by tyler | Mar 28, 2023 | CNN, media
Dominion Voting Systems said in a court filing Monday that it wants to put some of Fox News’ top executives and most well-known hosts on the witness stand when its $1.6 billion defamation case against the right-wing network goes to trial.
Among the network personnel that the voting technology company wants to call witnesses are Fox News chief executive Suzanne Scott; Fox News President Jay Wallace; hosts Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Maria Bartiromo, Laura Ingraham, and Bret Baier; and former executive Bill Sammon and politics editor Chris Stirewalt.
Dominion also said it wishes to call to the stand Abby Grossberg, the Fox News producer who filed lawsuits against the network last week that alleged network lawyers coerced her into providing misleading testimony.
Dominion’s potential witness list, which is not final and will surely face legal challenges from Fox’s lawyers, is part of the routine process of haggling over witnesses while both sides prepare for trial.
Dominion previously asked Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis to force Fox Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch and chief executive Lachlan Murdoch to testify at trial, as well as board member Paul Ryan, the former House speaker. Davis has yet to make a decision on which witnesses he might compel to take the stand.
Fox News, however, did suggest it wants to put Scott, Wallace, Hannity, Carlson, Bartiromo, and Baier on the stand as witnesses.
Their strategy in possibly calling these witnesses isn’t publicly known. But in past court filings, Fox News has highlighted the fact that Baier said on-air shortly after the 2020 election that there weren’t indications of widespread fraud.
Both sides are also hoping to put on testimony from their handpicked experts who specialize in election statistics, the security of voting machines, journalism ethics, the impact of disinformation in public discourse, and more.
Fox News said it has journalism experts who will testify that its 2020 election coverage “did not depart from professional standards,” and that its election security experts can testify that “Dominion’s systems are riddled with security problems and vulnerabilities,” according to court filings.
Dominion said in court filings that its experts will describe how it would’ve been literally “impossible” for its software to flip millions of votes from Trump to Biden, which is precisely what many Fox hosts and guests suggested it did in 2020.
“[Rupert Murdoch] holds a special role at Fox Corporation, that he may be able to be compelled to be here,” Davis said at a hearing earlier this week, though he stressed that he hasn’t made decisions on witnesses yet.
Lawyers for Fox News urged Davis to reject these requests, arguing that it would put an “undue burden” on the Murdochs, and that they don’t have much pertinent information to testify about anyway.
The Murdochs, top Fox News executives and many of its TV hosts have already sat for lengthy depositions– which revealed most of them didn’t believe the election-rigging claims that were being peddled on-air. Dominion is now seeking in-person testimony from many of these figures.
Both Fox News and Dominion asked Davis in court this week to declare them the outright winner without a trial.
Davis has yet to rule on the matter, but most legal experts believe the case will ultimately go to a jury trial if the two sides do not reach a settlement before mid-April when a trial is scheduled to start.
Dominion has alleged in its lawsuit against Fox Corporation and Fox News that during the 2020 election the right-wing network “recklessly disregarded the truth” and pushed various pro-Trump conspiracy theories about the election technology company because “the lies were good for Fox’s business.”
Fox News has maintained that it is “proud” of its 2020 coverage and has said Dominion’s lawsuit could weaken the First Amendment. Fox News has argued that it can’t be held liable for airing inherently newsworthy allegations from public figures that Dominion rigged the 2020 election, even if those claims were false. Fox News has also argued that Dominion’s request for $1.6 billion in damages is a wildly inflated figure, citing the company’s previous valuations.
“Dominion’s needlessly expansive live witness list is yet another attempt to generate headlines and distract from the many shortcomings of its case,” a Fox spokesperson said.
Fox Corporation, the right-wing channel’s parent company, was also named in the lawsuit. Fox Corporation has argued that Dominion overstated its role in Fox News’ editorial coverage of the 2020 election and asked to be dropped from the lawsuit – but the judge let the case move forward.
by tyler | Mar 27, 2023 | CNN, media
Taylor Swift fans headed to court in Los Angeles Monday to face off against Ticketmaster after the ticketing giant fumbled online sales to the mega-star’s latest tour.
Ticketmaster and parent-company Live Nation face a lawsuit from Swifties across the country filed in December for “unlawful conduct” in the pop star’s chaotic tour sale. The plaintiffs claim that the ticketing giant violated antitrust laws, among others.
Today was a status hearing – class action status was discussed, and though the defense is not anticipating asking for class action, they asked to reserve the right to do so.
Arguments heard today in the court hearing by disgruntled fans are mostly procedural. The plaintiffs are asking Ticketmaster to award them at least $2,500 each in damages. But lead plaintiff Julie Barfuss of Salt Lake City says the case is about giving everyday fans a better chance to see their favorite artists.
“I tried in total of 41 times that first day to get tickets. It kicks you out into the queue and you’re back in and then I kept getting errors,” Barfuss told CNN. “Then, I again spent a couple hours trying to do it the second day. When I finally got in and was going to buy tickets, they were like $1400.”
Ticketmaster wants a motion to compel arbitration, meaning it will force the prosecution to settle the matter out of court. The plaintiffs’ attorney has to provide emails for what they anticipate will be 340 plaintiffs by the end of the month.
Lead plantiff’s counsel John Genga isn’t expecting any “smoking guns” from Ticketmaster today, he told CNN. But he argued that the entire experience of the fan is relevant to the case.
“The entire experience is going to be relevant to even arguing the motion to compel arbitration,” Genga said. “Because if they were hurrying through or stuck in a queue for eight hours, that may all affect whether they knowingly agreed to something.”
Jurisdiction was also discussed, though it has not been resolved. The plaintiffs want the case to go back to state court, rather than federal court.
The lawsuit alleges Ticketmaster and its parent company were anti-competitive, imposing higher prices on fans in the presale, sale and resale market. It claims Ticketmaster forces concertgoers to exclusively use its site and controlled all registration and access to Swift’s “The Eras Tour.”
“It has nothing to do with the money. It has everything to do with TicketMaster is the only venue in town. It’s the only place to get tickets,” Swift fan Penny Harrison told CNN. “The hope is that in 10 years from now that they’ll look back and say this was the turning point. This was when competition branched out and ticket prices came down.”
In today’s hearing, Swifties are seeking a penalty of $2,500 for each violation, which could add up quickly, based on the millions of angered fans who did not receive tickets.
The December lawsuit also claimed that since Ticketmaster has agreements with the large stadiums in the tour, Swift “has no choice” but to work with Ticketmaster due to the size of her fan base. It also alleges that Ticketmaster profits off the resale of tickets in the secondary market by adding a service fee to its fan-to-fan exchange.
“Ticketmaster is a monopoly that is only interested in taking every dollar it can from a captive public,” according to the lawsuit.
Pre-sale tickets for “The Eras Tour” frustrated Swift fans across the country in a debacle that stayed in the headlines for weeks. In November, “Verified Fans” were sent a presale code — but when sales began, heavy demand snarled the website and millions of Swifties could not get their hands on a ticket. Presale tickets for Capital One card holders brought similar frustration — and then Ticketmaster canceled sales to the general public, citing “extraordinarily high demand” and “insufficient remaining ticket inventory.”
The lawsuit alleges the company “intentionally and purposely mislead TaylorSwiftTix presale ticket holders by providing codes to 1.4 million ‘verified fans,’” despite the shortage of seats. Ticketmaster said more than two million tickets were sold on the first day of sales for her upcoming tour — the most ever sold for an artist in a single day.
“Millions of fans waited up to eight hours and were unable to purchase tickets as a result of insufficient ticket releases,” the lawsuit said. “Ticketmaster intentionally provided codes when it could not satisfy demands.”
In a blog post that has since been taken down, Ticketmaster said its “Verified Fans” system, a mechanism aimed at eliminating bots by giving presale codes to individuals, couldn’t keep up with the intense demand. Roughly 3.5 million people signed up for the program to buy Swift tickets, its “largest registration in history.” That unprecedented demand, combined with a “staggering number of bot attacks as well as fans who didn’t have invite codes” drove “unprecedented traffic” to its site, Ticketmaster said, and, essentially, broke it.
Ticketmaster apologized to Swift and her fans for the “terrible experience” some had trying to purchase tickets and said it would work to “shore up our tech for the new bar that has been set by demand” for Swift’s tour.
The ticketing debacle also drew the ire of several lawmakers, leading to a Justice Department investigation and a congressional hearing.
“We want answers. We want to know why it happened. We want to know could it have been prevented? If it was preventable, why wasn’t it? What can we do to make the live event industry more accessible to the average consumer?” one of the plaintiffs, Joe Akmakjian of Denver, told CNN.
“I see this as a predatory monopoly, and if we can have a monopoly for something fun like sporting events and concerts, I’m worried that that will pave the way for monopolies in other industries, like health care and transportation that really affects the way people live day to day.”
by tyler | Mar 27, 2023 | CNN, media
The Fox News producer who accused the right-wing network of pressuring her into giving misleading testimony in the Dominion defamation case has been fired, she disclosed in new court filings.
Lawyers for Abby Grossberg, a former producer for Maria Bartiromo and Tucker Carlson who is suing Fox News over the alleged legal coercion, said that she was fired by the network on Friday. Her lawyers said the company’s official explanation for the dismissal was that she “improperly disclosed information regarding the Dominion/Fox Lawsuit that the Company purportedly believed was privileged.”
Grossberg’s attorneys argued in court papers that her “pretextual” filing was yet another attempt by Fox News to “mask its continued unlawful conduct.” Fox News has denied all wrongdoing regarding Grossberg, and separately, maintains that it never defamed Dominion.
Last week, Grossberg filed explosive lawsuits in New York and Delaware accusing Fox News lawyers of coercing her into providing misleading testimony in the Dominion case – testimony that would protect the network and its top talent and executives. She also claimed she had been subjected to a toxic and sexist work environment while at Fox News. The company is contesting all of her allegations.
In another twist in the Dominion litigation, Grossberg also submitted damning new testimony in the high-stakes defamation case, which was made public Monday. She submitted an “errata sheet” — a court filing to formally correct mistakes or inaccuracies in prior filings or testimony. She said a correction was needed because of Fox’s alleged legal interference in her September 2022 deposition.
When asked in her September deposition if she trusts the Fox producers that she worked with, she originally said “yes.” But she now wants to change that testimony to “no, I don’t trust all of [the] producers at Fox” because “they’re activists, not journalists, and impose their political agendas on the programming,” according to the new court filings.
Grossberg also originally said in her September deposition that it wasn’t important to issue a correction when a guest said something untrue on Bartiromo’s Fox News program, “Sunday Morning Futures.” But in her new testimony, she said, “Yes,” because “although our guests had the right to answer how they pleased, it was Maria’s responsibility to push back against untrue statements with facts or follow-up questions.”
Reacting to the news of Grossberg’s dismissal, A Fox News spokesperson said in a statement Monday that the network’s lawyers had previously told Grossberg that she was “free to file whatever legal claims she wished” but was not legally permitted to share the “privileged information” that she possessed because of her role in the Dominion case. She gave a deposition in the case, and her testimony has been cited by Dominion in some of its court filings.
“We were clear that if she violated our instructions, Fox would take appropriate action including termination,” the spokesperson said. “Ms. Grossberg ignored these communications and chose to file her complaint without taking any steps to protect those portions containing Fox’s privileged information.”
The Fox News statement went on to say that the network “will continue to vigorously defend Fox against Ms. Grossberg’s unmeritorious legal claims, which are riddled with false allegations.”
Dominion’s underlying defamation case against Fox News is scheduled for trial next month. Dominion sued the right-wing network because its hosts and guests repeatedly promoted the debunked claim that the voting technology company rigged the 2020 election by flipping millions of votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.
CNN’s Oliver Darcy contributed reporting.
by tyler | Mar 27, 2023 | CNN, media
Disney CEO Bob Iger on Monday said his company will begin laying off staff starting this week, the first of three rounds of expected cuts following his announcement in February that the company would axe 7,000 jobs.
The cuts to Disney’s global workforce are part of a multibillion-dollar cost-cutting initiative aimed at streamlining the company’s operations in a period of media industry turmoil.
In a memo to staff obtained by CNN, Iger said the layoffs would come in three waves. The first round will begin this week, and managers will soon start to notify affected employees. A second, larger round of layoffs will take place in April, Iger said, with several thousand staffers let go. A third round of layoffs will then occur “before the beginning of the summer” to reach the company’s planned goal of eliminating 7,000 jobs.
“The difficult reality of many colleagues and friends leaving Disney is not something we take lightly,” Iger said in the memo. “In tough moments, we must always do what is required to ensure Disney can continue delivering exceptional entertainment to audiences and guests around the world – now, and long into the future.”
Disney
(DIS) had about 220,000 workers as of October 1, of which approximately 166,000 were employed in the United States. A cut of 7,000 jobs represents about 3% of its global workforce.
The layoffs follow Iger’s return to Disney in November after the company’s board fired Bob Chapek as its leader.
