Dem
47
GOP
53
Truth be told, Newsmax is very clearly a propaganda outlet, and not a news operation. But the headline amused us, at least mildly, so we went with it.
Back in 2020, after the army of Tokyo Roses employed by Fox, Newsmax and OAN told lie after lie after lie about how Dominion Voting Systems' vote-tallying machines were rigged, there was much talk that Dominion wanted its day in court, and that no amount of money would be enough to dissuade the firm's leadership from that course. This was not due to an insatiable thirst for revenge, mind you, but ostensibly because their brand and their image were so badly damaged by the lies told about their equipment that the firm's only hope was to win the case in court AND in the court of public opinion.
What a difference 5 years makes. Maybe the hit to Dominion's reputation was not as great as feared, since the "news" channels and individuals making the claims are so obviously off their rockers. Maybe adopting a "never settle" posture put Dominion in a better position to negotiate. Or, maybe nearly $1 billion in settlements is enough that it doesn't really matter if Dominion's core business bounces back or not.
Whatever the case may be, yesterday Dominion settled its suit against Newsmax for $67 million. It had already settled with OAN for an undisclosed amount, and with Fox, of course, for a whopping $787 million. If we imagine that the OAN settlement was similar in amount to the Newsmax settlement, then that's a total haul of around $920 million. Not bad, since even if a jury had awarded two or three times that (a big maybe), it would have taken years of appeals to get paid off.
Note that just because one (more) case has been settled, it does not mean this story has reached its conclusion. Smartmatic settled with Newsmax for about $40 million, and with OAN for an undisclosed amount, but still has a $2.7 billion lawsuit pending against Fox. There are also suits from both Smartmatic and Dominion pending against individuals, most obviously Rudy Giuliani and the MyPillow guy, Mike Lindell. Time will tell if the two companies actually bother with those cases, since you can't get blood out of a stone, and both men are broke.
Meanwhile, there was also a small bit of news on the other side of the political news aisle. MSNBC hasn't really had a connection with Microsoft for a long time, and it's not going to have a connection with NBC for much longer, as it's being spun off. So, the pooh-bahs decided it was time to change their outdated name. Yesterday, they announced the new name, and it's... Aunt Jemima Syrup, which IS available. No, wait. That's some other company's outdated name. Actually the new name for MSNBC will be MS NOW. Here's their new logo, which makes clear what the new name means:
Yesterday, there were many people decreeing that the new name is stupid. Eh. They're trying to change it as little as possible, and they managed to do it without bending and twisting too much. What we don't get is the flag with red and white stripes, but no blue and no stars. Is this a subtle clue that they are going to provide heavy coverage of issues in Austria?
We wouldn't have done a whole item on a cable station's rebranding. But since we were doing cable news news anyhow, we figured we'd mention it. (Z)