💰🗳️ Pau Da Fake Talk: Fox News Pay $787.5 Million To Dominion Voting Systems 📺
Eh, get choke kine action going down at da Fox News, cuz. Dey jus’ wen’ settle one lawsuit wit Dominion Voting Systems fo’ $787.5 million. No joke, brah! Da whole ting wen’ come wit one rare statement from Fox News dat dey wen’ aire some false claims on top dea programming. 🚫🎥😳
Da big bucks wen’ settle one court case dat coulda been all pilau fo’ Fox News, wit all da top dogs like Rupert Murdoch, da managers, and even da big-time stars gettin’ all heat up on da stand. Da question was, why dey wen’ let one kine fake conspiracy theory ’bout da 2020 election spread all ova da place wen’ dey know was false? 🗣️🗳️📺
Dis settlement, one of da largest defamation settlements evah, and da court statement dat shows Fox News wen’ recognize dat some claims ’bout Dominion wen’ false, kinda make ’em look all shame in front of everybody, especially in da conservative media circles. 💸📡🤦♂️
Da lawyer fo’ Dominion, Stephen Shackelford, wen’ say outside da court, “Money is accountability, and we got that today from Fox.” 💵⚖️👍
Da agreement nevah make Fox News apologize fo’ any wrongdoing in dea own programming, but Dominion was looking fo’ dat kine action too. After da settlement wen’ pau, Fox wen’ say dey hoping dat resolving dis ting wit Dominion in one nice way, no need fo’ one messy trial, can help da country move on from all dis drama. 🤝🏽🌎✌️
Da judge fo’ da case, Eric M. Davis, wen’ make some rulings dat no make Fox News look too good, like saying dey no can claim dat airing da fake conspiracy theory was protected by law cuz’ dey was just tryin’ fo’ report da news. Da judge wen’ write, “the evidence does not support that FNN conducted good-faith, disinterested reporting.” 🏛️⚖️👎
Anotha time, da judge wen’ say dat da evidence from da court case shows dat “none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.” So, Fox News no could argue dat dey was just tryin’ fo’ follow da lead of da President who wen’ spreading da false stories ’bout Dominion. 🚫🇺🇸📰
Fox News was thinking ’bout appealing da case if dey wen’ lose, but now all da judge’s rulings stay uncontested. Looked like Fox News wen’ make da call fo’ take da hit fo’ da money instead of risking losing da whole trial. 💸🤔⏳
Dominion wen’ get choke evidence from inside Fox News dat shows how plenny people dea wen’ know dat da whole conspiracy theory ’bout da election was jus’ one big lie. Even Mr. Murdoch, da big boss, wen’ know. 😲🤐🔍
Da question now stay, will dis big kine settlement change how Fox News handle all kine pilau conspiracy theories? Da amount stay huge – $787.5 million. Fo’ shua, Fox News no like see anyting like dis again, especially wit one oddah lawsuit from one oddah election technology company called Smartmatic, dat stay suing dem fo’ $2.7 billion. 💣💼🏛️
But, Fox News wen’ manage fo’ dodge da bullet of having fo’ make one on-air admission or apology. Dey nevah had fo’ tell dea audience ’bout all da pilikia going on, and not too many of dem wen’ hear ’bout da case in da first place. 📺🙊🛡️
Michelle Simpson Tuegel, one trial lawyer, wen’ say, “It’s hard to say how damaging a decision against Fox would have been for the company beyond the financial cost of the verdict because their audience is very loyal and bought into the polarized perspective their opinion hosts present.” She wen’ add, “But the reputational harm of having executives, including Chairman Rupert Murdoch, and hosts take the stand seems to have moved the parties towards a resolution.” 🏛️🤷♀️🎤
So, aftah all dis, Fox News wen’ pay up big time, but dey nevah had fo’ tell dea fans ’bout da pilau kine stuff dey wen’ do. Da country goin’ try fo’ move on from dis, but da question stay: goin’ Fox News change dea ways, or goin’ be just mo’ of da same? We goin’ see, brah. 🧐🔄🌟
NOW IN ENGLISH
💰🚨 A Massive $787.5 Million Settlement and Humiliating Revelations: The Price of Broadcasting Falsehoods 📺
Fox News’s last-minute agreement with Dominion Voting Systems came with a rare admission of airing false claims by the conservative media giant. 📺🗞️
In settling with Dominion Voting Systems, Fox News avoided a painful, lengthy trial where its founder, Rupert Murdoch, top managers, and biggest stars would have had to face tough questioning on an embarrassing issue: Why did they allow a vicious and defamatory conspiracy theory about the 2020 election to spread across the network when so many of them knew it to be false? 🗳️🚫
The $787.5 million settlement agreement, one of the largest defamation settlements in history, and Fox’s courtroom statement acknowledging the court’s findings that “certain claims about Dominion” aired on its programming “to be false” represent a rare, high-profile admission of informational wrongdoing by a powerhouse in conservative media and America’s most popular cable network. 💸⚖️
“Money is accountability,” said Stephen Shackelford, a Dominion lawyer, outside the courthouse, “and we got that today from Fox.” 💼🏛️
The terms of the agreement, announced abruptly just before lawyers were expected to make opening statements, did not require Fox to apologize for any wrongdoing in its own programming, a point Dominion was pressing for. 📝📺
Shortly after the agreement was reached, Fox said it was “hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues.” 🤝🌐
The settlement carries an implicit plea of “no contest” to several pretrial findings from the presiding judge in the case, Eric M. Davis, that cast Fox’s programming in an exceptionally harsh light. 🏛️👨⚖️
In one of those findings, the judge sided with Dominion in its assertion that Fox could not claim its airing of the conspiracy theory—generally relating to the false claim that its machines “switched” Trump votes into Biden votes—fell under a legally protected status of “news gathering” that can shield news organizations when facts are disputed. The judge wrote, “the evidence does not support that FNN conducted good-faith, disinterested reporting.” 🗳️💥
In another finding, the judge wrote that the “evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that it is CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.” 🚫📰
Through those findings, the judge seriously limited Fox’s ability to argue that it was acting as a news network pursuing the claims of a newsmaker, in this case, the president of the United States, who was the lead proponent of the false Dominion narrative. 🇺🇸📣
In those days before the trial, Fox had been indicating that if it were to lose at trial, it would work up an appeal that would, at least partly, argue with those judicial rulings. Now they stand undisputed. 🏛️🔄
By the end of the day on Tuesday, it was clear that Fox’s lawyers were engaged in an urgent calculation to take the financial hit rather than risk losing at trial. 💼⚖️
As many legal experts before the trial had argued, Dominion managed to collect an unusual amount of internal documentation from Fox showing that many inside the company knew the Dominion election conspiracy theory was pure fantasy. That extended to the network’s highest ranks, right up to Mr. Murdoch himself.
That evidence appeared to bring Dominion close to the legal threshold in defamation cases known as “actual malice” — established when defamatory statements are “made with knowledge of their falsity or with reckless disregard of whether they were true or not.” (That bar, however, is not always easy to meet, and there are no guarantees in front of a jury.) 🚧⚖️
“Dominion Voting had elicited much critical evidence that Fox had acted with actual malice or reckless disregard for the truth, which it could have proved to a jury, so the only question remaining would have been damages,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond. “Trial of the case also might have undermined the reputation of Fox when the evidence was presented in open court.” 🎓📚
It was less surprising that Fox settled than that it did so at such a late stage on Tuesday. A trial would have seen Fox News personnel and Mr. Murdoch parrying with lawyers over the knowledge of falsity they held and why they did not take any action to stop it. The answers would have further unmasked the internal modus operandi of an organization that has long guarded its internal operations. 🕵️♂️📉
The one question that only time will answer is whether the settlement was enough to cause Fox News to change the way it handles such incendiary and defamatory conspiracy content. The amount is huge — $787.5 million. Fox News certainly doesn’t want to see a similar settlement anytime soon as other legal cases loom, notably a $2.7 billion suit from another election technology company, Smartmatic. 📺💼
But Fox did manage to escape Dominion’s goal of an on-air admission or apology, meaning it did not have to force either on its audience, which did not hear much about the case on Fox’s shows to begin with. 🎙️👥
“It’s hard to say how damaging a decision against Fox would have been for the company beyond the financial cost of the verdict because their audience is very loyal and bought into the polarized perspective their opinion hosts present,” Michelle Simpson Tuegel, a trial lawyer, said in a statement. “But the reputational harm of having executives, including Chairman Rupert Murdoch, and hosts take the stand seems to have moved the parties towards a resolution.” 🤔🏛️
