Dem
51
GOP
49
It is important to keep in mind that Fox News, Newsmax, OAN, and other right-wing media outlets are first and foremost businesses. Their goal is to make money for their owners. Spreading right-wing propaganda is a means to the goal. It's not the goal itself. The texts and e-mails from Tucker Carlson and others showed that none of them believed the lies about the 2020 election they were spouting on air. It was just a job for them and they did what their employers wanted from them. How is that going to work going forward? Probably like this.
To start with, the full impact of the various lawsuits is not clear yet. Dominion Voting Systems extracted $787.5 million from Fox, but Fox has something like $4 billion in the bank and can afford to pay. The Smartmatic lawsuit against Fox hasn't started yet, but it could play out differently than the Dominion one. In particular, the settlement between Fox and Dominion is an implicit admission that Fox hosts lied on air and knew they were lying. Smartmatic is sure to introduce this as new evidence if its case goes to trial. That may encourage it to actually go to trial unless Fox coughs up the full $2.7 billion it is asking for. Why settle for less when the case is now even stronger than Dominion's? For Fox, paying up is possible, but would run its bank account perilously close to zero. From a business point of view, losing $3.5 billion is not something you want to do every day.
For the smaller networks, Newsmax and OAN, payouts of a billion dollars, give or take, are not possible. They are marginally profitable, if at all, and don't have that kind of money in the bank. An adverse ruling in the Dominion case would bankrupt them. Dominion might just decide to teach them a lesson by refusing to settle for an amount they can afford and forcing them into bankruptcy. Ditto Smartmatic.
Also keep in mind that Dominion and Smartmatic have both also sued Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and Pillowman. All of them would definitely notice a billion-dollar judgment against them. Probably even a $100-million judgment. In addition, Smartmatic also sued Jeanine Pirro, Maria Bartiromo, and Lou Dobbs. One or the other also sued some minor players. as well.
All of these things are going to have big effects downstream. The lawyers at Fox and the others—if they survive—are going to keep a much closer tab on all the hosts. What they say on air is going to have to be carefully vetted in advance to prevent more lawsuits. Statements like "Trump won and the election was stolen from him by Dominion's rigged machines" are going to be replaced by lawyerspeak like "Some people believe that evidence exists showing that some election results reported by some media outlets may not be entirely accurate." The base is not going to like this and it could cost Fox and others viewers—unless all its competitors have been sued out of existence. At the very least, it is certain to turn the temperature down. Of course, if Fox stops being Fox and OAN and Newsmax are gone, some viewers may just stop consuming politics day and night. After all, homo sapiens got along without cable news for some 300,000 years. It can be done.
The individual lawsuits against Giuliani, Powell, and Pillowman could have an even bigger effect going forward. If all of them are forced into bankruptcy and stripped of most of their assets, minor right-wing kooks will surely notice and hold their fire for a few years, until all this is forgotten. (V)