Lauren Sforza
Fox NewsSun, 16 Apr 2023 15:00 UTC
Fox's Howard Kurtz said on his
"Media Buzz" show on Sunday that he will cover the lawsuit Dominion Voting Systems filed against Fox "fair and down the middle," after previously saying he could not cover it.
"The trial on the high profile Dominion voting systems lawsuit against Fox begins tomorrow in Delaware and let's face it, much of the mainstream media is rather openly rooting for Fox to lose," Kurtz said.
"I can assure you that I will provide fair and down the middle coverage of this $1.6 billion suit about coverage of false election fraud claims in 2020, despite the fact that I work here and with that, it's been a very rough week for Fox," he said.
Dominion Voting Systems is seeking a $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox, alleging that the news network defamed the company by broadcasting former President Trump's and his allies' claims that the company's machines were used for election fraud in the 2020 election. Court documents show that top Fox executives and news hosts privately dismissed those claims even though they still aired the claims.Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis
sanctioned Fox last week for withholding evidence in the ongoing lawsuit, just days before the lawsuit is set to go to trial on Monday.
The Hill has reached out to Fox for comment.
Kurtz said on his show in February that Fox was not letting him cover the lawsuit "at least for now," but has since commented on the ongoing legal battle, saying in March that the lawsuit was a "major test of the First Amendment.""Some of you have been asking why I'm not covering the Dominion voting machines case against Fox involving the unproven claims of election fraud in 2020," Kurtz said in February. "It's absolutely a fair question. I believe I should be covering it, it's a major media story, given my role here at Fox."
Comment: UPDATE: From the
New York Times:
Fox News reached a last-minute settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, which accused Fox News of pushing conspiracies that harmed the company.
The settlement averts what would have been a landmark trial.
The judge in the Fox News defamation case said on Tuesday that the case was resolved, abruptly ending a long-running dispute over misinformation in the 2020 election just as a highly anticipated trial was about to begin.
It was a last-minute end to a case that began two years ago and after the disclosure of hundreds of thousands of pages of documents that peeled back the curtain on a media company that has long resisted outside scrutiny. The settlement included a $787.5 million payment from Fox, according to Justin Nelson, a lawyer for Dominion.
Comment: UPDATE: From the New York Times: