This is really interesting, because New York City’s pension funds and the state of Oregon are suing Fox Corporation, alleging in a lawsuit that the Fox News parent company failed shareholders by opening themselves up to costly defamation suits, allowing lies to be broadcast to keep their viewers happy. Via CNN:
The lawsuit, which was filed under seal in the Delaware Court of Chancery and named Fox Corporation board members and its executives as defendants, accused the media company of having chosen to “invite robust defamation claims, with potentially huge financial liability and potentially larger business repercussions, rather than disappoint viewers of Fox News,” according to an excerpt of the complaint provided by the state of Oregon.
The lawsuit represents the most serious shareholder legal action taken against Fox since it settled a historic defamation lawsuit brought by election technology company Dominion Voting Systems earlier this year for a record $787.5 million. Fox, which has maintained it is proud of its dishonest 2020 election coverage, still faces an even larger, $2.7 billion lawsuit from election technology company Smartmatic.
“Fox’s board of directors has blatantly disregarded the need for journalistic standards and failed to put safeguards in place despite having a business model that invites defamation litigation,” Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller, said in a statement on Tuesday. “A lack of journalistic standards and a proper strategy to mitigate defamation has clearly harmed Fox’s reputation and threatens their bottom line and long-term profitability.”
Well, this is America. And I have to believe a shareholder lawsuit carries a lot more clout than the previous defamation suits, because I predict more shareholders will follow their lead. Once Wall Street piles on and starts to clamor for your heads, you have a very serious problem. As in, don't f*ck with our profits!
New York City's comptroller Brad Lander said in the New York Times:
Mr. Lander said the city’s five retirement funds, which include the funds for police officers and firefighters, had all voted to join the action.
“There are plenty of Fox News watchers among the 750,000 retirees and future retirees,” he said, “but nobody likes losing their money as a result of preventable lawsuits.”
