Politics and Money

[lesgetrich]

show me a totally made up Fox clip if you have one handy..

Here's a doozy for starters...

FOX NEWS WON’T BE GETTING OUT OF A $2.7 BILLION LAWSUIT OVER ITS RIGGED VOTING MACHINE CLAIMS

An election technology company’s case against Fox News can move forward, with a judge finding “substantial basis” for the claim that Murdoch’s network “evinced a reckless disregard for the truth.”

An election technology company suing Fox News for airing false claims about its role in the 2020 election notched a win yesterday, as a New York judge said much of Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion defamation case against the network can proceed. There is “substantial basis” for the claim “that, at a minimum, Fox News turned a blind eye to a litany of outrageous claims about [Smartmatic], unprecedented in the history of American elections, so inherently improbable that it evinced a reckless disregard for the truth,” Judge David Cohen wrote in a 61-page ruling.

Smartmatic last year filed a suit against Fox News and Fox Business Network, naming current and former network stars Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro, and Lou Dobbs as defendants. The election technology company accused them of damaging its reputation and business with false claims broadcast in the aftermath of the 2020 election. The claims aired on Fox served to bolster Donald Trump’s democracy-defying attempt to explain away his loss to Joe Biden by blaming it on faulty or rigged voting machines. The suit—one of two massive defamation suits Rupert Murdoch’s empire is battling as a result of its conspiracy-addled election coverage—also targeted former Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, both of whom peddled pro-Trump conspiracy theories about Smartmatic's voting machines on Fox programs.

Cohen on Tuesday rejected efforts by Fox Corp, Bartiromo, and Dobbs to dismiss Smartmatic’s claims against them. Pirro, however, prevailed. The judge dismissed all claims against her because the anchor, despite asserting on her program that Democrats “stole votes,” did not specifically blame Smartmatic’s software. The judge also dismissed defamation claims against Powell due to a lack of jurisdiction, and most of the claims against Giuliani. But some parts of Smartmatic’s case against the former New York City mayor were allowed to proceed, The New York Times noted.

In their motions to dismiss Smartmatic’s case, Fox and its current and former anchors have cited First Amendment protections and the newsworthiness of covering Smartmatic as part of Trump’s post-election efforts. Fox News again cited free speech in response to Tuesday’s ruling. “While we are gratified that Judge Cohen dismissed Smartmatic’s claims against Jeanine Pirro at this early stage, we still plan to appeal the ruling immediately,” the network said in a statement. “We will also continue to litigate these baseless claims by filing a counterclaim for fees and costs under New York’s anti-SLAPP statute to prevent the full-blown assault on the First Amendment which stands in stark contrast to the highest tradition of American journalism.”