Last minute brinksmanship and international aid bring closure to Fox Case

Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems had a specific time limit before the situation deteriorated. Even though it seemed far away, this deadline came from someone who was on holiday with their spouse in Europe and travelling along the River Danube.

On Sunday night, two sides of a very famous case ended with an agreement. The agreement was for $787 million. It all had to do with lies that were spread in the biggest news outlet in America about the 2020 presidential election. In the end, libel laws played an important role in this case.

Jerry Roscoe said on Wednesday that it’s important to set a deadline in order to make sure the negotiations don’t get too difficult. He works for a mediation service in Washington and people haggled over the phone and at a Delaware Courthouse while lawyers, journalists, and spectators waited for 1:30 pm trial time that had been scheduled.

At 2 minutes past 4 o’clock, Judge Eric Davis gave the news. He said in a calm way that the parties involved had came up with an agreement.

A company based in Colorado sued Fox for 1.6 billion dollars because they said that Fox falsely accused them of making their voting machines work against Donald Trump when he was running for President in 2020. They said this hurt their business and made employees feel threatened.

Right before the trial was about to begin, a bunch of evidence was uncovered – some really bad and some just kind of awkward. This evidence revealed that many people from Fox News, like Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro, were not sure if the stories they shared were true or not. They didn’t want to make the viewers who supported Donald Trump mad by saying the truth.

Last December, Davis asked both sides to try to reach an agreement. Unfortunately, Dominion did not want the case to finish before their evidence was revealed to everyone. So in February and March, they published all their documents in order for them to be considered for trial.

John Poulos, the CEO of Dominion said on Wednesday that they had promised from the start to support their customers, and they kept their promise. Fox had claimed they were simply reporting newsworthy information given by Trump’s helpers and that this legal case would be affecting freedom of press.

It can be hard to prove that someone wrote something false on purpose. For example, a jury would have to decide if a journalist was aware they were wrong when they published something. In this case, Fox had fewer chances of winning because Judge Davis said the lies against Dominion weren’t true and being newsworthy doesn’t make it okay to say things that aren’t true.

The attorneys Justin Nelson representing Dominion and Dan Webb representing Fox were trying to settle the case outside of court. They had a disagreement, but they asked an expert mediator called Roscoe for help. He was travelling with his wife between Budapest and Bucharest when he agreed to mediate the case. On Monday, Roscoe used some time to read through all the evidence both sides had provided him with. His main goal was to offer them different choices and let them decide which option is best for them.

He was talking on the phone a lot, usually with legal professionals that were not his team of Nelson and Webb. They were getting ready to start their opening statements and the people he spoke with like Poulos all met in one big room at the court.

Davis gave both sides a break day on Monday. Then, on Tuesday morning, people picked 12 people to be part of the jury – 5 Black men, 4 white women, 2 Black women and 1 white man. This jury needs to decide how much money the network should give – a network that is mostly watched by white people (94%) and little watched by Black people (1%).

Lee Levine – someone who knows a lot about laws about free speech – said choosing the jury can help the two sides settle things quickly.

It is very likely that Fox wanted to wait and see what jury members it got, especially if there were two people on the jury who seemed like they wouldn’t agree with everyone else. Fox said it was complicated to make a deal, but did not think that the jury selection process was important.

After their lunch break, people returned to the courtroom that was full of boxes containing evidence. Nelson and Webb were seen talking together more than once and at one stage, Webb left with a big smile on his face. Levine was walking on a beach in North Carolina with earphones connected so he could listen to the opening statements. When court resumed late at 2:30 pm, Levine had an idea that there must have been a settlement nearby.

When did Roscoe realize he had achieved what he was hoping for?

The mediator said it happened when the two parties finally agreed on something. They had very different views on how things should be and they were both trying to get their way up until that point.

They finally reached an agreement by 3 o’clock in the afternoon in Delaware, or 10 o’clock at night if you’re on Roscoe’s boat.

Fox said that Dominion had reduced their money they wanted to get paid by $600 million, but Dominion disagreed. In the end, Fox got a deal that was pretty similar to their number. People who didn’t like this result wanted someone from Fox to publicly apologize on the air or have a trial where Fox workers would have to answer questions in front of everyone.

Fox accepted that it was wrong about misleading information about ‘Dominion’. Fox promised to work hard and keep upholding the best journalistic standards. Levine believes Fox didn’t say the truth because of its business strategies.

Stephen Shackelford, who is Dominion’s co-lead counsel, said that it would not be worth it to ask the TV anchors from Fox News to apologize for the misleading statements they had made about election frauds. He also stated that even after another technology company, Smartmatic, threatened them with a legal action back in December 2020, and even after having an expert interviewed on their channel who debunked those same fraudulent claims, nothing really changed within the audience of Fox or how it operated.

Smartmatic is suing Fox, just like Dominion. A person called Shac said that the way for Fox to stay successful is for them to change things up on their own and not rely on outside help. Fox replied saying they are confident in their ability to gather news and cover stories from the United States and around the world. They also added more resources to make sure they can give more quality coverage of stories.

When making the agreement, Poulos had to think about those who were hurt because of the false accusations. Both companies accepted the court’s decision that these claims weren’t true.

Roscoe said this was one of the most important cases he’d been a part of in his career. His wife probably wants him to take another vacation now!

He jokingly said that she was probably online trying to find another husband.