 Today's settlement of seven hundred eighty seven million five hundred thousand dollars represents vindication and accountability. Lies have consequences. Yesterday Dominion and Fox News agreed to settle their one point six billion dollar defamation lawsuit for seven hundred eighty seven point five million dollars. And I've got to say that I feel really disappointed by the outcome here. I don't want to say that all of this has amounted to nothing but it really feels as if there could have been more accountability for Fox News because what they're forced to pay isn't sufficient I think to deter future bad behavior of them and my ultimate goal and this was wishful thinking that I didn't expect to materialize would be that this lawsuit would bankrupt them. But I mean my realistic goal however was more humiliation if Fox News and Dominion went to trial but they did not. Now for those of you who haven't really been following the case here's some very basic details courtesy of the Washington Post. At issue in the case were false claims that Fox aired about Dominion related to former president Donald Trump's false accusations about the 2020 election being stolen. Dominion had to prove not only that the claims weren't true which it did but that Fox's actions met the legal standard of actual malice meaning that it knew better or that it showed a reckless disregard for the truth. And they arguably did prove that. You have actual text messages and exchanges between on-air hosts like Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingram and that certainly was a humiliating element of this entire kerfuffle but it still feels as if Dominion should not have settled and by settling they gave Fox News a dub and my feelings here were summarized perfectly by David Dole on Twitter who said they could have had more money while bringing down Fox News along with it. Yeah exactly so all they had to do was wait a little bit longer go to trial force Fox News to defend themselves and they probably would have won even the judge said that it was crystal clear that Fox News aired incorrect information so all they had to do was prove malice in their lawsuit and that would that would have been it you could have had them you had them in the crosshairs Dominion and you let go so the overall impact on Fox News is going to be minimal and again I think that this is a huge relief for Fox News I think that Rupert Murdoch and the executives there are breathing a lot easier now because Dominion agreed to settle and it feels like a capitulation and ultimately I think this is a win for Fox News and Robert Reich echoed that same sentiment in an op-ed for common dreams where he argues the Fox Corporation has an estimated value of around 17 billion dollars the settlement amounts to a cost of doing business for Fox exactly the settlement also means that Fox's major figures including Rupert Murdoch the chairman of Fox Corporation and Fox hosts Tucker Carlson Sean Hannity Laura Ingram and Maria Bartiramo won't have to testify Dominion may have protected his trademark but it hasn't protected American democracy nothing about the lawsuit or its settlement has been aired on Fox News Fox viewers continue to be in the dark about all of it Trump's big lie fox's amplification of the big lie the lawsuit and the emails and pretrial testimony showing that Fox News and its hosts knew it was all a big lie yeah so all of that goes out the window now because Dominion chose to make this business decision and settle it's not just that I wanted this to cost Fox News money it needed to cost them legitimacy and to the extent that it has at this point I think that the people who have seen the text messages that Tucker Carlson sent during the 2020 election those are people who are already predisposed to not like Fox News but this needed to be big big enough so that way Fox News viewers who are brain watched by this corporation won't be able to miss it but because of this Fox News can kind of do what they wanted to do and sweep this under the rug and continue to lie because now the cost is less than a billion dollars not going to be enough to bankrupt them it's certainly painful for them I'm sure and the humiliation that they have suffered currently certainly isn't great for them but it isn't merely enough like this is not a proportionate level of accountability considering how terrible their lies were it led to an insurrection arguably they were part of that they were culpable for the January 6th insurrection Trump was the most culpable in my opinion but Fox News stoked the flames put us on the brink of a civil war and tensions are still very high and all they had to do was uh settle they don't have to go to trial defend themselves publicly nothing so that it just feels so frustrating to me because Dominion you had a chance and you fucking fumbled but there is still hope because as Huffpost explains Fox is still facing a separate but related defamation suit from Smartmatic USA Corp the voting machine company has sued for 2.7 billion over similar claims to those of Dominion in other words there still is a chance but am I a lot less optimistic now given the way that the Dominion lawsuit played out yes and also it's still hard to not think about what could have been if Fox News lost and had to pay 1.6 billion on top of that 2.7 billion we're talking about billions of dollars which could possibly bankrupt the company it's unlikely but still the fact that there was a possibility there was important and I think that these sensationalist headlines about how this would definitely bring down Fox News that was a bit of a stretch it was always a stretch but with that being said I think that it's important that we have at least a minimal level of accountability in this culture when a massive institution spread lies that are hurtful to democracy and we just didn't get that here now for those hoping that Rupert Murdoch would be forced to shutter Fox News and hosts like Tucker Carlson would be humiliated permanently and delegitimized one thing that I need people to understand is even if the best case scenario were to come to fruition with regard to both of these lawsuits right Dominion one Smartmatic one understand that even if Fox News went away like that we live in a system where profits are the main priority and Fox News proved that spreading right-wing propaganda is very very lucrative so even if Fox News went the way of the dodo there would be a new news outlet that would emerge to be as equally popular as Fox News I am absolutely confident about that so regardless if Fox News exists or not we will have to deal with the problem of right-wing media in this country in perpetuity unless we have actual reform unless we strengthen democracy and teach people media literacy but even if Fox News were to go away we still have corporate media in general which is a problem so the media problem it doesn't just go away with Fox News certainly Fox News is like the biggest culprit when it comes to misinformation but we still don't have objective non-corporate sources in this country that are large right we have independent media we have alternative news sources but certainly the biggest most sweeping institutions in this country are the ones where most Americans get their news from I mean sure more people get their news from the internet but they're not just automatically going to YouTube or to democracy now they're watching CNN and Fox News online so just changing the method of consumption doesn't necessarily change the news that they're getting so ultimately we have a bigger battle at our hands and that is trying to decommodify news and make sure that people are getting non-corporate non-biased objective information and Fox News is a huge part of the problem but it goes deeper than Fox News and as a society we have to figure out how to deal with that if we even can at this point which is doubtful in my opinion