by Joseph MacKinnon
Fox News agreed Tuesday to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million (roughly one-quarter of Fox News’ reported gross earnings in 2022) to settle its $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit and avoid a protracted trial.
Leftists, Democratic operatives, and others in the liberal media establishment celebrated this setback for Fox News, suggesting it was a well-deserved penalty for asking sensitive questions and entertaining a narrative that ultimately collapsed under scrutiny.
According to legal experts, liberals’ jubilation today at the conservative outlet’s expense may soon come back to haunt them.
Glass houses
CNN host Jake Tapper, who refused to apologize for advancing a false narrative for years when it ultimately crumbled, giggled when reading his script about Fox News’ misfortune.
Tapper said, “I’m sorry. This is going to be difficult to say with a straight face.”
Totally-not-a-liberal-activist Jake Tapper can't contain his glee while reading Fox News' statement concerning their settlement with Dominion live on CNN. pic.twitter.com/TNLREZ5pSV
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) April 18, 2023
Those signing Tapper’s paychecks may soon find it difficult to smile.
Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project and former chief counsel for nominations to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, indicated that the Dominion lawsuit has set a new standard, whereby the New York Post could be justified in filing a “billion-dollar defamation lawsuit” against news outlets that “reported the claim it ran a Russian disinformation campaign.”
CNN, like Politico and other liberal outfits, infamously downplayed the Hunter Biden laptop story when the New York Post first broke it in October 2020.
TheBlaze previously reported that after the Post published the story revealing some of Hunter Biden’s many apparent ethical failures, then-CNN Host Brian Stelter said, “There’s a lot about this story that does not add up. … And, I mean, for all we know, these emails were made up, or maybe some are real and some are fakes, we don’t know. But we do know that this is a classic example of the right-wing media machine.”
“We are not talking about fully reliable sources here,” Stelter said, referring to the Post’s story, stressing that it was a “manufactured scandal.”
CNN Business elevated Stelter’s apparent smears against the Post in an article entitled, “The anatomy of the New York Post’s dubious Hunter Biden story.”
In one of many other instances in which the outlet denigrated the Post and served to advance a false narrative about the Hunter Biden laptop story, Jake Tapper expressed disgust in an October segment, claiming “the right wing is going crazy with all sorts of allegations about Biden and his family. Too disgusting to even repeat here.”
The New York Post was not the only target of CNN’s possibly actionable smears. CNN also hounded the computer repairman who first blew the whistle on the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.
John Paul Mac Isaac, the owner of the Delaware computer shop, filed a lawsuit against CNN last year, in which he accuses CNN of broadcasting a “false and defamatory story” that intimated Mac Isaac had committed “an infamous crime, i.e., treason by working with the Russians to commit a crime against the United States of America by attempting to undermine American democracy and the 2020 Presidential election.”
Undermining the First Amendment
Matt Mackowiak, chairman of the Travis County GOP and president of Potomac Strategy Group, appears to agree that the consequences of the Dominion lawsuit will be sweeping, noting in the Washington Examiner, “The case has significant implications for the First Amendment.”
While it “appears to be a loaded weapon trained on the heart of one cable news network, its true target is our treasured independent and free press.”
Mackowiak suggested that the claims about Dominion that Fox News raised “were no question newsworthy. A sitting president’s legal claims in a hotly contested presidential election are newsworthy. Full stop. And if professionals at news outlets cannot cover issues in good faith when raised by such prominent officials in the middle of a contested election, the media will be dead.”
Like Davis, Mackowiak indicated that liberals and liberal outlets have long gotten away with peddling information and claims that turned out to be untrue if not outright malicious. But “If Fox is found liable under this standard of anyone at the company having doubts, no media outlet will ever be safe.”
“It’s a gift to every green energy company lobbying for corrupt funding, every tech company censoring accounts, and every woke corporate actor engaged in preposterous diversity, equity, and inclusion policies that will use it to silence investigative journalists, criticism, and debate,” added Mackowiak.
Cheering on an explosive boomerang
Former Attorney General William Barr stressed in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece late last month that liberal outlets, “blinded by resentment at Fox’s success as an alternative media voice,” have parroted Dominion’s spin at their peril.
“The theory advanced by Dominion is profoundly dangerous to the media industry as whole. Memories are very short and imaginations very limited if the left thinks that only Fox would be vulnerable to lawsuits in a world where defamation liability could be incurred for simply reporting allegations made by others,” wrote Barr.
Barr cited the liberal media’s false claims of “Russian collusion” and the “lurid allegations” advanced on networks such as CNN by Michael Avenatti during the Senate confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh among the instances when outlets exposed themselves to the reasoning behind this week’s defamation suit settlement.
If every report on false information was prosecuted a settlement assessed, CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo, ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR and many other members of the Ministry of Propaganda would be out of business. My guess is, were the Fox/Dominion trial held anywhere else (well, but NYC or DC) the outcome would have been different. After all, Dominion employees themselves had acknowledged serious “problems”.
How about any outlet that reported on “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” as being an actual event? How about those how assailed George Zimmerman as a “white Hispanic” racist when his trial cleared him? Of course, the Covington kids and Kyle Rittenhouse have famously taken many of those outlets to the cleaners… but, of course, the disclosure of those settlements are suppressed.
Nope. Sorry. Right wing media lies constantly and shamelessly, as a matter of course. They depend on lies and concealment of truth for the purpose of voter manipulation, boosting ratings, and growing market share.. They have no journalistic standards. All they care about is what the target audience can be made to believe.
FOX News even lies about the extent of its influence and credibility. Early on, they focused on instilling the belief that no legitimate mainstream journalistic source could be trusted. It was a methodical, orchestrated, self-serving brainwashing program. It’s all about power and profits.
Oh, really. How about providing one? Oh, and the left-wing tool “Snopes” is proven to lie for the Democrats, so try and find a REAL example. You know, something like this:
Massive list of the left wing media’s massive lies during the Trump administration.
https://sharylattkisson.com/2021/06/50-media-mistakes-in-the-trump-era-the-definitive-list/
You apparently prefer the lies to the truth. After all, how could you be a leftist and a Democrat without accepting lies over facts?
Discrediting Snopes rather than addressing what Snopes reveals and the evidence it provides is a perfect example of what I’m talking about.
You’ll say the same about ANY source that challenges the right’s propaganda and disinformation.
You say “How about providing one?” when I just did. You ignored it completely. It bounced right off your cult conditioning—just like the overwhelming January 6 evidence and testimony.
The cow is utterly mad. Gateway Pundit is brain-rotting trash.
Prove it wrong. You cannot loser
“It’s true unless you can prove it isn’t” is irrational.
Funny, that was your EXACT position during the Kavanaugh inquisition. It’s also the idea shared by drunken, inside-trader, liar Pelosi. What, has something changed?
greg lacks the mental acumen to go beyond platitudes and boilerplates.
NOTHING has changed. I believe the testimony about Kavanaugh’s frat boy behavior. I could overlook that because it happened years ago. People change. What should have disqualified him was that he was currently lying about it, under oath.
I’m even more convinced now, because he also deliberately misled under oath concerning his thinking about Roe v Wade. Half-a-century of precedents actually didn’t mean squat to him. That’s a matter of integrity. We should require far more from a SCOTUS justice. The same goes for Clarence Thomas.
Many republicans don’t care. They’re more concerned about getting what they want than about the integrity of the law itself.
There was never a federal law to decide on. Now Murder there is a law against that.
Based on what? Based on the “testimony” of some airhead that can’t even remember when or where it was supposed to have happened, can’t remember anyone else that was there and has NO ONE that can corroborate her bullshit? You expect Kavanaugh to prove himself “innocent” against THAT? No, all that is is you believing whatever fuels your bigoted prejudices and hatred.
He didn’t mislead anything. He is not going to tell you what he may or may not decide on a future case.
Do you want Roe v. Wade reinstated?
No, Republicans don’t care about what your latest lies are. We deal in facts and truth.
Oh, just hearing this, looks like a judge OK’d for the House Committee to question the lying ideologue Pomerantz and investigate Bragg’s political persecution and election interference. Enjoy!
I get it.
https://nypost.com/2023/04/18/human-tidal-wave-is-waiting-for-border-to-open-may-11-biden-has-no-plan-to-stop-it/
Calling it like it is. Swallowswell has no business on any committees or even in the House. Like the majority of Democrats, he is totally compromised by the CCP.
You DO call the witness a liar when they ARE a liar and are lying. Who is this January 6th useful idiot to lecture ANYONE on calling out liars? HE’S a liar. Mayorkas says he is doing everything he can to stop illegal immigration and fentanyl smuggling when, in fact, he and Democrats are operating camps to stage illegal immigrants for movement to our border while there is still NOTHING to stop fentanyl flowing across where there is no wall.
Isn’t that what you did during the COVID fake crisis greggie? You supported the lie about masks working, the MRNA “vaccines worked, the Ivermectin didn’t work, covid came from a bat, and all the rest of “your truths” that have been proven to be lies. greggie, you have been proven to be a liar yet you continue to want sane people to believe “your truths” even after they have been proved to be lies! I guess that makes you worthy to be a defendant in a major lawsuit!
Snopes discredits Snopes. Kind of like this:
Arbiter of truth Snopes writer caught plagiarizing.
https://thepostmillennial.com/fact-checking-site-snopes-co-founder-busted-plagiarizing-54-articles?utm_campaign=64469
Even though Cuomo said the vaccines being released now was “bad news”, Snopes says he didn’t
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2020/11/19/snopes-cries-mostly-false-accurate-attack-cuomos-vaccine-bad-news
No, really… SNOPES is “fact checking” the Babylon Bee
https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/snopes-left-fears-babylon-bee/
Facebook pays Snopes to “fact check” and support Facebook’s agenda
https://neonnettle.com/news/5930-snopes-paid-to-push-propaganda-by-facebook-former-editor-reveals
Snopes to be one of the “authorities” to judge what is truth
http://conservativetribune.com/snopes-marries-porn-star-escort /?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=THENewVoice&utm_campaign=can&utm_content=2016-12-23
Snopes rates a grossly inaccurate meme “accurate”
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2018/12/07/daily-caller-snopescom-badly-botches-fact-check-white-house-photo-gop?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=marketing&utm_campaign=caller-snopes&fbclid=IwAR38kKFLmEX-VEHcAdm-RcYZtzeJxLz3nAoLDLRCEgDhx7I2ML9SBbCJuE8
Snopes caught covering for liberals… again
http://conservativetribune.com/rigged-snopes-gets-busted/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=WesternJournalism&utm_content=2016-12-16&utm_campaign=manualpost
Snopes bias
http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/17/fact-checking-snopes-websites-political-fact-checker-is-just-a-failed-liberal-blogger/
Snopes caught ignoring evidence in defending the Obama administration
http://conservativetribune.com/snopes-busted-obamas-lies/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=TeaParty&utm_content=2016-08-05&utm_campaign=manualpost
So, when I speak of “an example”, that’s what I’m talking about. Not some phony-ass “fact checker” in the Democrat’s back pocket.
Tucker Carlson, whose emails revealed that FOX News was pushing Trump’s stolen election bullshit for ratings and profits, knowing damn well that it was a total crock.
Tucker Carlson, who revealed he HATES Donald Trump.
I can see why they settled for three-quarters of a billion dollars. Testimony about that in an open courtroom would blow their whole scam to hell, and take the entire GOP establishment down with it. It would be like the boiler explosion on that riverboat at the end of the Civil War. Yay Trump! BOOM!
So, pay $787 million to Dominion, and move on to Smartmatic…
OK, so FOX pays out $787 million. Fine.
Now let the cases start against MSNBC, CBS, NBC and especially CNN. Let’s start with the claims of Rachael Maddow. It will be Nickolas Sandman 2.0.
Take your Marxist b/s somewhere else. You have become painfully boring, Comrade Greggie.
Yep. All you need is a legitimate reason to sue, as is the case with FOX News, and another network willing to pay 3/4 of a billion not to have their bullshit exposed in a courtroom.
Have at it.
You mean like the Covington kids and Kyle Rittenhouse? They’ve taken a few of them to the cleaners for LYING. The lying members of the Ministry of Propaganda have also been forced to issue NUMEROUS corrections.
Tucker Carlson, whose emails revealed that FOX News was pushing Trump’s stolen election bullshit for ratings and profits, knowing damn well that it was a total crock.
If CNN and MSNBC are democrat or GO BIDEN
and FOX is GO TRUMP, if Biden got so many more votes why does FOX have better ratings?
Seems Biden has no fans, just like he didnt have many voters. Just many ballots.
Because there are so many voters on the right who can be easily manipulated with false news and disinformation?
Because they’re perfectly comfortable telling you exactly what you want to hear, whether it’s true or not?
17% of those surveyed that voted for idiot pedo idiot Biden say if the Ministry of Propaganda hadn’t suppressed the true story of Hutner’s laptop and all the incrimination evidence it contained, they would not have voted for idiot Biden. That would have turned the election.
The left is manipulated by the suppression of the TRUTH in addition to false news (a reminder: where are those examples?) and disinformation, not the right.
Taking down the GOP establishment would be the best thing you could do for Donald Trump.
Do it.
Whether a left-wing site determines a site is right wing or left wing is immaterial. All that matters is if they report the truth or lies. You leftist sites report lies, lies that caused severe harm to the country, such as the duly elected President of the United States is a Russian asset, and they make those reports with NO evidence to back it up.
I provided an extensive list of valid examples to back up my position. You haven’t provided even ONE, which of course is your characteristic. You NEVER back anything you claim up with facts.
Reports on election fraud and Dominion’s involvement had LOTS of evidence, much of it presented here at one time or another. Instead of addressing it, investigating it and discussing it, you leftists merely tried to denounce it and shuck it off, which only made it worse.
No doubt they settled because the case was heard in a hostile court.
greg can not and greg will not. What are your pronouns greg?
Are these people lying?
Just as routine mass shootings by people who shouldn’t have access to firearms has implications for the Second Amendment…
The issue is who decides who should not have access. Should this admin that destroys everything it touches decide, check out their ass backwards thinking.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/apr/18/joe-biden-hike-payments-good-credit-homebuyers-sub/
It will no longer pay to be honest and keep your bill paid.
More Americans die from fentanyl, 70k annually and more than 300 every day. Fentanyl comes into the US through the open southern border. Neither biden nor mayorkas have any intention of securing the border. In fact illegal aliens crossing the border is at an historic high.
The is growing bipartisan support to impeach mayorkas given that the illegitimate biden regime will not fire him.
Do you agree it is time to impeach mayor lad in order to reduce the annual death caused by fentanyl essentially walking itself across the open southern border?
Last month the Biden administration busted a top level Aryan trafficking operation, seizing 1.9 million doses of fentanyl and 230 pounds of meth. Earlier this month they arrested 28 Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel leaders, including El Chapos’ sons. If you followed any reality-based news outlets, you would know this.
Is fentanyl an assault weapon?
We’ve established he’s a useless turd. Now what? GET RID OF HIM.
Why did the slut whore VP fail as the border czar?
Synthetic Opioid Overdose Deaths Soared While Trump Was President
Have a look at the table showing the number of synthetic opioid deaths per year. It lays out the facts of another abysmal Trump administration disaster.
Incorrect. Trump was not only combating opioid addiction, he was lowering the cost of drugs and costing the pharma companies money while helping normal Americans get well.
The Left is melting down in real-time, accusing the Right of everything they’ve gotten caught doing.
Lying in the media. Corruption. Arresting political opponents. Killing kids.
They don’t even try to tell the truth anymore, as they suddenly have all these “studies” that show data that doesn’t exist.
The Opioid pandemic skyrocketed under Biden. He’s literally helping Fentanyl into the country, so why wouldn’t it?
That’s not what the rapidly rising count of annual opioid deaths during Trump’s term of office says.
Forbes says nothing about big Pharma and feel good doctors…funny dont you think?
The data in the article literally shows opioid deaths almost doubled after Biden took office.
You people stink of desperation.
There was in increase of 20,000 deaths per year from the beginning of Trump to the end (four years).
There was that amount IN ONE YEAR after Biden took office, and close to that the year after.
Learn to read data. Your citation prove the opposite of what you and Forbes wish to lie about.
So where’s the republican legislation that addresses anything these clowns are grandstanding about?
There are aleady laws that these traitors are not enforcing. Slavery, child labor, sex trafficking, crossing the border illegally, what legislation do you want ?
No legislation is necessary. Perhaps you had difficulty translating the Louisiana dialect of Representative Higgins as he ticked off the 11 violations of existing border laws.
Just like guns, you dipshit leftists think the solution is more laws.
The problems in both instances is a failure to enforce existing law.
Is fentanyl an assault weapon?
Is fentanyl an assault weapon? It kills on average 300 +Americans per day and in excess of 70k per year. That is more total feat in one year than the combined service members deaths of Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Why are you ignoring the biden policies that have created a crisis on our southern border? Surely you have an opinion.
He isnt allowed opinion only to parrot the lies.
You got that right, an homage to lynyrd skynyrd.
If biden had any balls, which he doesn’t, he would consider the three cartels conducting most of the trafficking as terrorist organizations. Then without violating posse comitatus he could deploy the military to actually fight for a border that matters instead of wasting taxpayers dollars on a skirmish in Eastern Europe.
But, our military might not have enough ammo to engage the enemy at the southern border because dipshit biden gave it all to zelensky
Mass migration from the south has to do with chaotic conditions to the south, not with Biden’s policies. Thousands of desperate people are fleeing from them, seeking refuge. Many of our own ancestors did the same.
That is a canned talking point from the slut whore VP who was supposed to be the border czarina.
How did that work out greg?
Maybe you have missed both the senate and house testimony of mayorkas over the pass couple of days.
You do understand this is a prelude to impeachment.
What letter grade would you give mayorkas as head of DHS?
Waiting to LOL in 1……2……3….
LGBTQ.
Created by the CIA and phoney elections, fueling drug trafficking and Clintons Human trafficking, come here for free everything!
I say cut them all off of every social service no welfare no schooling no foodstamps without a valid greencard and a job.
My ancestors came here legally and never got welfare, housing, foodstamps or free heathcare, those are the lures.
Same here
greg is confused about what the draw is for illegal aliens wanting to come here. Why just a couple of days ago dipshit biden promised healthcare
Yeah total bullshit
What explains the aliens who are coming from as many as 155 other countries?
We’re spilling the beans! $21.1 million worth of fentanyl pills concealed within a shipment of green beans
Isn’t it a shame we can’t have “red flag laws” because Democrats can’t be trusted with that power? It would be nice to pinpoint those sick, demented, hateful leftists before their next rampage.
Deliberate open borders have implications too.
The M.S. Media have been asking for it for far too long a Backlash against their gutter level Journalism they still support Biden dispite all the Shady Deals him and his son Hunter have made
Tucker replaced immediately, no goodbye show…
Tucker Carlson is OUT at Fox News.
This is a breaking story. Please refresh page for updates.
Fox News is completely finished now. Tucker Carlson was their most popular host. A totally stupid move, just like firing Lou Dobbs, and “settling” with Dominion, a case they could have won.. Hope this communist network goes bankrupt.
He and bongino out within one week. Levin must be pissing in his pants.
He has to land somewhere. Definitely not cnn or msnbc. Newsmax I do not feel is an option. Real Americas Voice should grab him. His audience will find him for sure.