In a remarkable case, FOX News, the mouthpiece of the Republican bourgeoisie, was made to admit they lied about the elections, and pay a large amount of money to Dominion company due to defamation. 

“Fox News has settled a defamation lawsuit from the voting machine company, Dominion, over its reporting of the 2020 presidential election.

“In a last-minute settlement before trial, the network agreed to pay $787.5m (£634m) – about half of the $1.6bn initially sought by Dominion.

“Dominion argued its business was harmed by Fox spreading false claims the vote had been rigged against Donald Trump.

“The deal spares Fox executives such as Rupert Murdoch from having to testify.

“The judge in the case is not required to give his approval for the agreement.

“Fox said Tuesday’s settlement in one of the most anticipated defamation trials in recent US history reflected its “commitment to the highest journalistic standards”.

BBC 4 18 2023

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65318654

Under Donald Trump and to this day there are Republicans who only trust FOX News for information. This trial clearly showed FOX knowingly spread lies and propaganda to support Donald Trump’s falsehoods about the electronic voting machines being rigged to reject votes for him in favor of Biden. 

Dominion proved beyond a reasonable doubt FOX knew Dominion voting machines were not rigged, yet published cable news saying the machines were giving fraudulent results in favor of Joe Biden.  Internal documents in the case showed not only that the people behind FOX News knew Trump’s statements about having lost the election due to fraud were false, yet the profit motive reigned over truth, and out of fear of losing customers, did not tell the truth about the election, and supported Trump’s lies. 

The settlement was reached as Dominion had shown that FOX News knew they were lying, yet published the articles on Cable Television anyways, making themselves therefore liable to publishing false claims. 

It would have been interesting to see FOX News owner Rupert Murdoch testify, along with his entourage, and his hosts.  Instead he settled for a sizeable amount of money, 787.5 million dollars, and avoided testifying.

“The Fox statement added without elaborating that the network “acknowledges the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false”.

“Dominion chief executive John Poulos told a press conference the deal included Fox “admitting to telling lies, causing enormous damage to my company”.

“Justin Nelson, a Dominion attorney, told reporters that “the truth matters”.

“”Lies have consequences,” he added. “Over two years ago a torrent of lies swept Dominion and election officials across America into an alternative universe of conspiracy theories, causing grievous harm to Dominion and the country.”

BBC ibid.

The attachment to cable news like FOX as a source of quality journalism remains a social problem.  The whole format of the system whereby a company or individual can buy time for his political and social message to be on; the advertisements that FOX interrupts a broadcast for every 5 minutes or so, are not only annoying to the viewer,  but is where the money FOX News is reliant upon to stay on air is coming from.  It is not hard to understand how this affects the content of the news; the corporations know they can control the news as they hold the purse strings for FOX News.

Combine this with an election cycle and it just gets uglier.  There are basically no stops, the Citizens United ruling allows unlimited money to flow to companies like FOX for propaganda supporting the Republican bourgeoisie.

The ruling shows FOX News deliberately spread lies on their cable news station, destroying Dominion’s business.  And another company, Smartmatic, is seeking 2.7 billion dollars from FOX for the same reason,  namely defamation suggesting their machines were rigged against Trump.  

The whole thing is really quite ridiculous, given voting is still done on paper.  Whether you get an absentee ballot, or actually go to the polls to vote, you mark a paper ballot, and sign it to show it is yours.  The absentee ballots require a signature from the voter and a witness.  If there was fraud it would be easily proved, simply count the paper ballots. 

But like many Trump fantasies, including the danger of absentee ballots, this fiction of the machines being rigged against Trump, was entertained by FOX News, even though they knew it was not true, resulting in their finally having to admit their news is not always the truth, rather it is infotainment designed to create large profits for the owners of FOX News.

It is not clear how much money FOX is worth, and another lawsuit, if a similar outcome is reached, could result in a large loss of capital for FOX News; 787.5 million dollars is still a lot of money.  We can only assume Dominion will supply Smartmatic with the information they used in their case; after the defamation Dominion voting machines may no longer be used, meaning they are no longer a competitor of Smartmatic.  

Rupert Murdoch seems to have deep pockets. He has settled other lawsuits recently, and the bill is growing.  Just how much profit can FOX News bring in a year?  The 787.5 million dollars is a lot of money paid for advertising.  That’s 78,750 advertisements at $10,000 a piece. The number of minutes a year is 525, 600.  If you divide it up it is one one minute advertisement  every 6 minutes. 

That’s a lot of advertisements.  And given it may cost less than $10,000 for a spot, perhaps at midnight, etc., 787.5 million dollars is going to seriously tax FOX News, and another expensive lawsuit may be coming, Smartmatic for 2.7 billion dollars.

Rupert Murdoch has shown the profits are driving it to lie to his audience, to the viewers who watch his station.  The lawsuit and settlement show FOX News is willing to do this to stay in business providing cable news television, regardless of who it hurts, even other capitalists.  You would think it would rattle his viewers as he had to admit his station does not publish the truth, and knows it.  A day of reckoning seems to be coming, indeed, when it is clear FOX News is a paid for mouthpiece for rich capitalists.

Nicholas Jay Boyes

Milwaukee Wisconsin

American Democratic Republic

4 22 2023

revision 9 20 2025