Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of Fox Corp, is scheduled to testify under oath on Thursday and Friday in a defamation case involving his network's coverage of fictitious vote-rigging allegations during the 2020 US presidential election.
Dominion Voting Systems, a provider of election technology, argues that Fox News network propagated untrue allegations that its equipment was used to rig the election against Republican Donald Trump and in favor of his Democratic opponent Joe Biden, who won. Dominion is requesting damages of $1.6 billion.
The most well-known person being questioned in the matter is Murdoch, 91.
Fox has maintained that Dominion's lawsuit would impede press freedom and that it was within its rights to report on Trump and his attorneys' charges of election fraud. There is nothing more interesting than covering the president of the United States and his attorneys alleging voter fraud, but Fox declined to comment on the lawsuit and pointed Reuters to an earlier statement.
In December 2021, a judge denied the network's request to dismiss the case.
Fox "knowingly promoted misinformation about Dominion from the highest levels down," according to a statement from the election system manufacturer.
Dominion's attorneys will interrogate Murdoch face-to-face in Los Angeles on Thursday and Friday, according to a document filed in Delaware Superior Court. The public won't be allowed to attend the session. The prior dates for Murdoch's deposition were December 13 and December 14.
In an effort to show that Fox News either knew the assertions it aired were incorrect or willfully disregarded their veracity, Dominion has also requested communications from Murdoch, his son Lachlan Murdoch, and other Fox News employees. The requirement of "actual malice," which prominent persons must demonstrate to prevail in defamation cases, is that threshold.
Fox presenters persisted in making allegations of vote-rigging "long after it was pretty evident that these assertions were clearly untrue," according to Doug Mirell, a defamation attorney who has studied the litigation.
In its March 2021 complaint, Dominion said that Fox had emphasized the erroneous theories to increase its ratings and keep up with hard-right rivals like One America News Network, which Dominion is also suing. The complaint listed occasions where Trump supporters Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell went on Fox News and made unsubstantiated claims that Dominion software may have manipulated vote counts in favor of Biden.
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