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☆ Dominion’s historic defamation case against Fox News will go to trial, judge rules, in major decision dismantling key Fox defenses
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( Marshall Cohen Oliver Darcy | Marshall Cohen | Oliver Darcy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

New York CNN —Dominion Voting Systems’ historic defamation case against Fox News will proceed to a high-stakes jury trial in mid-April, a Delaware judge ruled Friday, in a major decision that dismantled several of the right-wing network’s key defenses. Both sides had asked Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis for a pretrial ruling in their favor, declaring them the winner. After thousands of pages of filings and exhibits, and a series of courtroom clashes, Davis decided the case should go to trial. Incriminating texts and emails have shown how Fox executives, hosts and producers didn’t believe the claims the network was peddling about Dominion. Despite what appeared on air, Fox News executives and hosts privately criticized the Trump camp for pushing claims of election fraud.

☆ A judge just delivered a crushing blow to Fox News in Dominion's defamation lawsuit
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( Jacob Shamsian | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A Delaware judge handed Dominion a major victory in its defamation lawsuit against Fox News. In the same ruling, Davis denied all the claims from Fox News and Fox Corporation, which argued that Dominion failed to prove they should be held liable for the falsehoods. Dominion filed its lawsuit against Fox News, parent company Fox Corporation, and an array of individual hosts in March 2021, asking for $1.6 billion in damages. Dominion alleges that Fox News's hosts should have never had them on in the first place, and either endorsed or didn't sufficiently push back against their false claims. Allies like Rupert Murdoch and Sean Hannity indicated they were "disgusted" by Trump's claims of election rigging, filings show.

☆ Want to watch MLB games? Making sense of the confusing TV and streaming landscape
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Lillian Rizzo | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Home base planFor the baseball fan looking to watch as many games as possible, a traditional pay TV service is still the go-to place. Discovery' s TBS, as well as Fox Corp. 's broadcast and pay TV networks, take up a decent chunk of the schedule. However, as more options are introduced, regional sports networks are getting fewer games and fans have to pay more to watch all games. With a higher rate of consumers dropping pay TV bundles and opting for streaming services, many networks have created direct-to-consumer streaming app options. Few offset the pay TV losses, but at least provide an option for fans wanting to stream.

Fox News, however, did suggest it wants to put Scott, Wallace, Hannity, Carlson, Bartiromo, and Baier on the stand as witnesses. But in past court filings, Fox News has highlighted the fact that Baier said on-air shortly after the 2020 election that there weren’t indications of widespread fraud. Both Fox News and Dominion asked Davis in court this week to declare them the outright winner without a trial. Fox News has argued that it can’t be held liable for airing inherently newsworthy allegations from public figures that Dominion rigged the 2020 election, even if those claims were false. Fox Corporation has argued that Dominion overstated its role in Fox News’ editorial coverage of the 2020 election and asked to be dropped from the lawsuit – but the judge let the case move forward.

☆ Dominion wants Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, other Fox News hosts to testify at trial
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Lillian Rizzo | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Dominion's live witness list of Fox Corp .'s right-wing TV networks includes Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro, as well as former host Lou Dobbs and Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott, according to court papers. Dominion has pointed to 20 broadcasts in which they believe the hosts on Fox News and Fox Business repeated false claims of election fraud and continuously had on guests who repeated those claims. Documents, including text messages and emails, show Fox's TV hosts were skeptical of the election fraud claims being made on air. Dominion is also requesting the depositions of Fox Corp. executives, including Chairman Rupert Murdoch and CEO Lachlan Murdoch, as well as others, be included in the trial. "Dominion's needlessly expansive live witness list is yet another attempt to generate headlines and distract from the many shortcomings of its case.

NEW YORK, March 27 (Reuters) - A newly fired Fox News producer is seeking to recant testimony she said network lawyers coerced her into providing as Fox defends against Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit. Grossberg said Fox fired her on Friday, four days after she originally sued and was put on administrative leave. Fox, part of Rupert Murdoch's Fox Corp (FOXA.O), said Grossberg "ignored" its warning that she might lose her job if she revealed privileged communications with lawyers. The cases are Grossberg v Fox Corp et al, Delaware Superior Court, No. N23C-03-180; and Grossberg v Fox Corp et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No.

☆ Former Tucker Carlson producer says Fox News lawyers coerced her into saying coworkers were trustworthy: 'They're activists, not journalists'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Jacob Shamsian | Charles R. Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

The New York lawsuit alleges that Fox News executives and producers denied her promotions and salary adjustments that would bring her in line with male colleagues. In another section of the lawsuit, Grossberg alleges a producer on Carlson's show repeatedly made antisemitic remarks. In her revised deposition, Grossberg answers that Bartiromo — one of the Fox News hosts who platformed Powell — has a "responsibility to push back against untrue statements with fact." "That did not happen with respect to Dominion-related reporting," Grossberg claims. "Ms. Grossberg ignored these communications and chose to file her complaint without taking any steps to protect those portions containing Fox's privileged information."

“And yet, Mr. Carlson persists with his assault on the truth.”The letter from Teter demanded a formal retraction and on-air apology “for the lies” that have been spread about Epps on the channel. On many occasions, Carlson has specifically mentioned Epps on his show, and has played footage from January 6 of Epps at the Capitol. Each time Mr. Carlson and Fox News spreads more misinformation about Mr. Epps, the harm redoubles.”Spokespeople for Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He has publicly pushed for professional accountability against lawyers who have spread election lies. The lawsuit from Dominion has unearthed damning messages from Fox News executives and hosts that have shown the network peddled election lies to its audience that it knew were false.

WILMINGTON, Delaware, March 22 (Reuters) - Lawyers for Fox Corp (FOXA.O) and Dominion Voting Systems clashed in court on Wednesday over whether top Fox executives including Chairman Rupert Murdoch should be considered liable in the voting-technology company's $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit over 2020 U.S. election vote-rigging claims aired by Fox News. Dominion has argued that liability for the claims extends to the highest echelons of Fox. A Fox lawyer disputed the claim on Wednesday, arguing that executives including Murdoch were not directly involved in the allegedly defamatory television appearances by Trump lawyers, who falsely claimed Dominion stole the election. Dominion lawyer Justin Nelson argued that evidence amassed during the discovery phase of the case, including emails, shows that top Fox executives did not believe the claims but aired them anyway in pursuit of ratings. Dominion maintains that Fox knowingly spread false information or acted with reckless disregard for the truth, thereby meeting the "actual malice" standard necessary to win a defamation case.

☆ Fox, Dominion urge judge to rule in $1.6 billion defamation suit ahead of April trial
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Lillian Rizzo | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

However, Fox and Dominion didn't close up their arguments on Tuesday and will meet in court Wednesday morning. (Trump's false claims of election fraud are at the center of multiple criminal probes.) Chairman Rupert Murdoch said some anchors parroted false fraud claims in the months following the election. Fox has consistently denied the claims it knowingly made false claims, and has argued it is protected by the First Amendment. These cases are often settled out of court or quickly dismissed by a court judge, but neither said has had such discussions, CNBC previously reported.

☆ Fox News producer files explosive lawsuits against the network, alleging she was coerced into providing misleading Dominion testimony
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Oliver Darcy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

New York CNN —A Fox News producer on Monday filed a pair of explosive lawsuits against the right-wing talk channel, alleging that the network’s lawyers coerced her into providing misleading testimony in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation case against the company. The lawsuits from Grossberg, who has since been placed on administrative leave by Fox, were filed in Delaware Superior Court and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. “It’s another example of Fox News not only shying away from the truth, but attempting to bury the truth,” Filippatos told CNN. Grossberg named Carlson and members of his staff in the lawsuit filed in New York. “I’ve covered many stories while I have been there,” Grossberg told CNN.

Murphy sought to provide context for the defamatory statements alleged by Dominion and argued that reasonable viewers understood that the claims aired on Fox News were mere allegations. The Fox News statements cited by Dominion included a Twitter post by former Fox Business host Lou Dobbs that included pro-Trump hashtags. Lawyer Justin Nelson answered no, saying Dominion's allegation is that Fox knew Trump's lawyers were going to make false claims but hosted them on its shows anyway. Abby Grossberg, who was head of booking for Fox News host Tucker Carlson, said coaching and intimidation by Fox lawyers before her deposition left her "feeling pressured not to name names or to implicate others, in particular prominent male on-air personalities and Fox News executives." Fox said in a statement on Tuesday that Grossberg's "allegations in connection with the Dominion case are baseless and we will vigorously defend Fox against all of her claims."

☆ Fox bosses ‘shut down’ fact checking with 2020 conspiracies, Dominion lawyer says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Marshall Cohen | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

Dominion is suing Fox News over the right-wing channel’s airing of false claims of election fraud around the 2020 presidential election. Fox News argued that Dominion should instead rely on the “lengthy depositions” that these witnesses already gave. It claims Dominion hasn’t shown anything strong enough to overcome the high bar that the First Amendment provides, protecting good-faith journalists from speech-chilling defamation lawsuits. Dominion lawyer Rodney Smolla said its high-stakes defamation case against Fox News will protect the public discourse and hold accountable people who deliberately lied about the 2020 election. “They endorsed,” Murdoch said, referring to Fox hosts Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Maria Bartiromo, and former host Lou Dobbs.

☆ Rupert Murdoch, 92, is getting married for the 5th time. He says he's 'looking forward to spending the second half' of his life with his fiancée.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Aditi Bharade | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is getting married for the fifth time, at the age of 92. The New York Post is one of the many publications that the Australian-born American billionaire owns. Murdoch married Hall in 2016. Murdoch told Adams that he was "very nervous" about falling in love again. Murdoch's media empire includes publications like The Wall Street Journal, Fox Corp, the New York Post, HarperCollins publishers, and more.

☆ Media mogul Rupert Murdoch engaged to Ann Lesley Smith
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Helen Coster | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] Tennis - US Open - Mens Final - New York, U.S. - September 10, 2017 - Rupert Murdoch, Chairman of Fox News Channel stands before Rafael Nadal of Spain plays against Kevin Anderson of South Africa. REUTERS/Mike Segar/March 20 (Reuters) - Fox Corp (FOXA.O) Chairman Rupert Murdoch is engaged to former San Francisco police chaplain Ann Lesley Smith, his spokesperson confirmed on Monday, which will mark the fifth marriage for the 92-year-old media mogul. Murdoch and Smith, 66, first met in September at his vineyard Moraga in Bel Air, California, and he called her two weeks later, Murdoch told the News Corp-owned NY Post, which broke the news of the engagement. Smith is a widow whose late husband was Chester Smith, a country singer, radio and TV executive. On March 17 in New York, Murdoch presented Smith with an Asscher-cut diamond solitaire ring, according to the Post.

☆ Fox News sued a Tucker Carlson producer named in the Dominion lawsuit for threatening to expose its legal secrets
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Jack Newsham | Jacob Shamsian | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Fox News says Abby Grossberg threatened to file a discrimination lawsuit that will reveal secrets. Dominion included Grossberg's texts and testimony in its defamation lawsuit against Fox. The network sued Abby Grossberg on Monday, claiming that she has threatened to sue Fox News for discrimination and retaliation. Fox News's suit against Grossberg didn't mention Dominion, referring only to an "unrelated lawsuit," but details in its complaint and in the record of the Dominion lawsuit make the connection clear. Dominion sued Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corporation, in March 2021, alleging it defamed the election technology company when its hosts allowed Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, two pro-Trump lawyers, to come on air.

☆ Fox News is unlikely to face pushback from professional journalism groups after court documents revealed it lied to viewers
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-19 | by ( Jacob Shamsian | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

The White House Correspondents' Association doesn't police member conduct, a former board member said. A number of professional organizations told Insider that Fox News fell well short of the standards expected in the profession. "Journalism receives significant protections from the First Amendment and with those protections come profound responsibilities," McCarran told Insider. Evidence made public in Dominion's lawsuit shows how Fox employees — beyond just hosts of opinion shows — had priorities other than telling their viewers the truth. "There are left-wing publications, right-wing publications, there are government-owned publications — there's Voice of America, foreign news organizations," the former board member said. "

☆ Blackface, booze, and blurred lines at the $2 billion tech firm Rokt
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Jack Newsham | Madeline Stone | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +25 min

A cropped version of an image shared with Rokt employees at the 2020 meeting. Buchanan told Insider. "We think it's important that we stand up and fight it," he told Insider when asked about that message. In an email, Viles told Insider that he hasn't had any day-to-day involvement with Rokt since 2020, when he did some contract work. Mert Alper Dervis/Anadolu Agency via Getty ImagesOne employee told Insider they were encouraged to post the photos and proclaim 2023 to be Rokt's "best year yet."

The voting technology company made the eye-popping damages claim as part of its 2021 lawsuit, which alleges Fox destroyed its reputation by airing falsehoods. A Dominion spokesperson said in a statement that the evidence will show Dominion was a "valuable, rapidly growing business" when Fox began "endorsing baseless lies" about its machines. "Following Fox’s defamatory statements, Dominion’s business suffered enormously, and its claim for compensatory damages is based on industry-standard valuation metrics and conservative methodologies," the statement read. Four different pre-election valuations of Dominion in 2020 averaged $226 million, Fox said, citing exhibits that have not been made public. If the jury concluded that Fox defamed Dominion but decided Dominion's business losses were minimal, it could still hit the company with significant punitive damages.

☆ Fox Considered Acquiring Rights to ‘The Apprentice’ After 2020 Election, Court Documents Show
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Joe Flint | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Donald Trump appeared with his daughter Ivanka Trump in the Season 6 finale of NBC’s ‘The Apprentice.’Soon after the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Fox Corp. explored acquiring rights to “The Apprentice,” the competition show that Donald Trump hosted on NBC before he became president, according to court filings from Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation suit against Fox News and Fox Corp.Rupert Murdoch , Fox’s chair, and his son Lachlan Murdoch , the company’s executive chair and chief executive, discussed acquiring the show in November 2020, according to court documents released this week.

☆ Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch dismisses $1.6 billion defamation case revelations as ‘noise’
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Oliver Darcy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

New York CNN —Fox Corporation CEO Lachlan Murdoch on Thursday dismissed the revelations from Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News as “noise,” throwing his support behind the right-wing talk channel in his first comments since the case enveloped the company in major scandal. Among the thousands of pages of documents released in the case include repeated statements from Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch rejecting conspiracy theories about Dominion. However, Dominion said its position is that “confidential treatment of these materials is not warranted” based on case law standards. Filings in the case reviewed by CNN have included numerous redactions passages, including when Fox executives and personalities are quoted. The significant redactions have raised eyebrows about what Fox News is trying to prevent from being made public.

☆ Rupert Murdoch told Jared Kushner his team said Biden's ads were more creative than Trump's ahead of the election
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Kelsey Vlamis | Azmi Haroun | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Rupert Murdoch told Jared Kushner his team said Biden's ads were more creative than Trump's. Dominion is suing Fox News for defamation related to election fraud claims involving the company. In a follow-up email, Murdoch told Kushner their new Sunday ad was "an improvement" but that one of Biden's was "extremely good," adding: "Or I think so! In a filing that was released last week, Dominion accused Murdoch of sharing "confidential information" with Kushner ahead of the election. "During Trump's campaign, Rupert provided Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, with Fox confidential information about Biden's ads, along with debate strategy (providing Kushner a preview of Biden's ads before they were public)," lawyers for Dominion wrote.

March 7 (Reuters) - Fox Corp (FOXA.O) Chairman Rupert Murdoch questioned whether hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham “went too far” in their coverage of voter fraud claims, according to an email contained in a trove of new exhibits in Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against Fox that became public Tuesday. The exhibits unsealed Tuesday contain evidence underlying the parties’ dueling motions for summary judgment, in which they seek pretrial rulings in their favor. The new documents also include more context of testimony and messages that Fox claimed Dominion had “cherry-picked” and “misrepresented” in its filing. Dominion has alleged Fox continued to push the stolen election narrative because it was losing viewers to right-wing outlets that embraced it. Fox argued in court filings that its coverage of claims by Trump's lawyers were inherently newsworthy and protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

☆ Inner Workings of Fox News on Display in Defamation Case
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Joe Flint | Keach Hagey | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Fox News Chief Executive Suzanne Scott and Rupert Murdoch, the chair of Fox News parent Fox Corp.On Jan. 5, 2021, the day before the U.S. Capitol riot, Fox News Chief Executive Suzanne Scott got an email from Rupert Murdoch saying it might be time for the network’s prime-time hosts to declare Joe Biden had won the presidency. Though the stakes were especially high, getting an editorial suggestion from the top brass was hardly unusual, according to court filings from a defamation suit against Fox News that reveal internal communications at the network.

☆ Rupert Murdoch suggested Fox News hosts 'went too far' with election fraud claims
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Lillian Rizzo | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Murdoch said in an email to Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott on Jan. 21, 2021, in an apparent reference to Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. Dominion has argued in its suit that Fox and its ring-wing cable TV channels and talent falsely claimed that its voting machines rigged the results of the 2020 election. The company points to Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch's testimony about being "kept awake at night" regarding ratings and competition following the 2020 election. Trump has repeatedly spread false claims that the 2020 election between him and now-President Joe Biden was rigged. Before then, Dominion and Fox will meet again in Delaware court on March 21 regarding their motions for summary judgement.

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