Research/Study
Dominion Voting Systems’ Fox News defamation lawsuit: A primer
Written by Matt Gertz
Published
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- How Fox smeared Dominion
- Dominion’s legal filings: What you need to know
- The Murdochs and other top Fox executives knew they were pushing lies and liars
- The Murdochs directly oversee Fox’s programming and use it to help the GOP
- Fox’s stars knew they were pushing election lies – and its biggest one secretly hates Trump
- Exposing the “news side” con
- The Dominion lawsuit’s corporate impact
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On Tuesday, the trial begins in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News over the conspiracy theories the right-wing network promoted about the company’s voting machines in the weeks following the 2020 election. Fox’s coverage overlapped with and augmented then-President Donald Trump’s false claims that he had actually won the election and that massive election fraud, including by Dominion, had “rigged” the results against him.
Delaware Superior Court judge Eric Davis denied Fox News and Fox Corp.’s motions for summary judgment to dismiss the case on March 31. He granted in part Dominion’s summary judgment motion, ruling that Fox published false statements about the company which harmed it. The trial will focus on whether Fox acted with actual malice in publishing those falsehoods and is reportedly “expected to last for weeks.”
Dominion’s filings in the case, based on internal communications, text messages, and depositions, reveal that Fox’s top executives and stars – including Fox Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch – were aware that Trump’s election fraud claims were bogus, but promoted them anyway in hopes of diffusing a viewer revolt.
Media Matters chronicled Fox’s attacks on Dominion when they were first launched in November 2020, and has reported extensively on how filings in the case shed new light on Fox’s corrupt and deceitful propaganda operation. Highlights from our archive are below; for more, check out our website about the lawsuit, FoxKnew.com.
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How Fox smeared Dominion
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- Trump-Fox feedback loop amplifies deranged conspiracy theory about Dominion and vote stealing
- It wasn’t just Sidney Powell. Fox repeated the same Dominion lies.
- MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell uses Fox News interview to push baseless conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems
- Fox News knew it was pushing lies about Dominion
- How Sean Hannity talked about Dominion Voting Systems on air
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Dominion’s legal filings: What you need to know
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- They knew it was a lie: The behind-the-scenes happenings at Fox while the network pushed false claims about Dominion
- Fox News is deceiving its viewers. These text messages prove it.
- The 10 most important things we learned about Fox News from the Dominion case
- Rupert Murdoch admits in new Dominion filing that Fox knew election fraud conspiracy theories were all lies it spread for profit
- 10 things you might have missed from the Dominion filings
- New details in Dominion suit reveal damning evidence of deception in Fox News' 2020 election coverage
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The Murdochs and other top Fox executives knew they were pushing lies and liars
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- Rupert Murdoch and Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott knew Fox's stolen election lies could lead viewers to believe the 2020 presidential election could be overturned on January 6
- Fox News lied about Dominion and the 2020 election to compete with far-right Newsmax
- Rupert Murdoch knew he could stop Fox News lies leading up to January 6, but did nothing
- Fox producers thought Jeanine Pirro was “nuts.” Then the network promoted her to its top-rated show.
- The Dominion filings show that for Fox News' election lies, the buck stops with the Murdochs
- Fox News' EVP for Advertising Sales warned about MyPillow's Mike Lindell: “A bad association for us”
- Fox Corp Senior Vice President Raj Shah proposed a “digital blitz targeting far-right folks” to promote Fox News primetime
- Fox News CEO personally sent Mike Lindell a gift to woo him back to Fox
- The Fox News CEO asked for evidence the network pushed the Big Lie. Her PR chief replied with dozens of examples.
- Fox's handling of Jeanine Pirro's election conspiracy theories reveals the full extent of its corruption
- Rupert Murdoch allowed Fox to promote a legal theory used to justify overturning the 2020 election that he privately called “ridiculous”
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The Murdochs directly oversee Fox’s programming and use it to help the GOP
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- Fox News is Republican propaganda, according to Rupert Murdoch
- New Dominion filing: Rupert Murdoch provided Jared Kushner with confidential information about Biden campaign ads
- Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch insisted the network cover a proto-Jan. 6 rally more favorably: “This is a huge celebration of the president.”
- Media Matters filed a complaint with the FEC over Rupert Murdoch sharing confidential information with Jared Kushner
- What the Dominion filings tell us about a Fox News “soft ban” on Trump interviews
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Fox’s stars knew they were pushing election lies – and its biggest one secretly hates Trump
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- Sean Hannity said he didn’t believe Sidney Powell’s election lies. He platformed her anyway.
- Fox hosts and producers knew Giuliani and Powell were unreliable. They kept booking them anyway.
- Latest Dominion drop reveals Tucker Carlson privately attacked Trump and his allies around the 2020 election
- In a private text, Tucker Carlson called Trump skipping Biden’s inauguration “destructive.” That’s not what he said on his show.
- Dominion filings expose Carlson’s QAnon deceit
- Tucker Carlson’s disparaging private messages about Trump contradict his pro-Trump comments on the air
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Exposing the “news side” con
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- Dominion exposed the lie at the heart of Fox's business model
- New filing shows Tucker Carlson tried to get a Fox reporter fired for correctly fact-checking Donald Trump's false claims about Dominion
- Revealed: How Fox prime-time hosts and executives attacked Fox reporters who fact-checked Trumpworld’s 2020 election lies
- Fox News staffers agree: Fox is not a news organization
- Fox News promoted Tom Lowell to oversee all of its editorial content. The Dominion filings show he knew the network was pushing election lies.
- Fox News anchors argued for viewers’ feelings to override “statistics and the numbers” on the network’s 2020 presidential election calls
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The Dominion lawsuit’s corporate impact
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- Did Rupert Murdoch's new deposition in Dominion case scuttle plans to recombine News Corp. and Fox Corp.?
- Dominion filings show Fox board members knew they were betraying their obligations. Legal action against the board is already underway.
- By embracing election denialism, Fox Corp. seemingly defied what its shareholders deem to be responsible corporate governance