![]() The lawyers contend the supposedly defamatory statements often involved hyperbolic characterizations or mere opinions. The network's lawyers write, as they have before, that Fox was merely relaying inherently newsworthy claims by Trump and his surrogates. In countering Dominion, Fox's lawyers offer a chart of offending statements and what it termed the "omitted context" that could explain why the material was newsworthy, why the Fox hosts' treatment of it was responsible, and then why it was not defamatory. "They instantly didn't stand up to the light of day." "If anything, because they were so outlandish, they immediately attracted widespread attention and were debunked," Perez says. Instead, its filings suggest that the Fox stars relaying them on the air reflected an appropriate journalistic response to stark claims about the functioning of American democracy, as they involve "questions to a newsmaker on newsworthy subjects" or they "accurately report on pending allegations."Įddie Perez, board member at the OSET Institute, a non-profit, non-partisan outfit advocating for reliable and transparent election technology, calls the claims about Dominion that were amplified by Fox hosts and peddled by its guests "outlandish." Many were unraveled in real time during the 2020 election season – often by Fox's own reporters.įox News' legal team does not defend them as correct. The sworn deposition of an anonymous witness who said he was a former member of the Venezuelan presidential security team and accused Dominion of committing election fraud in the U.S.Īll of these allegations have been disproven. That context includes assertions that have long since been debunked and rebutted in dozens of court challenges and by local and state election officials from both parties.Īmong them: claims that the use of Sharpie markers in Maricopa County, Arizona, had invalidated the votes cast by Trump supporters because the ink often bled through the ballots. In those documents, Fox's attorneys offer "omitted context" for the seemingly incendiary remarks by such hosts as Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo, as well as their featured guests, including Trump and his former campaign attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. An explanation offered for Fox stars' willingness to air debunked claims Fox and Dominion did not comment for this story.
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