilt or not.

 

[Bradskii]

Thread title is off by a factor of 1000.

But its Fox's admission that they were lying to their audience thats the bigger deal.

Fox viewers, you were lied to. They knew it was false but fed it to you anyway to keep you from drifting.

Thanks. Corrected. And yeah, it's admitting 'We are the fake news.' And at over a billion dollars in Au$, that's a Big Lie.

 

[Trogdor the Burninator]

Looks like others are lining up...

Another US voting technology company, Smartmatic, has begun its own defamation lawsuit in New York seeking $4 billion ($US2.7 billion) in damages.

And last week shareholder Robert Schwarz filed a lawsuit in Delaware Chancery Court against Murdoch and four Fox directors, saying Fox failed in its fiduciary duties.

The suit alleges Fox was aware it was reporting false information during its coverage of the election, but was more focused on ratings and revenue than accurate reporting.

 

[Trogdor the Burninator]

Dominion’s CEO disclosed the settlement figure and said Fox had admitted to telling lies about his company.

Fox statement: 'We acknowledge the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.'

This represents the largest publicly known defamation settlement in US history.

Faux News indeed.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Some are suggesting that instead of taking the settlement, they should've just pressed on and made it go to trial. That way Fox News personalities would've had to publicly testify, under oath, that they were making stuff up about the election.

If Fox is throwing out 750 million dollar settlement offers (which is three times the valuation of the entire Dominion company), that likely means that they thought having this stuff brought up in a public trial would've been more damaging to their "brand" than shelling out a massive sum like this.

Fox's $787.5 million settlement is big win for buyout firm Staple Street

Staple Street Capital Group LLC, the small buyout firm that owns Dominion Voting Systems, has scored a $787.5 million windfall after Fox Corp settled a defamation lawsuit brought by the voting machine operator.

www.reuters.com

Even before Tuesday's settlement, Staple Street's investment in Dominion had been successful. Fox said in a court filing that Dominion was valued at around $226 million in the run-up to the 2020 election, citing exhibits it did not make public. That was up from the $80 million valuation when the acquisition of Dominion was clinched in 2018.

Ended up being a pretty nice investment for Staple Street in a relatively short amount of time...

I guess if you're an investor or looking to buy stock in a company, keep your eyes peeled for mid-sized organizations that Fox News has been badmouthing, because now that this settlement happened, I don't think it'll be the last one we see from Fox News.

 

[jayem]

Fox eats crow. I love it.

 

[durangodawood]

Fox eats crow. I love it.

Its good and proper. But has this fixed the Fox type audience who wanted to be lied to?

 

[jayem]

Its good and proper. But has this fixed the Fox type audience who wanted to be lied to?

I’m sure it hasn’t. Even without Fox, there are plenty of other crackpot “news” outlets who’ll fabricate lies to entertain the conspiracy believers.

BTW: Dominion has also filed defamation suits against Newsmax and some other right-wing sources. Stay tuned.

 

[rambot]

Its good and proper. But has this fixed the Fox type audience who wanted to be lied to?

I agree whole heartedly. It's great they admitted to "certain" lies. But if the audience just doesn't care if they were lied to (or more dangerously, have become convinced they were not lied to), court settlement means little to American society as a whole.

Also, if we get rid of fox, what fills the gap for those folks...OAN? They are, arguably, far worse.

 

[wing2000]

Fox statement: 'We acknowledge the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.'

...2nd part of their statement:

“This settlement reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards. We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues.”

....ah huh. The network that makes billions off of manipulative and divisive narratives.

 

[wing2000]

Also, if we get rid of fox, what fills the gap for those folks...OAN? They are, arguably, far worse.

Dominion has also sued Newsmax and OAN.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Dominion has also sued Newsmax and OAN.

I suspect that Newsmax and OAN would wear it like a badge of honor, as opposed to Fox wanting the criticisms to "go away" and be forgotten about as soon as possible as they're still trying to have a patina of objectivity and still want to be viewed as "mainstream"

The question would be whether or not those two alternative networks had internal communications showing that they were deliberately lying like Fox did, or whether or not the people at the other two networks can still make the claim of actually believing what they said.

A meaningless distinction for practical purposes (as misinformation was still spread), however from a legal standpoint and "keeping up appearances with the hardcore base", they likely wouldn't be so eager to shell out cash like Rupert was.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Also, if we get rid of fox, what fills the gap for those folks...OAN? They are, arguably, far worse.

That's often a point that I've brought up.

Some folks have often had the hypothesis of "well, if we just bash Fox out of existence and point out all the reasons why people were foolish for believing them, they'll take it into consideration and move back toward the middle", but that doesn't tend to be the case.

From viewing patterns on election night (when Fox News started telling them some things they didn't want to hear before panicking and reversing course back to conspiracy land), when people bailed on Fox, they didn't say "well, Gee I guess I'll go watch PBS or NBC", they immediately switched over to Newsmax.

To a lesser degree, we saw a similar pattern on the left side of the fence as well. When the new CNN head announced that he was going to try to move the network more toward a neutral position, CNN lost viewers and MSNBC gained viewers.

Our news media (and the relationship the viewing public has with them) have developed something of an unhealthy relationship, where the primary focus is "do they agree with what I already want to believe?" and if people actually get informed watching it, it's merely a fortunate byproduct.

 

[durangodawood]

That's often a point that I've brought up.

Some folks have often had the hypothesis of "well, if we just bash Fox out of existence and point out all the reasons why people were foolish for believing them, they'll take it into consideration and move back toward the middle", but that doesn't tend to be the case.

From viewing patterns on election night (when Fox News started telling them some things they didn't want to hear before panicking and reversing course back to conspiracy land), when people bailed on Fox, they didn't say "well, Gee I guess I'll go watch PBS or NBC", they immediately switched over to Newsmax.

To a lesser degree, we saw a similar pattern on the left side of the fence as well. When the new CNN head announced that he was going to try to move the network more toward a neutral position, CNN lost viewers and MSNBC gained viewers.

Our news media (and the relationship the viewing public has with them) have developed something of an unhealthy relationship, where the primary focus is "do they agree with what I already want to believe?" and if people actually get informed watching it, it's merely a fortunate byproduct.

People have always gravitated to ideologically biased media in fairly large numbers.

Whats new here is lots of people demanding to be flat out lied to - and, importantly, a major media player willing to accommodate.

 

[wing2000]

Our news media (and the relationship the viewing public has with them) have developed something of an unhealthy relationship, where the primary focus is "do they agree with what I already want to believe?" and if people actually get informed watching it, it's merely a fortunate byproduct.

...which leads to more ratings, profit, etc. Fox News may be a bit more careful going forward, but they certainly won't abandon the business model that is making them billions.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

Thread title is off by a factor of 1000.

But its Fox's admission that they were lying to their audience thats the bigger deal.

Fox viewers, you were lied to. They knew it was false but fed it to you anyway to keep you from drifting.

One of my "good, conservative Christian" relatives insists that Fox in no way has admitted to lying, that any reports of that are fake news, and that the only reason Fox settled out of court is because Dominion was going to send "hit squads" to kill Fox personalities if they didn't pay up.

So...

 

[Bradskii]

...2nd part of their statement:

“This settlement reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards. We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues.”

....ah huh. The network that makes billions off of manipulative and divisive narratives.

I purposely left that out. I felt nauseous reading it, especially that first sentence. I could feel the bile rising. So no way was I going to cut and paste it.