Dominion Voting Systems' legal team exits the New Castle County Courthouse in Wilmington, Del., after the defamation lawsuit against Fox News was settled Tuesday. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
This has been an unusual week, one where the practice of journalism has been in the news. Here’s what I have been reading about and my reaction to the news:
Dominion Voting Systems v. Fox News: A lawsuit that media watchers and political wonks were expecting to get a spectacular trial was settled on Tuesday, just after a jury was seated and before opening statements were to begin. Fox agreed to pay $787.5 million after repeatedly airing claims alleging that the plaintiff’s voting machines were somehow rigged to deny re-election to Donald Trump.
Pretrial investigation and disclosures showed that Fox on-air hosts and executives knew the fraud claims were specious and Trump lost the election. But Fox continued to air the claims in the belief that it was what their right-of-center viewers wanted to hear.
I’ve long thought Fox News is more of a political commentary channel than actual news (I think the same is true of CNN and MSNBC, too.) But what Fox did violated basic journalistic principles and thus deserves to be held in the spotlight as a poor example of journalism. I am not sorry about the size of the settlement, either, which is apparently about three months’ worth of profit. (Meanwhile, local newspapers struggle to break even, but that is another subject.)
Still, I was dreading what might happen with a trial. Given the activist and conservative nature of the current Supreme Court, I was worried about an appeal that might overturn the 1964 decision in New York Times v. Sullivan, a landmark in U.S. press freedom.
Here’s how the uscourts.gov website explains this case: In 1960, The New York Times ran a full-page advertisement paid for by civil right activists. The ad openly criticized the police department in the city of Montgomery, Ala., for its treatment of civil rights protesters. Most of the descriptions in the ad were accurate, but some of the statements were false. The police commissioner, L.B. Sullivan, took offense and successfully sued in an Alabama court, arguing that the ad had damaged his reputation, and he had been libeled. But on appeal, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of the newspaper. The court said the right to publish all statements is protected under the First Amendment. The court also said in order to prove libel, a public official must show that what was said against them was made with actual malice — “that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard for the truth.”
This high standard protects not only journalists, but the public’s right to know about and criticize government officials and decisions. Overturning it could deliver a body blow to democracy. So I am glad the Fox case was settled, with considerable embarrassment and financial cost to the guilty party.
Newspaper tax break: On Monday, the state House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 5199, which would provide tax relief for newspaper publishers. The bill now goes to Gov. Jay Inslee. As I mentioned last week, the bill would offer a 10-year exemption to the business & occupation tax for newspapers, providing relief estimated at $1.6 million in the 2023-25 biennium. Newspapers currently pay 0.35 percent tax on gross receipts.
Columbian Publisher Ben Campbell testified twice in favor of the bill. For us, the annual savings would be roughly equivalent to one reporter’s salary. That’s a lot of money for our small company, which like other newspapers has been fighting to stay profitable as internet advertising ruined our traditional business model.
All of Clark County’s delegation supported the bill, which was requested by Attorney General Bob Ferguson and endorsed by Treasurer Mike Pellicciotti. It won’t solve local journalism’s problems, but everything helps.
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