Lawsuit Against Fox News Network Sparks a Debate About First Amendment Freedoms
Fox News has been sued to the tune of $2.7 billion by a company due to their coverage of the 2021 election. Source.
Fox News faces a $2.7 billion lawsuit filed to the New York Supreme Court by Smartmatic, an election technology company, on the basis that they spread false claims about the 2020 Presidential election. The lawsuit calls out a few people by name including Fox News anchors, Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs, and Jeanine Pirro, and lawyers, Rudolph Giuliani and Sidney Powell.
Smartmatic provided software for one county in California in the election. Fox News built their case around the false claims that Hugo Chávez, a Venezuelan dictator who died in 2013, helped in the creation of Smartmatic and created the software so that it would be able to change some of the votes. It has been said that they used this feature to throw out votes in the 2020 Presidential election. Both of these claims originated from Giuliani and Powell as they fought the election results, and Fox News was used to reach a larger audience. Smartmatic says these claims have jeopardized their business in the United States and falsely undermined trust in the industry of election technology. Smartmatic also cited in the complaint how these stories contributed to the mentality of those who incited and participated in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol Building.
The Fox News network has denied the complaints against them and moved to dismiss the complaints under the basis that the lawsuit is an attempt to legally limit First Amendment freedoms. The network said they were committed to reporting all sides of every issue by including “full context” and “clear opinion.” They cited times where the anchors questioned the lack of evidence Giuliani and Powell gave to support their claims. The network also cited a segment in which Bartiromo, Dobbs and Pirro all talk to an expert disproving the claims of election fraud. This segment was filmed in December 2020 but released a day after Smartmatic filed the suit. Additionally, their defense focuses on the rights listed in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Fox News Network contends they provided a needed place for all public discourse on the validity of the election and any host who agreed with the allegations brought forth on the show were opinions, not statements to be taken as fact.
The debate about how far First Amendment rights go for news networks has become controversial with the uptick in fast-spreading misinformation. In order for Smartmatic to succeed in the case, they would need to show that specific false statements were said with malice despite knowing they could be false. News outlets are allowed to report alleged claims that have not been entirely proven yet as long as they report them as such, but presenting something blatantly false that could cause harm to the subject of the allegation as if it were fact is considered libel and is not a protected right. However, determining how segments fit into these guidelines is not a simple task. There is a lot of room for interpretation on what falls in those lines and there is a lot of nuance in where the lines are drawn depending on who is making the complaint. In the case of this lawsuit, whether Smartmatic is considered a public figure matters for the standard that Fox News will be held to in court. If they are considered a public figure, the network has more legal freedom to explore potential allegations because Smartmatic would have to prove to a jury that the Fox anchors knew the allegations were false when they were presenting them. In any case, if Fox News Network does not succeed in dismissing the case, Smartmatic must convince the jury that the hosts were not just sharing their opinion, but outwardly lying about the company.