Lol ... Where was Fox’ legal department while all this was happening? Do they never have someone with a law degree review their stories to pull them back and say "Wow! that's complete bullshit!, your setting us up to be sued!" - when they go a too far out in la la land?
I know the answer to that ... It’s easy to gloss over that stuff when the money is pouring in, and pour in it did. Spouting bullshit was profitable, and now things got out of hand. When you spend all your time counting money, it’s easy to let things spin out of your control.
Now they’ve been flanked on the right by Newsmax and OAN, and they’re standing there with their dicks in their hands. Fox News is in legitimate trouble; their ratings are down and their legal exposure is enormous. They have little choice here but to cut a deal or else that organization (which is a separate corporation, albeit owned by, Fox Corporation) could suffer a catastrophic loss.
From what I understand about defamation lawsuits, but correct me if I'm wrong - The plaintiffs have to prove that statements made by the defendants led to harmful results, such as loss of business and threat to life, among other things. It’s the reason why Alex Jones lost all those defamation suits to the Sandy Hook survivors, even though he had the “Only for entertainment purposes” clause in his byline.
slate.com
