"CRYSTAL Clear"

 

The word that Fox News lost their bid to have the defamation case against them summarily dismissed is lovely enough, but the real story, IMHO, is that the judge determined that they lied their faces off:

Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis handed Dominion a major win, too, when he agreed that the challenged statements are false. 

The ruling spares the voting machine company from having to litigate baseless conspiracy theories about its role in the 2020 election during the upcoming trial against Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp. 

“The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that is CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true,” Davis wrote in his 81-page ruling, emphasizing the word "crystal" in his ruling.

Only the "why"--whether the lies constituted actual malice, is being litigated at trial. And to that end, Dominion would like to have the cast of on-air (and off-air) talent take the stands to explain themselves.  That sounds not just entertaining to me (don't you think?) but far more informative than actually watching Fox News has ever been. 

And the Smartmatic suit is still waiting in the wings. 

True, between the two cases, the idea of Fox Corp. being reduced to financial rubble tickles me because they became a powerhouse by telling conservatives what they wanted to hear in a kind of godawful feedback loop until their viewers became further removed from reality. (It's not just the Trump/Fox loop, although that's the one that got them here.) But the two strong messages that have to come out from this are: not, the machines didn't steal the election from Donald Trump, his silly ass just LOST and also that Fox News is not journalism, it's trash. 

Now, the self-reinforcing biases of the Fox propaganda machine are already churning: "This is just censorship against conservatives and our First Amendment rights!" But the point is the lying to create outcomes: destroying the reputation of businesses that had not done something wrong, creating an atmosphere where the ground was prepared for a coup. Those things are not about rights, but doing actual harm, fraudulently and intentionally. 

I write. I take words very seriously, because they do have the power to persuade and compel. Fox News and its hosts and producers misused its powerful platform to do harm, and should be responsible for trying to amend that in some way.