The sum of $787.5 million would be no easy thing to surrender, not even for Fox News, Rupert Murdoch’s cable TV cash cow. But what the news network was forced to say after settling Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit Tuesday — acknowledging “certain claims about Dominion to be false” — was surely a point of intense debate in those 11th-hour negotiations.
The second sentence of the one-paragraph post-settlement statement was the network’s only hint of contrition, and was not nearly as starkly as Dominion put it: Fox lied.
“Fox has admitted to telling lies,” Dominion CEO John Poulos said in his company’s official response.