by tyler | Apr 10, 2023 | CNN, media
Fox News has settled a defamation lawsuit from a Venezuelan businessman who had accused the network of making false claims about him and the 2020 election, attorneys for the man and Fox News said Saturday in a court filing.
The details of the settlement were not made public.
“This matter has been resolved amicably by both sides,” a Fox News spokesperson said Sunday, declining further comment.
Following the 2020 election, former Fox Business host Lou Dobbs had accused the businessman, Majed Khalil, of playing a key role in supposedly rigging the election against Donald Trump.
In a tweet calling the 2020 election a “cyber Pearl Harbor,” Dobbs named Khalil as one of four people he wanted his audience to “get familiar with” for committing supposed election fraud.
Fox News still faces a monster $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems, which is set to go to trial in just days.
Jury selection for the trial begins Thursday and opening statements are scheduled for April 17, unless the two sides reach a settlement before then.
Dominion had sued Fox News for defamation, and says it was defamed by the right-wing network when Fox hosts and guests claimed in 2020 that its voting systems illegally rigged the election against Trump.
Fox News has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, maintained it is “proud” of its 2020 election coverage, and argued that Dominion’s lawsuit represents a threat to the First Amendment.
While Fox’s legal liability will be decided at trial, the case has already battered Fox’s reputation.
Incriminating texts and emails have shown how Fox executives, hosts and producers didn’t believe the claims the network was peddling about Dominion.
The lawsuit is seen as one of the most consequential defamation cases in recent memory.
Fox has argued that a loss will eviscerate press freedoms, and many scholars agree that the bar should remain high to prove defamation.
Other analysts have said holding Fox accountable for knowingly airing lies won’t pose a threat to objective journalists who would never do that in the first place.
by tyler | Apr 7, 2023 | CNN, media
India’s government is planning to create a state fact-checking unit with the power to order social media platforms to take down content about its activities that it deems “fake or misleading.”
In an amendment to rules covering digital and social media published Thursday, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said that the fact-checking would apply to information about “any business of the central government” on social media platforms.
The Editors Guild of India, a nonprofit organization representing more than 200 journalists, said in a statement on Friday that it was “deeply disturbed” by the new rules, saying they had “deeply adverse implications” for press freedom in India.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, a minister in the IT ministry, told Indian news agency ANI on Friday that the updated rules did not represent “censoring at all,” and that social media companies could choose to continue to share content that fell foul of the fact-checking process, but there would be consequences if they did.
If these companies failed to take down the offending content, Chandrasekhar said, they would lose the automatic legal protection they currently enjoy against complaints about third-party content on their platforms. That would open up the possibility for aggrieved parties, including government ministries, to take them to court.
“The dangers of misinformation, the impact of patently false information in a democracy like ours, is never to be underestimated,” Chandrasekhar said.
The Editors Guild expressed alarm that there was no mention in the rules of “what will be the governing mechanism for such a fact-checking unit, the judicial oversight, [or] the right to appeal.”
“In effect, the government has given itself absolute power to determine what is fake or not, in respect of its own work, and order take down,” the guild added. It urged the government to withdraw the rule change and consult with media organizations.
Twitter and Facebook, which both have a significant presence in India, did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.
Concern has been brewing in recent months over the Indian government’s increasingly restrictive stance towards the media.
In February, Indian tax authorities searched the BBC’s offices in Delhi and Mumbai, accusing the British broadcaster of tax evasion. The incident came nearly a month after the government used emergency powers to block the release of a documentary about Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Modi has been accused of silencing his critics in recent months. A senior member of India’s opposition Congress party was arrested in February for allegedly insulting the prime minister.
And last month, the former leader of the party — Rahul Gandhi — was disqualified as a lawmaker after a court found him guilty of defamation. He was convicted over a speech he made in 2019, in which he referred to thieves as having the same surname as Modi.
by tyler | Apr 7, 2023 | CNN, media
It all started with a little curiosity.
A team of ProPublica reporters earlier this year began looking into the travel of various Supreme Court justices, not entirely sure what they would find, if anything. But after a little digging, the trio of journalists stumbled upon something that piqued their interest.
In fact, what they uncovered raised their eyebrows to such a degree that they believed the discovery was an explosive story in its own right: a trip that Clarence Thomas had taken aboard billionaire Harlan Crow’s private jet between Connecticut and Washington, D.C.
But their editors encouraged the team to keep working the story, Justin Elliot, a member of the reporting team, told me by phone on Thursday. “So we started grinding,” Elliot explained.
A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.
From there, the story quickly grew in size and scope. “It snowballed,” Elliot said. Elliot and his co-authors, Joshua Kaplan and Alex Mierjeski, assembled a spreadsheet comprised of hundreds of people, methodically contacting potential sources as they built the story.
“The progress was gratifyingly steady,” Elliot told me, cautioning, however, that “it was not easy.”
Easy or not, the final product that published on Thursday morning was unquestionably worth the effort. The bombshell report included stunning details that accuse Thomas of having accepted ultra-luxury vacations and private jet travel from a Republican mega-donor for decades.
Even worse? “These trips appeared nowhere on Thomas’ financial disclosures,” the ProPublica team wrote. “His failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said.”
The story landed with a bang, shaking the political world and immediately eliciting statements of serious concern from legal experts and Washington lawmakers. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, a Democrat, said in a statement that the report was “a call to action.” Durbin added that “the Senate Judiciary Committee will act.”
What ultimately happens remains to be seen. But the immense fallout has already underscored the importance of journalism produced by non-profit newsrooms like ProPublica.
“From my perspective as a reporter,” Elliot told me, “I feel so lucky to have the reporting resources and time resources to do a heavy lift like this. There are not that many places where you can do that anymore. So we are grateful to have jobs at ProPublica.
“If there are any rich people reading,” Elliot added, “give your money to nonprofit journalism.”
by tyler | Apr 5, 2023 | CNN, media
Dominion Voting Systems can force Fox Corporation executives Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch to testify on the witness stand at this month’s scheduled defamation trial, a Delaware judge said Wednesday.
Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis said at a hearing that if Dominion subpoenas the Murdochs to testify in-person, he would not quash those subpoenas, and the Murdochs would need to show up to the courthouse. Dominion has sued Fox News for defamation, and says it was defamed by the right-wing network when Fox hosts and guests claimed in 2020 that its voting systems illegally rigged the election.
“They are relevant to the case… if Dominion wants to bring them live, they need to issue a trial subpoena, and I would not quash it,” Davis said. He added that that “it would be my discretion that they come” to testify in-person at the trial, which is scheduled to begin later this month in Wilmington, Delaware.
“Both parties have made these witnesses very relevant,” Davis added.
This outcome is a blow to Fox, which tried to block Dominion from forcing the Murdochs onto the witness stand. The judge signaled at previous hearings that he was skeptical of Fox’s claims that their testimony wasn’t necessary. The judge’s comments Wednesday further raise the stakes for Fox in the closely watched case, which is set to go to trial this month, barring a last-minute settlement.
Fox News denies wrongdoing, maintains that it is “proud” of its 2020 election coverage, and says the lawsuit is a meritless assault against the First Amendment. The right-wing network has also said Dominion’s request for $1.6 billion in damages is a wildly overblown figure that was designed to get headlines.
Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch and his son, CEO Lachlan Murdoch, previously gave lengthy depositions in the case, which revolves around Fox’s decision in late 2020 to repeatedly promote false claims that the election was rigged against then-President Donald Trump.
In his sworn deposition for the case, Rupert Murdoch conceded that several of his top hosts endorsed election lies on the air that he knew were false. This is a key point that gets to the question of “actual malice” and Fox’s potential legal liability.
Despite what appeared on air, Rupert Murdoch and other top Fox figures privately criticized the Trump camp in late 2020 for pushing claims of election fraud. It was “really bad” that Rudy Giuliani was advising Trump, Rupert Murdoch wrote in an email that was revealed in court filings.
A Fox Corporation spokesperson did not respond to CNN’s request for comment on Wednesday.
by tyler | Apr 4, 2023 | CNN, media
The media wedding of the summer is no more.
Billionaire right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch and Ann Lesley Smith have called off their engagement just weeks after announcing they would be tying the knot, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.
Vanity Fair, which was first to report the news on Tuesday, noted that “the breakup ends a whirlwind romance that generated headlines around the world.”
Murdoch and Smith’s relationship became public earlier this year when they were photographed vacationing in the Caribbean island of Barbados.
On March 20, Cindy Adams, who writes a gossip column for Murdoch’s New York Post tabloid, reported the two had become engaged.
“I dreaded falling in love — but I knew this would be my last,” Murdoch told Adams at the time. “It better be. I’m happy.”
Smith, who was previously married to the late country singer Chester Smith, described her relationship with Murdoch to Adams as a “gift from God.”
The two were set to marry over the summer, according to Adams.
“We’re both looking forward to spending the second half of our lives together,” Murdoch had said.
The marriage would have been Murdoch’s fifth. Murdoch is the chairman of Fox Corp. and executive chairman of News Corp.
It’s unclear what happened between Murdoch and Smith since the engagement was announced. A spokesperson for Murdoch declined to comment.
by tyler | Mar 31, 2023 | CNN, media
News organizations have a message for Elon Musk: We are not going to pay you for checkmarks on Twitter.
The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, BuzzFeed, POLITICO, and Vox all scoffed at the notion on Thursday that they would pay Twitter for the feature, which has been free since it was introduced years ago but will soon be phased out.
CNN said it has no intention of paying for Twitter’s subscription service for its accounts but would make a few exceptions for some key staff.
“As of right now, we do not plan to pay for Twitter Blue subscriptions for either our brand or individual accounts, except for a small number of select teams who need this verification as an essential part of newsgathering and reporting,” said Athan Stephanopoulos, CNN’s chief digital officer, in a staff memo Friday.
Twitter announced last week that it will begin “removing legacy verified checkmarks” starting April 1. Musk has aimed to charge organizations that want to retain a checkmark adjacent to their account name $1,000 a month, plus an additional $50 a month for each affiliated account.
Historically, a blue checkmark placed next to the name of an account has indicated that the social media company has confirmed the identity of the person or business operating it. The feature has been helpful to Twitter’s entire community, giving the public an easy way of distinguishing between authentic and inauthentic users.
But Musk, who has sought to change Twitter’s business model and make it less reliant on advertisers — many of which have fled the company since he took over last year — wants to charge for the coveted check.
Musk earlier this year launched Twitter Blue, a subscription service that costs $8 a month. The main benefit? A blue checkmark.
News organizations, however, have said they have no plans to fork over any money for the checkmark.
“We aren’t planning to pay the monthly fee for check mark status for our institutional Twitter accounts,” a spokesperson for The New York Times said Thursday. “We also will not reimburse reporters for Twitter Blue for personal accounts, except in rare instances where this status would be essential for reporting purposes.”
The Los Angeles Times told staffers that Twitter is “not as reliable as it once was” and that it will “not be paying to verify our organization” on Twitter.
“Some of you may be wondering whether or not the L.A. Times will pay for Twitter Blue subscriptions, and the answer right now is no, for several reasons: First of all, verification no longer establishes authority or credibility, instead it will only mean that someone has paid for a Twitter Blue subscription,” said Sara Yasin, managing editor of the Los Angeles Times.
The Washington Post said it “will not pay for Twitter Blue service as an institution or on behalf of our journalists” because “it’s evident that verified checkmarks no longer represent authority and expertise.”
BuzzFeed also told staffers at BuzzFeed News and HuffPost that it will not pay for them to retain their checkmarks on Twitter.
“As an organization, we will not cover fees for individuals to keep their blue checkmarks moving forward,” Karolina Waclawiak, editor in chief of BuzzFeed News, and Danielle Belton, editor in chief of HuffPost, told staffers in a message to both newsrooms. “There are several reasons for this, but one outweighs them all: a blue checkmark no longer means the handle is ‘verified.’”
Vox Media also advised staffers that “it will generally not pay for employees to keep or gain Twitter verification,” according to a memo from group publisher Christopher Grant.
POLITICO additionally said it will not pay for Twitter Blue.
“In the future, a checkmark will no longer mean you are a verified journalist,” Anita Kumar, senior editor of standards and ethics at POLITICO, told the newsroom in a memo. “Instead, it will simply mean you are paying for benefits such as longer tweets and fewer ads.”
