Well, what did you expect?
Dominion has agreed to drop its suit against Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News for a $787.5 million payoff.
Well, what did you expect?
Fox will pay up but it doesn’t have to do anything else. No mea culpae, no rolling heads (yet), no ashes, and not one damned sackcloth.
Did you expect a comeuppance? A courtroom drama?
I’m a Half Empty kind of guy and was not vexed or surprised at today’s news.
Disappointed? Well, yes. Surprised? No. Forget popcorn. The 7- course meal we were all promised by the MSM will never happen.
So, OK. For everyone who was sharpening knives for the feast, here is what you get:
“…the network acknowledged the determination of the judge in the case, Eric M. Davis, that the 20 statements at issue were false. ‘We acknowledge the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false’, the network said.”
Now, about that Smartmatic suit…
Dominion should have held out for a public admission on the air by all the Faux Talking Heads.
1Disappointing, but bird in the hand…
2Smartmatic might be in good position for some big cash. Best we can hope for is some talking heads roll or at least there’s a bunch of fux news infighting where they eat each other.
3Too bad dominion isn’t going after the individuals that publicly lied on national tv.
4The settlement figure is about 25% of Fox “News” on hand cash. Smartmatic is asking for more than Dominion did; there may be no Christmas bonuses this year if more of Fox’ cash goes to paying off lawsuits.
5Well, dang, I’m pretty disappointed. Was really looking forward to enjoying all that delicious schadenfreude while watching all those Faux News azzhats and Murdoch sweat bullets and squirm while being grilled on the stand.
I want my metaphorical pound of flesh!
6Good news for Dominion is that there will be no years of possible and most likely appeals. Dominion receives all the money in the settlement, as it’s not to be whittled down with those continued fees; the Judge had ruled in their favor 2 of 3 complaints prior; AND they are going on with/to suits on individuals working at FAUX. No fat lady has sung yet.
7I’m disappointed too. I really wanted them to have to admit all their lies in court, because I have no doubt all their viewers were paying attention.
8I mentioned to my sister that Fox 100% avoided one of the biggest stories of the week, and her reply was that the other stations don’t ever talk about Hunter Biden’s laptop.
9Fox can now expect to get smaller pay checks .
10Rick, the funny thing about that, if your sister is like so many folks I know she very seldom actually hears what those “other stations” talk about.
11But that’s the kinda crap heard on right-wing media all the time.
Telling folks what the “other” stations are and aren’t saying.
And what they really mean when they do say something.
“Cause everybody knows the lame stream media can’t be trusted. Just listening to ’em might make you turn gay and your kids be born nekkid. Or some other kinda heathen crap.
Just keep it tuned right here and you can all yer opinions from the folks keeping yer mind right.”
get all yer opinions
12I’m not surprised; this was a purely economic suit, carried out for only one goal: money. If Dominion held out for public confessions, their stockholders would have howled and its board of directors would probably have fired the company officers for not grabbing the money.
Don’t forget, we got all those juicy emails from the talking heads at Fox, admitting they lied and knew they were lying. Anytime other news media covers Fox claims, they should preface their remarks with “assuming Fox reports are not blatantly false and lying, as they were about the 2020 election”.
Smartmatic will probably get a similar half-price settlement, although this settlement may just be a way for them to concentrate lawyers and money to fight one large lawsuit instead of two simultaneously.
Like everyone here, I’d be happier if all the Fox honchos and talking heads had to fall on their swords, live and on TV. I’d even buy swords for those who don’t have one.
13Seems to me that now that the door has been opened, many others who have been lied about will go through it too. Although I couldn’t find it online, I thought there was an individual who recently got a hefty settlement from them for defamation. Let the parade begin.
14Last night Lawrence O’Donnell made a good point about the trial when he said none of it would have been televised or on audio anyway since the judge didn’t allow it so we wouldn’t have had the pleasure of watching or listening to their comments on the witness stand. We do, however, have the voluminous texts, etc., from discovery that are very damning. Unfortunately, Fox’s audience is in an information silo and probably won’t be aware of any of it.
15Dominion doesn’t have stockholders. It was taken private for under $40 mil.
Ol’ Vox Pop got everything it could have wanted: all those emails. I would have enjoyed watching (or following the reporting of) the grilling of the miscreants, but it was a civil suit for damages. Our legal system has no form of recourse for non-economic damages, except money. Were-gild, it used to be called.
Dominion played a modest hand superbly. Winning a defamation suit is no easy thing, as followers of the Beauty Shop, of all others, ought to know. The discovery of the emails could not have been anticipated: Did you really think Carlson thinks trump is a maniac? On what evidence before Dominion’s exposures did you come to that revelation?
16I think we should be celebrating Dominion’s victory, but since the mood at the salon seems gloomy, I’ll just add that the payout, if converted from dollars, was only 11 Megan Kellys.
17This is yuuuge! As it’s better then nothing …
18Fox ‘Hate ‘ News has been poisoning our society with right wing propaganda of hate, fear, vengeance and paranoia, non stop, 24/7, for 30 years. We are witnessing a whole generation brought up on the right wing hatred of ‘the Others’. This has to end. We are and have been a nation of diversity where ALL are welcome.
My question is, why just $787 million? Why no VERY PUBLIC admission of guilt? Since when do private equity vultures settle for just the entree?
19Settling for less than half the original amount? Seems to me that doing so casts some semblance of doubt over their original claim that Fox defamed them. If my company has potentially lost all credibility as to the trustworthiness of my voting machines, one way to restore that credibility would be to force the liars to pay out the nose and be forced to admit, in public, over and over again, that we (Fox) lied out our asses
A public admission of guilt would go a long way towards rehabilitating their (Dominion’s) reputation.
I found Fox’s non-apology utterly maddening, but I find most of what Fox Lying BS does maddening.
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