Dominion Voting Systems is suing Fox News and its Murdoch-owned parent company, Fox Corp, for $1.6 billion over network personalities pushing voter fraud conspiracy theories in the weeks after the 2020 election.
The Guardian reports that the suit focuses on Fox News’ part in promoting Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign and its hand in sparking the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Legal experts speaking to The Guardian say that Dominion appears to be building a wider case that Fox News has a long history of misinformation. Now, Dominion is gearing up to depose the chair of Fox Corp, Rupert Murdoch.
From The Guardian:
Murdoch is already grappling with the costly legacy of phone hacking by British newspapers the News of the World and the Sun. His UK company has paid more than £1bn ($1.2bn) over the past decade to keep the gruesome details from being heard in open court with no end in sight after a high court judge earlier this year refused to prevent the filing of new claims.
When Murdoch was called to give evidence to a UK parliamentary hearing in 2011 about News of the World hacking the phones of a murdered schoolgirl as well as hundreds of politicians, celebrities and other public figures, he said that it was the most humble day of his life. He also claimed to have known nothing about the wrongdoing and said that he had been misled.
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But he can make no such claim about Fox News, where its misrepresentations were on full display. So far, the only people to pay at the network are the ones who got it right.
The trouble started on election night after Fox called the key swing state of Arizona for Joe Biden. The call drew Trump’s ire and unleashed a backlash against the network from his supporters.
Read the full report over at The Guardian.
