Voting machine company Dominion seems to be the big winner and Fox News the big loser in the libel case with the highest settlement in US history. But it’s not that simple. Slowly the realization sinks in that the news channel has in fact escaped.
Jake Tapper can’t get the sentence out without laughing. On live television, the CNN host on Tuesday tries to read a press release issued by Fox News after the historic settlement with Dominion Voting Systems. He chuckles. Starts again. The line Tapper stumbles upon: “This settlement demonstrates Fox’s commitment to the highest journalistic standards at all times.”
“Sorry,” says the presenter. “It’s hard to say this with a serious face.”
Two days later, in an interview with Dominion CEO John Poulos, Tapper has died of laughter. Again he reads the passage in question. “Do you see the settlement that way?” he asks Poulos. “As an example of Fox’s high standards of journalism?”
The presenter raises an issue that has caused quite a bit of consternation this week. Fox News will pay Dominion $787.5 million (718 million euros), the largest ever settlement in a US libel case, for spreading lies about voting fraud. But apologies or a formal acknowledgment of error are not part of the settlement. Fox News doesn’t need to straighten out the lies it has broadcast in front of its own audience.
Over by author
Thomas Rueb is the United States correspondent for de Volkskrant. He lives in New York. He is the author of the book Laura H.
Why didn’t Dominion enforce that, Tapper wants to know. “Did they say: we’ll give you 100 million more and then we don’t have to?” Poulos does not respond.
deductible
‘Rupert wins again’, headlined news site columnist Jack Shafer Politico. The settlement is a financial blow, but good for the group of media mogul Rupert Murdoch. No viewers or advertisers have walked away from Fox News. The share price fell by a measly 2 percent. The New York Times even revealed that the organization may deduct some $200 million of the settlement amount as a business expense.
From the outset, the Dominion case revolved around something more fundamental than business: the media’s responsibility within democracy.
Fox News, the largest news channel in the US, made its platform available for the spread of a conspiracy theory that has now infected all layers of American society: that not Joe Biden, but Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election. Dominion’s voting machines would be the linchpin in that plot.
This lie, coming from Trump and published on Fox, poses a threat to American democracy. One in three Americans still believe him. Among Fox News viewers, that was 82 percent one year after the election.
Flag bearer Trump, again a presidential candidate, continues to routinely repeat his allegation. Republicans in Congress either go along with it or keep quiet. For Trump’s political rivals, such as Governor Ron DeSantis, former diplomat Nikki Haley, and former Vice President Mike Pence, it’s a tightrope over conspiracy theory—sometimes a sideline, rarely harsh criticism. They fear the wrath of the grassroots they hope to inherit from Trump.
‘The country has lost’
Channels like Fox News perform a similar balancing act, while denigrating the other media as ‘politicized’. Viewers are thus conditioned to derive their “truth” exclusively from Fox News – and that is where they are not told.
Competitors CNN, NBC, ABC and PBS can fact check until they weigh an ounce, but it continues to preach to its own parish. For the millions of Americans within Fox’s media bubble, the lie is simply disproved by no one they trust—not a politician, not a journalist.
Dominion Voting Systems was in an exceptional position to break that cycle. By forcing Fox News to correct course with apologies and public accountability to its own audience. That didn’t happen. “The country has lost, democracy has lost,” constitutional specialist Martin Garbus concluded this week.
Dominion CEO John Poulos calls the settlement a major victory. His ‘traumatized’ employees are all satisfied, he repeats in interviews. But Poulos does not get the triumph he hoped for. He’s already had a hard time on ABC, and Jake Tapper on CNN got it really bad: “Have you seen any evidence that they’re going to tell the truth now?” Poulos failed to answer.
Back to the old
On Fox News itself, the settlement – big news at home and abroad – hardly gets any attention. The amount cannot be found on the website. Star presenters such as Tucker Carlson, Maria Bartiromo and Sean Hannity – key players in the case, who had almost had to testify in court – do not mention the case in their much-watched programs.
Everything seems to be back to the old days on Fox News. Next week Donald Trump will be a guest again. The world view of the viewers has not changed.
“For our democracy to survive another 250 years, and hopefully much longer, we need to stick to facts,” said attorney Justin Nelson on behalf of Dominion after the settlement ended. But precisely the most important target group, those who believe the lie, are now deprived of those facts.
