‘Slap in the face for Fox News’: Judge’s ruling shows network’s defense of its hosts’ lies isn’t working

Fox News suffered a major setback in a Delaware courtroom when Superior Court Judge Eric M. Davis allowed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems to proceed.

Erik Wemple, media critic at The Washington Post, explained how the ruling will change journalism in America.

As we noted before in this space, the Fox News motion to dismiss spelled the last gasp of 'both sides-ism,' the idea that the media’s job is to place conflicting positions before the public and go home. 'There are two sides to every story,' reads the network’s motion. 'The press must remain free to cover both sides, or there will be a free press no more.' The problem with applying that principle to the months spanning the 2020 presidential election and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot is that one side was a 'big lie' — namely, that election fraud had robbed then-President Donald Trump of reelection," he explained.

Transcripts from Fox News personalities Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro and Sean Hannity have complicated the network's defense.

READ MORE: Former Fox News contributor reveals what people at the network really think of Trump

"Though widely expected, the decision is a slap in the face for Fox News, whose heavy doses of outright false and innuendo-laden programming have often sheltered in the First Amendment," he explained. "During the early days of the pandemic, for example, a group in Washington state sued the network for allegedly violating consumer protections laws with its dreadful coronavirus coverage. Nonsense, ruled a judge. And who can forget the time the network wiggled out of a defamation suit stemming from Carlson’s show on the grounds that viewers don’t take his material seriously?"

He noted there is a similar lawsuit filed against Smartmatic, a different voting machines company.

"Fox News now may be running out of First Amendment runway. There’s no clear legal armor for co-opting the biggest lie in recent U.S. memory, encouraging its proponents (e.g. Sidney Powell and Rudolph W. Giuliani) to repeat it again and again, claiming that two little-known voting companies are part of the scheme — and then claiming the whole shebang is an act of journalism. That won’t work," Wemple predicted.

Read the full report.