Federal Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil has ruled in favor of Fox News, tossing a defamation complaint filed by former Playboy model Karen McDougal over remarks made by @TuckerCarlson in December 2018. 1/
@TuckerCarlson On his show, Carlson accused McDougal of "extortion" vis-a-vis President Trump over a hush payment she'd received from the National Enquirer's parent company so that she wouldn't talk about her affair with Trump. 2/
In addition to alleging "extortion," Carlson said that McDougal "approached Donald Trump and threatened to ruin his career and humiliate his family if he doesn’t give them money." It didn't happen that way. 3/
In any case, Vyskocil ruled that Carlson's commentary constituted "nonactionable hyperbole" and was protected under the First Amendment's shield for raucous public debate. 4/
A key portion of the opinion notes that viewers know, or perhaps should know, not to take too seriously anything that Carlson says. 5/
Statement from Fox News:
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A note about the Chick-fil-A controversy of earlier this week: Former New York Times opinions staffer Adam Rubenstein wrote in the Atlantic that he was scolded in a 2019 orientation session for citing the chain’s crispy chicken sando as his fave. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
An HR rep said, “We don’t do that here. They hate gay people.” To which, attendees “started snapping their fingers in acclamation,” wrote Rubenstein. The incident was the lede of a feature titled, “I Was a Heretic at The New York Times.”
Those documents and materials include communications relating to an NPR report by David Folkenflik regarding host Bret Baier’s proposal for a special on election lies during the time relevant to the trial.
That matter, said the Dominion lawyer, was “smack in the middle of the relevant time period and to the best of my knowledge, we just don’t have documents about this.”
Another omission, claimed the Dominion attorney, relates to material cited in this Daily Beast story: thedailybeast.com/ex-fox-produce…
I’m back in Wilmington, Del., for the second day of pretrial hearings in the defamation case Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News. Trial is slated to begin next Monday.
This morning, Judge Eric Davis delivered a sustained scolding of lawyers for Fox News/Fox Corp. over an issue that arose yesterday.
Justin Nelson, a lawyer for Dominion, claimed yesterday that Fox News attorneys failed to be forthcoming about the status of Rupert Murdoch as a top officer at Fox News.
More from the courtroom in Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News from the courtroom of Judge Eric Davis in Wilmington, DE: A lawyer for Dominion this afternoon issued a stern rebuke to how Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp., have behaved on one key item in this case. 1/
At issue is who are the corporate officers of Fox News, which is critical to discovery procedures in civil litigation. Lawyers for Dominion asked Fox News higher-ups in depositions about the matter of who the officers are. 2/
The Dominion lawyer said that they received “some I-don’t-know” answers. 3/
Judge Davis warned lawyers not to make any argument in opening or closing that contradicts the judge’s ruling in the summary judgment phase of the litigation. “I will stop you,” he said, pledging to instruct the jury that the statement was erroneous. 3/
Some tart exchanges took place when the topic of newsworthiness came up. Fox News has argued time and again that the broadcasts that Dominion has attacked in its lawsuit were newsworthy stuff advanced by former President Trump and lawyers working on his behalf. 4/
Judge Davis made clear that witnesses may claim that they invited on air Sidney Powell or other guests because they thought they were newsworthy. However, he also warned lawyers against arguing before the jury that newsworthiness was a defense against defamation. 5/
Update on the Dominion-Fox News defamation suit: Fox News has filed its application to maintain the redactions that pop up passim in the summary judgment documents that have drawn such great public interest. 1/
Fox News argues that Dominion has jammed the docket with 700 exhibits. The "kitchen-sink approach," writes Fox, has been successful in prompting "dozens and dozens of news articles commenting on a subset of Dominion’s splashy (but legally questionable) defamation “evidence.”
In the filing, Fox News puts forth its arguments as to why the redactions should remain in place. Part of the rationale is what it calls "proprietary newsgathering processes." Have a look: