On Tuesday, what was supposed to be a wild — and, for conservative media, potentially gutting — trial ended in a surprise 11th-hour settlement: Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems, who had accused the news giant of slandering them on-air with knowingly false info, about half of what they had asked for. Reaction was mixed. On one hand, at $787.5 million, it’s the largest defamation settlement in history. On the other, Fox News doesn’t even have to apologize or admit fault on-air, effectively forking over money to get away with it.
But perhaps you forgot about Smartmatic, another voting machine company who’s also suing Fox News for the same thing. Their lawsuit is even larger. Dominion sought $1.6 billion. Smartmatic wants $2.7 billion. In case that one slipped your mind, the company put out a statement telling Fox News to get ready.
“Dominion’s litigation exposed some of the misconduct and damage caused by Fox’s disinformation campaign,” a spokesperson said, as per The New York Times. “Smartmatic will expose the rest.”
In its complaint, Smartmatic alleged that Fox News aired over 100 false statements. The day after the suit was filed, the network cancelled Lou Dobbs’ show.
No trial date has yet been set, but perhaps they have even more dirt than the ones Dominion made public. Ditto the two lawsuits filed on behalf of former producer Abby Grossberg, who alleges a sexist, manipulative workplace, and has some not nice things to say about Tucker Carlson.
In the meantime, Fox News was caught admitting they lied, further ruining a reputation that was already clearly low amongst other news networks (and leading to the usually detached Jake Tapper to lose it on air). But since they don’t have to admit as much on air, their viewers will probably never know.
(Via NYT)