What People Are Getting Wrong This Week: The Fox News Settlement

Last week, Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems reached a settlement in a landmark defamation case stemming from the 2020 election, and the immediate reaction from the online communities (Twitter and Reddit) was something like disappointment.
In a comment that received over 8,000 upvotes on r/news, Reddit user geologicalnoise lamented: "Money buries truth once again." "Unbelievably disappointing," 2xtreme21 agreed. "$787.5 million is a price they are more than willing to pay to continue to brainwash people," daveyhempton wrote. "This country is fucked." user _AnecdotalEvidence_ wrote.

The cynicism is understandable--Fox's role in the 2020 shit-show was so grotesque, they deserve to be driven off the air--but these commenters (and their up-voters) are dead wrong about the settlement's import. This was not a cost-of-doing-business settlement, or Fox avoiding responsibility, or an example of "nothing happening, again." It's a big deal. It's the finding out that inevitably follows on from fucking around.

Putting Fox's $787.5 million payout in perspective

Fox's $787.5 million payout is the largest settlement from a media company for defamation in American history--four times larger than the runner-up--and it's only the beginning. The company's 2020 fuckery has likely triggered a financial and public relations nightmare that continue for years.

The Fox Corporation has an estimated net worth of $16.70 billion, so less than a billion might not seem like too much of a hit. But that number represents everything Fox owns, from Fox Sports to TMZ to the streaming service Tubi. Fox News' profits in 2022 were around $2.8 billion, which means in a single day, the company paid out 28% of its annual profits. If that was the total cost for the corporation, I assume it would be enough for them rethink defaming voting machine companies in the future, but the actual price tag will is likely to climb much higher.

While some might have wanted to see Fox News anchors in orange jumpsuits or at least begging forgiveness in a pillory, that's not how it works for corporations--money is the only thing that actually matters. And this is a lot of money.

The ongoing financial woes at Fox News

Dominion's suit is only the first voting machine company lawsuit against Fox. Smartmatic's similar action is seeking $2.7 billion, and many legal experts expect Fox to settle with that company as well. "It seems unlikely they will want to take other cases to trial," Shan Wu, a legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, told Axios. In other words: the wallet has been opened, and it's likely to be drained further.

It's hard to determine exactly how much direct impact the settlement has had on Fox's stock price, as it's reasonable to assume the likelihood of a payout was baked into share prices before the settlement was announced. But for what it's worth, Fox's stock has dropped from around $34 a share in February to around $29 a share today--thought at least some of that is likely due to the (seemingly unrelated) ouster of Tucker Carlson.

Speaking of stocks, Fox is likely to face another potentially costly lawsuit...from its own shareholders. Investors are in the process of gathering company records that, "may contain evidence that Fox directors and executives were derelict by allowing the network to air the false claims." This could be used to hold Fox executives personally liable for costs related to the defamation claims, a satisfying turn of events for Fox-haters.

Fox is also facing the loss of its reputation as a news organization (it still had one, I swear). Whether and how much the discovery process in this case hurt Fox can't really be determined, but publicly airing behind-the-scenes communications revealing the duplicity and stupidity of Fox News' executives and on-air personality definitely doesn't help Fox.
It's easy to think of Fox's viewers as all loony-tune MAGA types who won't actually care about accountability and accuracy from Fox as long as their sense of outrage is being stoked, but there have to be some old-school conservative Fox viewers left. Remember that kind of Republican? The state's rights, smaller government types who mostly want to pay lower taxes? I have to assume that however much is left of that demographic doesn't like being lied to by their primary news source and might actually choose to read a newspaper instead. (Okay, that might be going too far.)

What did Fox News get for their money?

While the online cynicism about the settlement is way overblown, people are right in pointing out that Fox denied the American people a high-profile, good vs. evil courtroom battle and an admission from Fox that it lied to its viewers. Avoiding the spectacle of Fox News personalities and executives explaining themselves under oath seems to be what Fox actually "bought" with their $800 million, so it's easy to see as "money burying truth."
But remember, the discovery process already dug up a lot of "truth" behind Fox News' reporting, and a large cash settlement could be seen as more of an admission of guilt for the corporation than an on-air apology. Diehard Fox fans are unlikely to have their minds changed by either.

While not as viscerally satisfying as a courtroom drama, the settlement is a sure thing. As egregious as Fox's actions were, it would still have been a difficult case for Dominion to win, and if you think a settlement wasn't good enough, can you imagine how soul-crushing it would feel if Fox had won? Instead, we get the next best thing: a tacit admission of wrongdoing in the form a settlement, likely years of financial burden, and, hopefully, some changes in Fox News' relationship to the truth.

Fox News, and hope for the future

How likely is any of this to help the cause of American decency and democracy? I'm optimistic, but my optimism is tempered with realism. I don't think Fox News is planning to rethink its cultural niche. They aren't going to blunt their combative on-air rhetoric--that's what their audience is there for, after all. But I imagine many serious conversations have already occurred in Fox News conference rooms about the legality of what's said on air. Many all-company emails have no doubt included new marching orders--like "do not defame voting machine companies in the future"--in all-caps.

I like to think that the next time this happens (in 2024), producers at Fox News will think once (twice is probably too much to ask) before crossing the line between "inflammatory but not actionable" and "this is so horrible it will cost us almost a billion dollars." It's a small shift in a positive direction, but that's how the arc of history bends.

Ultimately, this settlement is good news. Not perfect news, but good. I'm personally sad that so many nattering nabobs of negativism are out there, seemingly unable to enjoy a small (or not so small) victory. No one is forced to pay attention to news or politics, and you can try to avoid having any personal feelings about broad cultural and historical events, but if you're going to pay attention, you should at least be able to take joy in incremental change for the positive. What else is there?

And on a less elevated note: It's going to be so gratifying to watch Rudy Giuliani get buried. Fuck that guy.