Rupert Murdoch Can Be Forced to Testify in Fox-Dominion Trial, Judge Says

Dominion did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Fox had also said that its on-air hosts should not have to testify, because they had given taped depositions. But on Tuesday, Fox’s legal team said in a letter to Judge Davis that the lawyers had agreed to make some of the star hosts available for the trial, including Mr. Carlson and Mr. Hannity, the news anchors Mr. Baier and Dana Perino, as well as the former host Lou Dobbs. They also said Suzanne Scott, the chief executive of Fox News, would be available to appear.

Dominion’s lawsuit against Fox is one of the most closely followed defamation cases in years. As part of the discovery process, a trove of emails and internal messages between Fox hosts and executives were publicly released, showing that many of them privately dismissed claims of election fraud that were going to air on their network. The cache of documents also revealed rising panic inside Fox around the election as executives worried that their viewers, angry that the network had first called the state of Arizona for Joseph R. Biden, were fleeing for channels like Newsmax.

Defamation cases against media companies have historically proved hard to win, because of the high legal bar set by the Supreme Court. But some legal experts said Dominion had gathered strong evidence to make the case that Fox knew the statements were false but aired them anyway.

Last week, Judge Davis dealt a major blow to Fox’s defense, saying in a decision that there was enough evidence to conclude that the statements aired on Fox about Dominion were not true. Fox’s lawyers had argued that the network was protected by the First Amendment because it was merely reporting on newsworthy allegations, and that any statements made by its hosts were opinion and protected under the Constitution.

Judge Davis said the case would proceed to a trial, and it would be up to a jury to determine whether Fox had knowingly spread the false claims and to decide on any damages.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/05/business/media/rupert-murdoch-testify-fox-dominion-trial.html