CNN
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This is it.
The media defamation trial of the century is at the precipice of kicking off in Wilmington, Delaware, in simply days.
Jury variety in Dominion Voting Systems’ monster $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit happened all of Thursday, with 300 possible jurors being summoned to courtroom. Good growth used to be made and the presiding pass judgement on famous that there have been “more than enough jurors” to begin the trial as scheduled on Monday.
It is there, in Courtroom 7E, the place the largest figures in Murdoch Media, accompanied through a throng of high-powered attorneys, will try to mount their protection after time and again failing to persuade a pass judgement on to toss the now-historic case.
A model of this text first gave the impression within the “Reliable Sources” publication. Sign up for the day by day digest chronicling the evolving media panorama right here.
It’s, frankly, strange to put in writing the ones phrases. When I watched Fox News broadcast election lies within the aftermath of the 2020 election, by no means did I be expecting the community to be held responsible in a significant manner.
I’ve lined Fox News for some time now. I’ve watched tens of millions of hours of the right-wing channel’s programming. I’ve noticed its hosts over time undermine public well being, make gross anti-immigrant remarks, peddle lies and propaganda and push deranged conspiracy theories that had been as soon as reserved for the right-wing’s furthest fringes.
The community has all the time appeared to give you the chance to sail in the course of the controversy, even probably the most hellish storms it has confronted. Sometimes it has emerged even more potent and extra emboldened than ahead of.
But this time is other. This time, the traditional methods the community turns to all over occasions of disaster won’t loose it from bother. This time, in a courtroom of legislation, the community will wish to put ahead a good, fact-driven argument.
Fox News is ready to go into the actual No Spin Zone, the place deception is precisely prohibited. Where it isn’t in price. And the place its most sensible executives like Rupert Murdoch and Suzanne Scott and hosts like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity can’t merely forget about a request for remark and hotel to, as an alternative, attacking “the media” on-air.
In this atmosphere, the place lies can’t be casually instructed and reality can’t be distorted past truth to suit a unethical narrative, it’ll be attention-grabbing to peer how the community fares. If the pre-trial hearings are any indicator, it received’t be lovely. The case hasn’t even began and the presiding pass judgement on has already misplaced his endurance with Fox’s felony workforce and put them on realize.
Perhaps the winds will shift for Fox News when the pass judgement on gavels within the trial on Monday. But in the event that they play out like the previous few weeks of courtroom have, Fox News is in for a brutal journey.
