Fox News Could Go Down Hard on This One
The fact that Fox News personalities, Sean Hannity among them, have turned out to be “shameless liars” surprises no one outside of the cable channel’s cult following.
There is, however, deep significance to the testimony that Sean Hannity gave under oath, when it occurred to him that fibbing here would constitute perjury, which could send him to prison. Thus, for once, he told the truth, in this case that he “did not believe (the Big Lie) for one second.”
The significance of this testimony lies in the fact that, unlike dozens of other clearly false claims that Fox has forwarded over the years, this one was slander, the action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person’s reputation.
Moreover, when Dominion Voting Systems, whom Hannity had accused in front of millions of television viewers of illegally rigging their machines to make Biden win over Trump, Dominion filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News.
Now it’s true that Fox News has never lost a case of this form, where they routinely and successfully claim that despite the word “News” in its name, it cannot be held liable for lying, because its viewers understand that the content of its shows are entirely fictional, a form of entertainment, and that anyone with the intelligence of a jellyfish realizes that. Again, as outrageous as it may seem, judges and juries have consistently ruled in Fox News’ favor.
Yet, here we have a case where a huge company has been defamed, along with its thousands of employees all over the world. Here the page from Dominion’s website that answers the question: What is it like to work (here)? Something I noticed was missing: Unless we win our suit against Fox News, you will be regarded as scum.
We’ll see where this one goes.