Dominion dominates Fox – but will the Big Lie persist?
After everything said and written, and a sizable part of social media spending weeks, if not months, lost in a fever dream about the big-beam, billion-dollar, juggernaut settlement that seemed to be careering straight into Fox News, the whole fantasy veered off the road on Tuesday.
At the last moment, Dominion agreed to an “out-of-court” settlement with Fox News, apparently agreed right there in the middle of the court as the trial was set to begin. Make no mistake: Dominion won and Fox News lost, but for many this settlement marked a disappointing end to a case that was meant to redefine American democracy.
The settlement of $788 million is no small slice of change but it does represent a pragmatic settlement on behalf of both sides. It is a big loss for Rupert Murdoch but not the kind of loss he faced had Dominion proved a case which had already looked proven when the Delaware Superior Court issued a summary judgment back in March. To put it in context, it’s not even half the $1.7 billion he is rumoured to have paid to settle his divorce from his second wife in 1999. He’s reputed to be worth over $17 billion. There’s enough fat there for a few more lawsuits or, for that matter, wives.
For Dominion, the manufacturer of many of America’s voting machines, it represents a significant payday for a company previously valued at $80 million in 2018. It might be a lot less than the $1.6 billion for which they’d sued, but it means they avoid the not-insubstantial challenge of proving that the network had acted with “actual malice”. Had they lost, Dominion would have walked away with nothing, as well as leaving bigger doubts about the validity of America’s electoral system.
What this settlement is not, however, is an existential threat to Fox News. It was always unlikely that any knife could cut Murdoch to the bone, leading to the dismantling of his media megacorporation. Nor does it demand much in the way of contrition from the news network. The agreement does not even require Fox News to admit their “error” on air. This is the most intriguing aspect of the agreement.
It leaves Fox News facing the challenge of steering a new course through the coming political maelstrom. That might have proved easier if the Ron DeSantis bandwagon had not stalled. All those people talking about the end of Donald J. Trump just a few short weeks ago are now coming back around to the reality that there’s some fight left in the old dog. As crazy as it sounds, the most likely line-up for 2024 remains Biden vs Trump. If there are any political (rather than legal) questions about that election, it’s on the side of the sitting President.
The political case for Biden is not as strong as it was, with Biden himself not looking as strong as he battles arthritis that leaves him looking increasingly stiff, old, and vulnerable to a challenge. Donald Trump, on the other hand, still looks politically viable. It’s legally where Trump cannot be said to be a shoo-in. The case recently brought against him by the Manhattan District Attorney might not be as severe as many anticipated but it’s not insignificant. Other charges are being lined up against the former president. We can only wait to see if any of those curtail his ambitions.
And herein lies the riddle around Tuesday’s settlement. Fox News faces further legal challenges around its coverage of the 2020 election and this Dominion ruling means it has accepted (though, again, not on air) that it was wrong in laying the blame for Trump’s loss with the voting machines.
Yet the most notable factor here is that the person who originated that lie is not himself bound by that ruling. Nor are many of his most outspoken supporters, a few of whom are prominent on Fox News. While Murdoch came out quite early as a DeSantis supporter, that support seems to have cooled. The network has recently shown signs of slowly drifting back to the former president and, while Fox stands admonished, it will be a while before any contrition becomes evident. That might prove difficult given it will now find itself reporting on a race that will continue to be defined by “The Big Lie”.
Does this mean we’ll see a more sober Fox News? Will we see a reinvented channel emerge that does have a strong news basis based on its in-house fact-checking? If sense prevails (and, with US politics, that’s always a sizable “if”) then the commercial interests of the channel should no longer take precedence over the need to retain journalistic integrity. In messages released to the court, Rupert Murdoch himself complained that his network was “Getting creamed by CNN!” Maybe he will accept that ratings are not worth the price he’s now being forced to pay. Or maybe Fox News will continue to test the bounds of what is acceptable, knowing that a second lawsuit from Dominion is unlikely. We’ll only know that once the waters settle.
Dominion, meanwhile, should go back to its core business but will probably be remembered, if it is remembered at all, as the company that let down the very many people who felt the case transcended simple business. The settlement means the case for America’s free and fair elections has not been made. The Big Lie took a big hit but it’s still in play and looks no smaller.
@DavidWaywell
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