by tyler | Apr 13, 2023 | CNN, media
Jury selection began Thursday in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation trial against Fox News over the right-wing network’s promotion of debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.
Roughly 300 potential jurors have been summoned to the Delaware Superior Court and will eventually be whittled down to a panel of 12 jurors and a group of alternates. The high-stakes trial — which will put a spotlight on Fox’s 2020 election denialism and the role of disinformation in American politics — is expected to last about six weeks.
Jurors will be peppered with questions about their news consumption habits, including whether they watch Fox News. But Judge Eric Davis has narrowed the scope of the questioning — he doesn’t want jurors to be asked if they believe the 2020 election was legitimate, or if they had any connection to the January 6 insurrection.
If a jury isn’t seated Thursday, the process will continue Friday. Opening statements are scheduled for Monday.
The case revolves around Fox’s decision, after Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, to allow haywire conspiracy theories about Dominion onto its airwaves. The allegations, levied by Fox guests and embraced by some Fox hosts, falsely claimed Dominion and its voting software flipped millions of ballots away from Trump, to steal the election.
Dominion has argued that Fox destroyed its reputation as a trusted voting technology company by repeatedly amplifying these false claims. Emails and texts unearthed during the litigation have shown that many Fox hosts, producers, and top executives privately believed the claims on their airwaves were preposterous and untrue.
In recent weeks, Dominion’s case has picked up steam, though it’s still a high bar to prove defamation. The company will need to convince the jury that people at Fox acted with “actual malice” — they knew what was being said on-air was false but broadcast it anyway, or they acted with such a reckless disregard for the truth that they should be held liable.
The judge has already rejected several First Amendment defenses that Fox hoped to invoke, and he further constrained Fox in a flurry of pretrial rulings this week, stopping the right-wing network from trying to argue that the allegedly defamatory statements were “newsworthy” and thus deserved coverage.
An in an 11th-hour twist, the judge sanctioned Fox on Wednesday for withholding evidence from Dominion, and said he’d assign an outside attorney to investigate whether Fox misled the court and deliberately hid any additional material from Dominion.
Fox News says it didn’t defame Dominion and maintains that it is still “proud” of its 2020 election coverage. The right-wing network also denied that it withheld any evidence from Dominion.
“Dominion’s lawsuit is a political crusade in search of a financial windfall, but the real cost would be cherished First Amendment rights,” a Fox spokesperson said in a statement. “While Dominion has pushed irrelevant and misleading information to generate headlines, Fox News remains steadfast in protecting the rights of a free press, given a verdict for Dominion and its private equity owners would have grave consequences for the entire journalism profession.”
by tyler | Apr 13, 2023 | CNN, media
Jury selection is set to begin Thursday in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation trial against Fox News over the right-wing network’s promotion of debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.
Roughly 300 potential jurors have been summoned to the Delaware Superior Court and will eventually be whittled down to a panel of 12 jurors and 12 alternates. The high-stakes trial — which will put a spotlight on Fox’s 2020 election denialism and the role of disinformation in American politics — is expected to last about six weeks.
Jurors will be peppered with questions about their news consumption habits, including whether they watch Fox News. But Judge Eric Davis has narrowed the scope of the questioning — he doesn’t want jurors to be asked if they believe the 2020 election was legitimate, or if they had any connection to the January 6 insurrection.
If a jury isn’t seated Thursday, the process will continue Friday. Opening statements are scheduled for Monday.
The case revolves around Fox’s decision, after Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, to allow haywire conspiracy theories about Dominion onto its airwaves. The allegations, levied by Fox guests and embraced by some Fox hosts, falsely claimed Dominion and its voting software flipped millions of ballots away from Trump, to steal the election.
Dominion has argued that Fox destroyed its reputation as a trusted voting technology company by repeatedly amplifying these false claims. Emails and texts unearthed during the litigation have shown that many Fox hosts, producers, and top executives privately believed the claims on their airwaves were preposterous and untrue.
In recent weeks, Dominion’s case has picked up steam, though it’s still a high bar to prove defamation. The company will need to convince the jury that people at Fox acted with “actual malice” — they knew what was being said on-air was false but broadcast it anyway, or they acted with such a reckless disregard for the truth that they should be held liable.
The judge has already rejected several First Amendment defenses that Fox hoped to invoke, and he further constrained Fox in a flurry of pretrial rulings this week, stopping the right-wing network from trying to argue that the allegedly defamatory statements were “newsworthy” and thus deserved coverage.
An in an 11th-hour twist, the judge sanctioned Fox on Wednesday for withholding evidence from Dominion, and said he’d assign an outside attorney to investigate whether Fox misled the court and deliberately hid any additional material from Dominion.
Fox News says it didn’t defame Dominion and maintains that it is still “proud” of its 2020 election coverage. The right-wing network also denied that it withheld any evidence from Dominion.
“Dominion’s lawsuit is a political crusade in search of a financial windfall, but the real cost would be cherished First Amendment rights,” a Fox spokesperson said in a statement. “While Dominion has pushed irrelevant and misleading information to generate headlines, Fox News remains steadfast in protecting the rights of a free press, given a verdict for Dominion and its private equity owners would have grave consequences for the entire journalism profession.”
by tyler | Apr 12, 2023 | CNN, media
The judge overseeing Dominion Voting Systems’ massive defamation case against Fox News said Wednesday that he plans to appoint an outside attorney to investigate whether the right-wing network lied to the court and withheld key evidence, and sanctioned Fox’s attorneys over the matter.
“I am very concerned … that there have been misrepresentations to the court. This is very serious,” Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis said Wednesday at a pretrial hearing in Wilmington, where he repeatedly expressed exasperation and frustration with Fox’s attorneys.
These extraordinary moves, on the brink of the trial starting next week, are the latest blows to Fox News as it tries to fend off the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit that Dominion filed in the wake of the 2020 presidential election.
Davis said he would appoint a so-called “special master” to investigate whether Fox previously made assertions to the court that were “untrue or negligent” when it said Rupert Murdoch was only an officer at Fox Corporation and didn’t have any role in Fox News – and when it said it had fulfilled all its obligations in the discovery process. This distinction about Murdoch may have narrowed what Fox turned over as part of the discovery process – like internal emails, text messages and other material.
The sanction Davis imposed against Fox will allow Dominion to conduct additional depositions of some Fox witnesses. Fox must make those witnesses available and pay for the depositions.
“I’m very uncomfortable right now,” Davis said, after dressing down Fox’s lawyers from the bench.
The special master will look into what sanctions might be appropriate against Fox, including potentially instructing jurors in the case that Fox inappropriately blocked Dominion from obtaining key evidence.
The judge ordered Fox to preserve “any and all communications” related to the Murdoch issue.
Fox denies wrongdoing and says it properly disclosed Murdoch’s roles in its public financial filings. Fox attorney Dan Webb said Wednesday that “nobody intentionally withheld information” from Dominion.
by tyler | Apr 12, 2023 | CNN, media
Warner Bros. Discovery on Wednesday unveiled “Max,” its high-stakes super-streamer that unites some of the company’s most storied brands under one roof and aims to aggressively compete in the streaming marketplace as the traditional linear television business rapidly declines.
The new service, announced by CEO David Zaslav at a press event Wednesday, will launch May 23 and give consumers access to a large library of programming across Warner Bros. Discovery’s sprawling portfolio: Warner Bros., HBO, HGTV, Food Network, Cartoon Network, TLC and others.
“It’s the one to watch,” Zaslav said, referencing the service’s tagline, “because we have so many of the world’s iconic and globally recognized franchises. It’s our superpower.” The streaming platform is a service “every member of the household” can go to for entertainment, he added.
Max subscribers can choose from three price tiers. The least expensive is $9.99 a month and will show ads. The ad-free version will cost $15.99, the price of the company’s existing HBO Max service. That tier will let customers stream on two devices at once and download up to 30 titles, but the content will be available only in high-definition rather than 4K.
Users who want the higher-resolution 4K streams will have to buy the Max “ultimate plan” for $19.99 a month, which includes up to four concurrent streams, 100 downloads and Dolby Atmos sound.
Existing HBO Max customers will be transitioned to the new service without any action on their part. Those users, said, a spokesperson for Warner Bros. Discovery told CNN, can keep existing features like 4K HDR resolution for a limited period before being prompted to move into the “ultimate plan.”
The Max platform was borne of the mega-merger announced between WarnerMedia and Discovery in 2021 and completed last year. Warner Bros. Discovery is also the parent company of CNN.
Company executives have touted the combined streaming service as unique in its content mix: It packages award-winning prestige programming like HBO’s “Succession” and “House of the Dragon” with unscripted shows like HGTV’s “Fixer Upper” and TLC’s “90 Day Fiancé.”
Zaslav also hinted that news and sports programming will factor into the service in the future, given that Warner Bros. Discovery owns properties such as Turner Sports and CNN.
“We are a global leader in sports and we are a global leader in news,” Zaslav said. “And in a few months we will come back to you on our attack plan to use this important and differentiating content to grow our streaming business even further.”
The Max service represents the future for Warner Bros. Discovery, which has been entrenched in a traditional TV business that is declining as audiences switch to streaming.
Other companies enmeshed in the cable business have also moved in recent years to launch streaming platforms, including Disney
(DIS), NBC, and Paramount. But none of these companies have achieved the success of Netflix
(NFLX), which pioneered the streaming business and has more than 230 million global subscribers.
Warner Bros. Discovery hopes that it will amass 130 million subscribers by 2025. At the launch event, the company’s streaming chief Jean-Briac Perrette discussed several improvements to the HBO Max interface to increase retention and engagement, adding that the company had invested in machine learning so home feeds can recommend content using a “human-plus-machine approach.”
But subscriber growth for streaming services has slowed in recent years as the market becomes more saturated. Some companies have introduced lower-priced ad-supported plans to draw people in.
Increasingly, executives have moved to highlight profitability over subscriber growth as the most important barometer for a company’s success. Netflix even announced last year that it would stop providing guidance for its membership, stating that the company is “increasingly focused on revenue as our primary top-line metric.”
by tyler | Apr 11, 2023 | CNN, media
Dominion Voting Systems can’t bring up the January 6 insurrection during its upcoming defamation trial against Fox News, a Delaware judge ruled Tuesday, who also revealed at a hearing that he has been receiving death threats.
The voting technology company sued Fox News over the right-wing network’s promotions of false claims that Dominion voting machines rigged the 2020 election. But almost all of the allegedly defamatory statements mentioned in Dominion’s lawsuit occurred before the January 6, 2021, storming of the US Capitol.
Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis said at a hearing Tuesday that invoking January 6 would be too prejudicial with the jury, and that the case isn’t about whether Fox News “influenced” the insurrection.
“That may be for another court at another time, but it’s not for this court at this time,” Davis said.
The judge is issuing rulings on nearly two dozen pretrial motions that will set the stage for the historic trial, which is set to kick off this week, with jury selection on Thursday. Dominion is seeking $1.6 billion in damages. Fox says it didn’t defame anyone and that the case is a meritless assault on press freedoms.
But Davis ruled in Dominion’s favor on other key questions, blocking Fox from making some First Amendment arguments and from bringing up evidence that it thought would help its defense.
The judge ruled that Fox can’t bring up broadcasts where reporters accurately fact-checked Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, to prove that other broadcasts that amplified those lies weren’t defamatory.
Those other broadcasts “are not relevant” to the case, Davis said, because “you can’t absolve yourself of defamation by putting someone else on at a different time” who told the truth about Dominion.
The judge also ruled that Fox can’t use internal Dominion emails where its staffers said their products “suck” and were “riddled with bugs,” to prove that there were real concerns about Dominion machines, and therefore Fox didn’t defame Dominion. Those emails weren’t public in 2020, so they couldn’t have influenced the state of mind of Fox staffers when they promoted the Dominion claims on their shows.
But if Dominion wins and the case moves to damages, Fox can bring up these emails to show that Dominion might be losing business because of voting security concerns and not just because of alleged defamation.
Later in the hearing, Davis cleared the way for Dominion to bring up Fox’s financial information at the trial, including details about salaries of top hosts and executives. Fox tried to block this from the trial, arguing that salaries aren’t linked to ratings, and that this data could bias the jury against the network.
“Economics are relevant,” Davis said.
But Davis warned the network’s lawyers not to undercut or circumvent his rulings during their opening statements to the jury, when the high-stakes defamation trial kicks off next week.
Davis issued the warning to both sides but zeroed in on Fox News.
If Fox invokes legal defenses that Davis previously ruled were inadmissible, then “I will stop you and I will tell the jury that what you just said is incorrect” and to “disregard what you just said,” Davis said.
The judge urged lawyers from both sides to “be very careful about that.”
Fox News attorney Dan Webb told the judge, “I’m not going to step over this line.”
“It looks like you’re trying,” Davis replied.
In a major ruling last month, Davis rejected several legal defenses that Fox News hoped to use to either shut down the lawsuit, or to argue in front of the jury that it is not liable for the alleged defamation.
These unsuccessful legal defenses included claims that Fox hosts had broad First Amendment protections because they were reporting on ongoing legal proceedings — or that Fox personalities were neutrally covering “newsworthy” comments about Dominion and weren’t taking sides on the matter.
The judge overseeing Dominion’s case against Fox News also revealed Tuesday that he has received death threats.
“I’ve sent you things that I’ve received,” Davis told lawyers from both sides, during a discussion about separate death threats targeting Dominion employees.
The discussion revolved around whether Dominion can bring up death threats and harassment that its employees have faced after the 2020 election. Davis ruled that Dominion can tell the jury about the existence of the threats, but can’t get into the content of the threats, because Fox obviously doesn’t directly control what uninvolved third parties say.
“I’m not downplaying it,” Davis said to the Dominion lawyers. “You need to take every threat seriously. I take every threat seriously.”
Dominion has argued that many of the threats were inspired by Fox, which the network denies. If Dominion wins, it wants Fox to pay for the beefed-up security measures that it implemented after 2020. A court spokesperson declined to comment about the threats against Davis.
by tyler | Apr 10, 2023 | CNN, media
Australian broadcaster Sky News has left TikTok because of security concerns that have led several Western governments to ban the video app on devices used by officials.
In an article published on the Sky News Australia website Monday, digital editor Jack Houghton said the security risks posed by the “Beijing-controlled platform” were “too great for any serious news publisher.”
“TikTok is a spy network masquerading as a social media platform which has been proven to illegally pilfer the data of journalists, public citizens and politicians,” Houghton wrote.
“We urge [media organizations] to consider this dilemma and stop trading security and integrity for a few worthless views,” he added.
CNN has reached out to TikTok for a response.
Experts say the security fears behind the recent government bans, while serious, currently appear to reflect only the potential for TikTok to be used for foreign intelligence, not that it has been. There is still no public evidence the Chinese government has actually spied on people through TikTok.
Sky News Australia is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp
(NWSA)oration, and is a separate entity to UK broadcaster Sky News, which is owned by Sky Group, a division of US conglomerate Comcast
(CCZ).
Last year, TikTok’s owner ByteDance admitted that four employees had improperly accessed personal data of two journalists from the Financial Times and BuzzFeed.
ByteDance said the relevant staff were investigating potential information leaks, and they were fired for misusing their authority to access TikTok user data.
Separately, broader concerns have been raised by experts worldwide that TikTok presents a security risk due to the vast troves of data it collects on millions of users, and its vulnerability to potential interference from the Chinese government, which wields considerable influence over businesses in its jurisdiction.
The United States and other Western nations have banned the app on government devices, with the Biden administration threatening to go further by imposing a broader ban unless TikTok’s Chinese owners sell their stakes in the company. A blanket ban would deny 150 million US users access to the platform.
TikTok has repeatedly denied it has links to Beijing, and the company’s CEO Shou Chew recently told a US congressional hearing that he’d seen no evidence that the Chinese government had access to user data and had never asked for it. Moreover, he said the amount of information the company collects on users is no more than most industry players.
While a number of governments have moved to delete TikTok from their employees’ phones, most major news companies are yet to follow.
Last month, the BBC advised staff to delete TikTok from their work phones, following a similar move by Danish public broadcaster, DR, but the British broadcaster still publishes its content on the short form video app to millions of followers.
Sky News Australia’s Houghton said the decision by the BBC to ban the app yet publish content on the platform was a “paradox” that “proves the hunger for reaching new demographics has perverted editorial strategies in newsrooms globally.”
CNN has reached out to the BBC for comment.
Before it deleted its account, Houghton said Sky News Australia had 65,000 followers and “many millions of video views.”
The channel is known for its conservative commentary and last year was described in a report by UK think tank the Institute for Strategic Dialogue as “an important right-wing outlet with growing influence internationally.”
In relation to the climate crisis, it was also described as “content hub for influencers, sceptics and outlets across the globe.”
In 2021, YouTube banned Sky News Australia from uploading new content for one week for posting misinformation about the Covid pandemic. At the time, the broadcaster issued a statement rejecting allegations that its host had denied the existence of Covid-19, and that it had published or removed videos that showed them saying as much.
Houghton also argued in an online article that the decision was “a disturbing attack on the ability to think freely.”
