7 ms·

Not really a shocker that they settled given all the embarrassing texts/emails showing the blatant lies Fox execs and media figureheads were engaging in. Just s

Not really a shocker that they settled given all the embarrassing texts/emails showing the blatant lies Fox execs and media figureheads were engaging in. Just surprising that it took them this long—the start of the trial—to settle. Would be nice if the Fox News crowd would read some of those messages to wake up from all the manipulation.

panarky 3y ago
For the record, the word "dominion" does not appear anywhere on the live foxnews.com site. https://imgur.com/a/cXcITll https://imgur.com/a/cXcITll How would the Fox News crowd even become aware of those messages when their information sources don't report them?
- frozenport 3y ago
  Does their audience even use search?
- ajross 3y ago
  They won't, but wouldn't anyway. A civil suit can recover damages, it can't make Fox into something other than what it is. But no one who would have been receptive to the truth is watching Fox in the first place. That is, really, the core truth exposed by this suit. Fox is completely captured by its audience. For years we thought it was the other way around.
  - ortusdux 3y ago
    A settlement can contain just about anything. For example, it could require Fox to air an MSNBC produced 1 hour primetime special about the whole affair.
    - ajross 3y ago
      Contracts can constrain or direct speech in specific ways. So sure, you could put that one special in a settlement. There are severe first amendment problems when you try to do something more vague, like "You have to report on unflattering stories about Fox itself", which I took to be the upthread point.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      Yes, but why would Fox “settle” for something harmful to their business that Dominion could not, in the worst case, win in court? A settlement might contain something that wouldn’t be on the table in a court judgement if the value it adds to the side that gets it is disproportional to the cost to the side providing it — so that it is win-win compared to a compromise within the scope of potential court outcomes — but this is the opposite, less valuable to Dominion and more harmful to Fox than money.
- alphabet9000 3y ago
  it's on the frontpage of the foxnews.com site as of a few minutes ago, https://i.jollo.org/J7bF2Ayr.png https://i.jollo.org/J7bF2Ayr.png
  - soupfordummies 3y ago
    https://www.linkpicture.com/q/fox-04182023-2120.png https://www.linkpicture.com/q/fox-04182023-2120.png Now, not a single mention on the entire front page as of a few minutes ago. But they're sure hammering the hell out of this Bud Light story still. EDIT: Is Jollo your site? I dig it!
- Kranar 3y ago
  It's on their front page: https://www.foxnews.com/media/fox-news-media-dominion-voting-systems-reach-agreement-over-defamation-lawsuit https://www.foxnews.com/media/fox-news-media-dominion-voting...
  - RC_ITR 3y ago
    It's so weird to see the Fox News bubble (As someone who never visits the site) isn't just ideological, but also topic specific. For example, they are highlighting Aaron Carter and two Florida men who shot children in a road rage incident. No comment on the content, just weird to see 'some else's algorithm' beyond the obvious political stuff - I'm vaguely aware of both stories, but have not seen extensive coverage in my bubble.
    - soupfordummies 3y ago
      Yeah I visit it daily along with other news sites. To me the worst thing is more WHAT they choose to report/not report than it is anything else. Often times there will be a big news story that every other site is reporting on and then the top few stories on Fox News will be some "Guess what gaffe Biden or Harris did now" type tabloid-style hit pieces.
  - ineedasername 3y ago
    I think the GP comment meant the messages entered into evidence in the lawsuit that showed internal Fox communication basically admitting the Dominion claims some of their on-air personalities were making were at best unverified and at worse outright knowingly false. I don't see any Fox News reporting that quotes those messages that were entered into evidence. Though admittedly I didn't spend much time looking-- just the first 3 pages of results in a search.
  - soupfordummies 3y ago
    I just scrolled all the way to the bottom to load the full page and Ctrl+F "dominion" returned 0 results. 9PM EDT
    - 3y ago
wnevets 3y ago
> Would be nice if the Fox News crowd would read some of those messages to wake up from all the manipulation. For a lot of people facts don't matter, only culture war. Its no different than sport fans loving their team despite them cheating e.g Astros, Patriots, Red Sox, etc. They just want their team to win.
- JellyBeanThief 3y ago
  > For a lot of people facts don't matter, only culture war. The thing is that that state of affairs has been deliberately cultivated. And this entire case is a penetrating glimpse into how it's done. There's a range of possible solutions, but they all center on what kind of speech we incentivize. Right now, we've pretty much gone all in on incentivizing speech that gets attention. Traditional media businesses produce news or entertainment in order to sell attention to advertisers for money. Social media just puts a twist on it by outsourcing content creation to individual users in exchange for internet points like upvotes or retweets. Things aren't going to get better until we change that. Facts and reasoned arguments are boring. Culture war is entertaining and engaging. So culture war makes the most money, and that's what we're going to get.
- ithkuil 3y ago
  I recently discovered Tim Urban's "The thinking ladder" * Think like a scientist * Think like a sports fan * Think like an attorney * Think like a zaelot According to his model, being a sports fan is not even close as bad as lower rungs of the ladder. Sport fans do root for their teams and do engage in all sort of tribalism but ultimately care about The Game and they would be deeply dissatisfied if the game ethics were breached in favour of any team, including their own; it would just ruin the whole point of the game. While the "attorney" persona deliberately ignores the truth or pretends to do so if that requires serving their clients. Only the true "zaelot" fully lives in their delusion and nothing, truly nothing will make them wake up from anything because waking up would mean losing themeselves.
  - HDThoreaun 3y ago
    Except teams that cheat still have tons of fans.
mysterydip 3y ago
> Just surprising that it took them this long—the start of the trial—to settle. I was a juror on a civil case once. They said many of them go right up until the trial date before settling out of court, as things finally become "real". Both sides want the other to flinch first.
- sverhagen 3y ago
  It's me waiting until the night before the exam to open the book for the first time, all over again.
- mauvehaus 3y ago
  Second this. I've been called for jury duty a couple of times, and one of the things that I've been told every time is that showing up and being ready to be impaneled is an important driver for things being settled (civil) or a plea deal (criminal) being reached. It's not just something they tell the folks who get called. I've seen it from the other side too where someone I knew was prepared to testify in a criminal case. The defendant pleaded out the day the trial was due to start while we were in the courthouse waiting for the proceedings to begin.
tempestn 3y ago
Particularly surprising given all the embarrassing/reputation-damaging stuff that came out in discovery. Seems like they could have avoided all that by making this offer sooner.
gigatexal 3y ago
I wish they had gone to trial. Oh well. I know MSNBC is just as partisan but Fox let itself get usurped by Trump and went along with the Big Lie for ratings and money and now they get off with no accountability just a nearly 800M fine. Big whoop. And just goes to show you can disparage democracy and elections and get away with it if you have enough money. I’m rather depressed by the whole thing. I thought their case was very solid. Why settle?
- robotresearcher 3y ago
  They settle to avoid their people testifying under oath, and to avoid a more expensive judgement against them. They got to see the evidence, and expected to lose.
- jackmott 3y ago
  [dead]
- Tagbert 3y ago
  While MSNBC is partisan, they are not as committed as Fox to just making up propaganda and running with it. MSNBC is more about what they focus on and how they emphasize issues.
  - jerkstate 3y ago
    Didn’t MSNBC lead the Russiagate charge, particularly Rachel Maddow?
    - thunky 3y ago
      The Rachael Maddows and Don Lemons of the world are probably feeling pretty uncomfortable right now. The truth is that none of them, Fox personalities included, are journalists or even "news". They should all stop misleading people and call themselves "entertainment". They way they can say whatever they want.
      - thunky 3y ago

panarky 3y ago

For the record, the word "dominion" does not appear anywhere on the live foxnews.com site. https://imgur.com/a/cXcITll https://imgur.com/a/cXcITll How would the Fox News crowd even become aware of those messages when their information sources don't report them?

frozenport 3y ago
Does their audience even use search?
ajross 3y ago
They won't, but wouldn't anyway. A civil suit can recover damages, it can't make Fox into something other than what it is. But no one who would have been receptive to the truth is watching Fox in the first place. That is, really, the core truth exposed by this suit. Fox is completely captured by its audience. For years we thought it was the other way around.
- ortusdux 3y ago
  A settlement can contain just about anything. For example, it could require Fox to air an MSNBC produced 1 hour primetime special about the whole affair.
  - ajross 3y ago
    Contracts can constrain or direct speech in specific ways. So sure, you could put that one special in a settlement. There are severe first amendment problems when you try to do something more vague, like "You have to report on unflattering stories about Fox itself", which I took to be the upthread point.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    Yes, but why would Fox “settle” for something harmful to their business that Dominion could not, in the worst case, win in court? A settlement might contain something that wouldn’t be on the table in a court judgement if the value it adds to the side that gets it is disproportional to the cost to the side providing it — so that it is win-win compared to a compromise within the scope of potential court outcomes — but this is the opposite, less valuable to Dominion and more harmful to Fox than money.
alphabet9000 3y ago
it's on the frontpage of the foxnews.com site as of a few minutes ago, https://i.jollo.org/J7bF2Ayr.png https://i.jollo.org/J7bF2Ayr.png
- soupfordummies 3y ago
  https://www.linkpicture.com/q/fox-04182023-2120.png https://www.linkpicture.com/q/fox-04182023-2120.png Now, not a single mention on the entire front page as of a few minutes ago. But they're sure hammering the hell out of this Bud Light story still. EDIT: Is Jollo your site? I dig it!
Kranar 3y ago
It's on their front page: https://www.foxnews.com/media/fox-news-media-dominion-voting-systems-reach-agreement-over-defamation-lawsuit https://www.foxnews.com/media/fox-news-media-dominion-voting...
- RC_ITR 3y ago
  It's so weird to see the Fox News bubble (As someone who never visits the site) isn't just ideological, but also topic specific. For example, they are highlighting Aaron Carter and two Florida men who shot children in a road rage incident. No comment on the content, just weird to see 'some else's algorithm' beyond the obvious political stuff - I'm vaguely aware of both stories, but have not seen extensive coverage in my bubble.
  - soupfordummies 3y ago
    Yeah I visit it daily along with other news sites. To me the worst thing is more WHAT they choose to report/not report than it is anything else. Often times there will be a big news story that every other site is reporting on and then the top few stories on Fox News will be some "Guess what gaffe Biden or Harris did now" type tabloid-style hit pieces.
- ineedasername 3y ago
  I think the GP comment meant the messages entered into evidence in the lawsuit that showed internal Fox communication basically admitting the Dominion claims some of their on-air personalities were making were at best unverified and at worse outright knowingly false. I don't see any Fox News reporting that quotes those messages that were entered into evidence. Though admittedly I didn't spend much time looking-- just the first 3 pages of results in a search.
- soupfordummies 3y ago
  I just scrolled all the way to the bottom to load the full page and Ctrl+F "dominion" returned 0 results. 9PM EDT
  - 3y ago

wnevets 3y ago

> Would be nice if the Fox News crowd would read some of those messages to wake up from all the manipulation. For a lot of people facts don't matter, only culture war. Its no different than sport fans loving their team despite them cheating e.g Astros, Patriots, Red Sox, etc. They just want their team to win.

JellyBeanThief 3y ago
> For a lot of people facts don't matter, only culture war. The thing is that that state of affairs has been deliberately cultivated. And this entire case is a penetrating glimpse into how it's done. There's a range of possible solutions, but they all center on what kind of speech we incentivize. Right now, we've pretty much gone all in on incentivizing speech that gets attention. Traditional media businesses produce news or entertainment in order to sell attention to advertisers for money. Social media just puts a twist on it by outsourcing content creation to individual users in exchange for internet points like upvotes or retweets. Things aren't going to get better until we change that. Facts and reasoned arguments are boring. Culture war is entertaining and engaging. So culture war makes the most money, and that's what we're going to get.
ithkuil 3y ago
I recently discovered Tim Urban's "The thinking ladder" * Think like a scientist * Think like a sports fan * Think like an attorney * Think like a zaelot According to his model, being a sports fan is not even close as bad as lower rungs of the ladder. Sport fans do root for their teams and do engage in all sort of tribalism but ultimately care about The Game and they would be deeply dissatisfied if the game ethics were breached in favour of any team, including their own; it would just ruin the whole point of the game. While the "attorney" persona deliberately ignores the truth or pretends to do so if that requires serving their clients. Only the true "zaelot" fully lives in their delusion and nothing, truly nothing will make them wake up from anything because waking up would mean losing themeselves.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  Except teams that cheat still have tons of fans.

mysterydip 3y ago

> Just surprising that it took them this long—the start of the trial—to settle. I was a juror on a civil case once. They said many of them go right up until the trial date before settling out of court, as things finally become "real". Both sides want the other to flinch first.

sverhagen 3y ago
It's me waiting until the night before the exam to open the book for the first time, all over again.
mauvehaus 3y ago
Second this. I've been called for jury duty a couple of times, and one of the things that I've been told every time is that showing up and being ready to be impaneled is an important driver for things being settled (civil) or a plea deal (criminal) being reached. It's not just something they tell the folks who get called. I've seen it from the other side too where someone I knew was prepared to testify in a criminal case. The defendant pleaded out the day the trial was due to start while we were in the courthouse waiting for the proceedings to begin.

tempestn 3y ago

Particularly surprising given all the embarrassing/reputation-damaging stuff that came out in discovery. Seems like they could have avoided all that by making this offer sooner.

gigatexal 3y ago

I wish they had gone to trial. Oh well. I know MSNBC is just as partisan but Fox let itself get usurped by Trump and went along with the Big Lie for ratings and money and now they get off with no accountability just a nearly 800M fine. Big whoop. And just goes to show you can disparage democracy and elections and get away with it if you have enough money. I’m rather depressed by the whole thing. I thought their case was very solid. Why settle?

robotresearcher 3y ago
They settle to avoid their people testifying under oath, and to avoid a more expensive judgement against them. They got to see the evidence, and expected to lose.
jackmott 3y ago
[dead]
Tagbert 3y ago
While MSNBC is partisan, they are not as committed as Fox to just making up propaganda and running with it. MSNBC is more about what they focus on and how they emphasize issues.
- jerkstate 3y ago
  Didn’t MSNBC lead the Russiagate charge, particularly Rachel Maddow?
  - thunky 3y ago
    The Rachael Maddows and Don Lemons of the world are probably feeling pretty uncomfortable right now. The truth is that none of them, Fox personalities included, are journalists or even "news". They should all stop misleading people and call themselves "entertainment". They way they can say whatever they want.
    - thunky 3y ago