You can't expect to believe the words that come out of Tucker Carlson's mouth.
Karen McDougal
Former Playboy model who had an affair with Donald Trump (2005-2006) and who received $150K in "Hush Money"in 2016 from Trump
.
Tucker Carlsonv.
Karen McDougal
Tucker Carlson accused of Slander" & Defamation"
- Tucker Carlson: FOX News' most popular anchor.
- Karen McDougal; Former Playboy model who had an affair with Donald Trump 2005-2006) and who received $150K in "Hush Money"in 2016 from Trump.
The Wall Street Journal published the story four days before the 2016 presidential election.
According to the lawsuit, Tucker Carlson defamed Karen McDougal, on air.
In 2018, Carlson began presenting Trump as the victim of extortion. Seeking to discredit former Trump attorney Michael Cohen's tale of hush payments — and alleged campaign finance law violations — Carlson first told viewers, "Remember the facts of the story. These are undisputed."
But they aren't undisputed. They're not even facts.
He then proceeded to say, "Two women approach Donald Trump and threaten to ruin his career and humiliate his family if he doesn't give them money. Now that sounds like a classic case of extortion."
Pictures of
...and Pictures of hardcore porn star
flashed on screen.
Stormy Daniels was paid $130,000 on behalf of Trump, who denies that either affair occurred.
Fox News lawyers alleged that
1. A viewer of ordinary intelligence would conclude that Karen McDougal was a criminal who extorted Trump for money.
2. And that "The statements about Karen McDougal were fact."
The details of the affair were based on Karen McDougal's handwritten memoirs.
U.S. District Court Judge Mary Vyskocil, [a Trump appointee], Dismissed the defamation lawsuit, writing that,
"The statements [made by Tucker Carlson] are commentary, and, as such, are not actionable as defamation".
~~~ boring details ~~~
The judge added that the "'general tenor" of the show would be obvious to any viewer that [Tucker Carlson] is not 'stating actual facts' about the topics he discusses, and is instead engaging in 'exaggeration' and 'non-literal commentary.'"
But in the process of saving the Fox star, the network's attorneys raised the journalistic question:
Just what level of fact-checking does Fox News expect, or subject its opinion shows to?
,~~
New Documents Reveal How Trump, Cohen, Aides Worked To Seal Hush Money Deals.
In reality, McDougal never approached Trump. She and her representative had spoken to ABC News and to the National Enquirer because, she said, she feared word of the affair would leak out during the campaign anyway and she preferred to be the one to tell the story. It wasn't publicly known that David Pecker, then the CEO of the tabloid's parent company, had promised Trump he would help keep stories about extramarital affairs from seeing the light of day.
Carlson and Fox never corrected that significant error, as The Washington Post's Erik Wemple underscored.
Not to worry, Carlson's lawyers said. In written briefs, they cited previous rulings to argue Carlson's words were "loose, figurative or hyperbolic." They took note of a nonjournalist's use of the word "extort," which proved nondefamatory because it was mere "rhetorical hyperbole, a vigorous epithet."
Carlson has been accused of hyperbolic, vicious and unfounded claims about women, people of color and immigrants in the past. This year, his audiences have made his show the top-rated program in the history of cable news. He maintains the backing of Fox Corp. Executive Chairman and CEO Lachlan Murdoch.
The Daily Beast reported Tuesday that Fox recently slashed its research team, cutting it by about one-fourth during modest networkwide layoffs. Fox News said that is overstating the size of the cut to the unit. It said it eliminated duplication and those functions are conducted elsewhere throughout its newsroom and programs.
In Carlson's defense, Fox's attorneys, from Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, noted that meeting the standard of "actual malice" requires more than just showing someone should have researched or investigated a subject before popping off, thanks to U.S. Supreme Court rulings.
The Fox team's legal briefs compared Carlson's show to radio talk-show programs hosted by ex-MSNBC and Fox Business star Don Imus, who won a case more than two decades ago because an appellate court ruled that "the complained of statements would not have been taken by reasonable listeners as factual pronouncements but simply as instances in which the defendant radio hosts had expressed their views over the air in the crude and hyperbolic manner that has, over the years, become their verbal stock in trade.
~~~
Comments
Post a Comment