In a just world, Jones's empire would be liquidated and he'd be cleaning toilets at minimum wage. But he's still broadcasting. He's filed for personal bankruptcy and proposed a plan under which he'd be paid more than half a million dollars a year while he sets aside a small fraction of what he ows ($7 million to $10 million) every year to pay the Sandy Hook parents and other creditors. Maybe in the future he'll refrain from slanders as grotesque as the ones to which he subjected the parents, but otherwise he doesn't seem to be going anywhere or changing his ways at all, although I suppose his legal evasions could run out eventually.
I'm thinking about this as I read about the settlement Fox and Dominion have just reached. According to The New York Times, Fox has agreed to pay Dominion $787.5 million -- less than half of what Dominion asked for, and approximately half of what Jones owes. For Fox, it's not a lot of money.
Fox News peak revenue was $14.0B in 2022, a 8.25% growth from 2021.
— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) April 18, 2023
$787.5 million is just the course of doing business.
That business is spreading disinformation and lies.
The Times reports:
Under the terms of the settlement, Fox News will not have to apologize or admit to spreading false claims on network programming, according to a person familiar with the details of the agreement.A Fox statement provides the only concession, and it's not much:
We acknowledge the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.Fox doesn't even say that it accepts those rulings, only that it acknowledges them, and only certain ones. Dominion's CEO says, “Fox has admitted to telling lies about Dominion,” but it hasn't.
Rupert Murdoch didn't have to testify. Lachlan Murdoch didn't have to testify. No executives or stars had to testify. Fox got off easy.
And that's how it goes. Donald Trump? Unbowed and running for reelection. George Santos? Unbowed and running for reelection. Clarence Thomas? The only way he'll leave the bench is in a pine box, unless a Republican president wants him to retire so a forty-year-old from the Federalist Society's breeding program can carry on his work for another forty years.
Will there be ever be a right-wing Gawker? It would be nice if it were Gateway Pundit:
They didn’t know it at the time, but Dec. 3, 2020, was the start of a nightmare for Wandrea Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman.I'd love to see a reckoning for Gateway Pundit. But I'm not holding my breath.
Both were election workers in Atlanta, and that was the day Rudy Giuliani ... testified to a state Senate committee that Georgia election officials had counted illegal ballots to steal the presidency for Joe Biden.
The allegations were quickly debunked by government officials and the media, but they still reverberated through right-wing media outlets.
Later that day, the Gateway Pundit, a St. Louis-based site run by brothers Jim and Joe Hoft, identified Freeman as one of the election workers accused of producing and counting 18,000 hidden, fraudulent ballots from a suitcase.
“What’s Up, Ruby,” the site’s headline read that day. “BREAKING: Crooked Operative Filmed Pulling Out Suitcases of Ballots in Georgia IS IDENTIFIED.”
... Gateway Pundit would go on to publish numerous stories about Freeman and Moss, with headlines like: “WHERE’S BILL BARR? — We Got Your Voter Fraud AG Barr — It’s On Video and They Attempted to Steal Georgia with It! — HOW ABOUT A FEW ARRESTS?”
“It’s turned my life upside down,” Moss testified last year to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Freeman and Moss say the Hofts never responded to a letter demanding they retract and take down the stories. So in December 2021, the women filed a lawsuit in St. Louis Circuit Court against The Gateway Pundit for defamation and emotional distress.
It’s scheduled for a hearing on next month.
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