ROUND TWO: Dominion was just the warm up as Fox braces for Smartmatic case

ROUND TWO: Dominion was just the warm up as Fox braces for Smartmatic case

Fox’s woes didn’t end with a huge monetary settlement Tuesday.

Hours after a jury was seated, Fox News made an agreement to settle with Dominion Voting Systems, paying out more than three-quarters of a billion dollars, and admitting that some of the claims disseminated on their network about the company were untrue.

Now they’ve got another defamation case to deal with, and they’re getting out ahead of it with a little gaslighting.

Two separate voting machine companies, Dominion and Smartmatic, were the subject of speculation, conspiracy theories, and outright lies following Donald Trump’s 2020 loss.

Hundreds of millions of dollars is such an incomprehensibly large number, to put it in perspective, if you make $75k per year, and piled up TEN THOUSAND YEARS of your salary, it still wouldn’t be as much as Fox agreed to pay out to Dominion.

Next up is the Smartmatic case, a $2.7 billion lawsuit, compared to Dominion’s initial ask of $1.6 billion.

Smartmatic has a head start on their case, thanks to public releases from Dominion’s process, including evidence that the hosts and guests on the network knew and admitted, off-camera, that the claims were not backed by evidence.

The company is expected to also collect information from former producer Abby Grossberg, who was fired after she came forward to say that the network had tried to coach staff into inaccurate deposition statements, according to News Nation Now.

How is Fox handling it?

They’ve sent a statement to at least one journalist, Sara Fischer of Axios, defending their coverage (despite acknowledging inaccuracies less than 24 hours previously), arguing:

“There is nothing more newsworthy than covering the president of the United States and his lawyers making allegations of voter fraud. Freedom of the press is foundational to our democracy and must be protected, in addition to the damages claims being outrageous, unsupported, and not rooted in sound financial analysis.”

The network’s statement did not delve into the difference between covering the fact that the former president and his attorneys and allies made allegations of voter fraud, and covering and amplifying those allegations as though they are factual, while aware that at least some were entirely unsupported.

There is not yet a trial date for the Smartmatic case.

Stephanie Bazzle

Steph Bazzle is a news writer who covers politics and theocracy, always aiming for a world free from extremism and authoritarianism. Follow Steph on Twitter @imjustasteph. Sign up for all of her stories to be delivered to your inbox here: