CNN's Alisyn Camerota Says Dominion Settlement Is Actually A 'Victory For Fox'
CNN’s Alisyn Camerota, a former Fox News host, was not impressed by the outcome of Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against the conservative network.
“I haven’t been surprised by any of this, nor am I surprised by the settlement,” Camerota, who worked at Fox News for 16 years, said Tuesday on “The Lead.” “I predicted there would be a settlement all along because Fox doesn’t want to air its dirty laundry in a court case.”
The two parties reached a last-minute $787.5 million settlement agreement on Tuesday, averting what could have been an embarrassing, extremely high-profile trial for Fox News.
In a statement about Tuesday’s deal, Fox News said “we acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false” and then called the settlement a reflection of Fox’s “continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards.”
Camerota argued that the settlement figure ― the largest publicly known defamation settlement involving a media company in U.S. history ― was still only “chump change” for Fox News.
“They make more than $1 billion a year, their news division,” she said.
“I think this is a victory for Fox. They don’t have to put their big stars on the stand and they didn’t even have to issue a public apology,” she said.
She also pushed back on her CNN colleagues’ analysis, saying: “When you guys say that [Fox News] admitted that they lied ― no, they didn’t!”
The Lead panel reacts to what we know about the Dominion Fox settlement, the big pay out for Dominion and one element that appears to be missing from the deal pic.twitter.com/wQbUvOYUXl
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) April 19, 2023
“They’re saying that we acknowledge the court’s findings that certain claims about Dominion ... to be false,” Camerota said. “That doesn’t say we lied. That says they’re false. And they say ‘certain claims.’ They’re not even saying they made those claims. They’re not even saying which hosts of theirs made their claims. I think that this is the best outcome that Fox could ever have hoped for once they got themselves into this mess.”
“We were translating it from lawyerese to English, but I take your point,” fellow CNN anchor Jake Tapper replied.
Dominion sued for $1.6 billion, accusing Fox News hosts and executives of defaming it by airing false claims that its voting machines helped rig the 2020 election. Evidence unearthed during the lawsuit showed that certain network executives and talent knew those claims weren’t true but broadcast them anyway.
