 | By Suein Hwang Business, Economics and Technology Editor, Opinion |
For many Americans, the revelations that have surfaced from Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News have been, if a tad unsurprising, pretty damning. |
What we've learned is that while Fox megastars like Tucker Carlson publicly aired claims that Dominion was part of a conspiracy to steal the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump, they were privately expressing serious misgivings about those same claims. Then, last week, the judge in the case took the unusual step of ruling that the network's reporting about Dominion's machines was false, eliminating a key line of defense for Fox. And yet, despite all of this, legal experts say Fox could still emerge victorious. |
How could that be? Dominion still needs to prove that Fox broadcast that false information with what's known as "actual malice" — a high bar. |
That Fox News can erect a strong defense is a good thing, argues Jeff Kosseff in a guest essay published last week. Kosseff, who has written a forthcoming book on freedom of speech and misinformation, notes that it is ironically conservatives who've been pushing in recent years to erode this standard, claiming that it unfairly enables liberal news outlets to lie. |
"The Dominion case rebuts such complaints," Kosseff writes. "The actual malice rule protects speakers regardless of politics. It protects CNN and The New York Times. It protects Fox News and Newsmax." |
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