Fox Host: We Have The First Amendment Right To Lie

Media Matters has the transcript:

HOWARD KURTZ (HOST): There’s been practically round-the-clock coverage of the lawsuit against Fox by Dominion Voting Machines. Now that all the legal filings are in and a judge in Delaware will give consideration this month to whether the case goes to trial, it’s time for me to weigh in.

I’m not sugarcoating the allegations in this $1.6 billion suit, or the fact that Fox has taken a hit in the court of public opinion, but there is a crucial First Amendment argument here involving the coverage of unsubstantiated claims of 2020 election fraud by Donald Trump and his allies.

Fox’s critics and competitors are denouncing the network, and many of them are rooting not just for Fox to lose the suit, but to be wiped out as a company because they can’t stand the mostly conservative view of a relative handful of opinion hosts — the essence of free speech. Legally, Dominion must prove Fox acted with malice or reckless disregard for the truth.

There was, to be sure, straight reporting by the news division, which also caused some friction, but the fact that some people in the chain of command privately dismissed the fraud claims as nuts or outlandish or insane doesn’t necessarily mean Fox couldn’t cover and comment on the extremely newsworthy spectacle of a president saying an election was stolen. That’s why this case is a major test of the First Amendment.