Fox News to pay $787m after claiming votes rigged against Donald Trump - BBC News

America's most-watched cable

news

network, FOX News, part of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, has agreed to pay more than £630 million to settle a libel case brought by a company whose voting machines were used during the 2020 US presidential election. Dominion Voting Systems had accused Fox of damaging its reputation by repeatedly

claiming

that its machines were used to rig that election in favor of Joe Biden. Fox's settlement was made just before the trial began. Our North American editor, Sarah Smith, has the latest. We Are Fox News Forced To Admit It Broadcast Lies Fox News Agreed To Pay One Of The Largest Libel Settlements In History Truth Matters At The Last Minute Lawyers Agreed To A Payment To Avoid A Trial Today's Settlement Of 787 Million Five Hundred Thousand dollars represents vindication and accountability lies having consequences on the air Fox News anchors had told lies about the 2020 presidential election saying there was a problem with voting machines made by Dominion even though they knew that was not true, no we know how many

votes

were stolen Tuesday night we don't know I don't know anything about the software that many say was

rigged

we don't know we talked about the Dominion software I know there were voting irregularities Donald Trump refused to admit he had lost the elections wanted to blame Dominion voting machines with the turn of a dial or the flip of a chip you can push a button for Trump and the vote goes to Biden what kind of system is this Fox News hosts like Tucker Carlson were concerned that if they didn't promote Trump's lies they would lose viewers to smaller conservative rivals who were saying in a text message with Trump behind him that an alternative like Newsmax could be devastating to us when a Fox

news

reporter went on the air not there was evidence of problems with the vote count Immediately like tonight, it's hurting the company considerably.

The stock price has gone down. It is not a joke. Rupert Murdoch himself faced having to testify in court when reaching an agreement. He avoided the need to explain why his news network was saying Trump could have won the election when he was behind Fox News he doesn't have to apologize or issue corrections on the air, so his political coverage will change absolutely. His whole commercial formula is based on spreading these kinds of lies, misinformation, paranoia, complaints, so that's not really going. to change, will you be a little more careful in the way you do it?

Maybe for Fox News. This story is not over yet. There is another lawsuit from another company that makes smart voting machines. That firm says it wants to expose more misconduct at Fox. Another big payout. may be necessary to avoid further embarrassment Sarah Smith BBC News Washington