Bill O’Reilly, No Stranger to Settlements, Bashes Fox for Dominion Debacle
No one knows humiliating Fox News settlements better than disgraced cable star Bill O’Reilly. The former Fox host — who was ousted from the network in 2017 after revelations that the network had secretly settled a series of sexual harassment lawsuits against him — has weighed in on his former employer’s massive payout to Dominion.
On Tuesday, Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million to settle a defamation case brought against the network. The company sought $1.6 billion in damages from Fox, claiming the network’s airing of conspiracy theories related to their voting machines’ use in the 2020 election caused them irreparable harm. Fox agreed to shell out nearly half the demanded value to avoid airing even more of its dirty laundry in a jury trial and prevent high-profile executives and hosts from taking the stand.
The case was one of the most high-profile lawsuits against a news network in recent memory, but Fox is no stranger to reaching settlements to avoid public litigation. Over the course of O’Reilly’s tenure at Fox, the network paid around $45 million in settlements to bury at least six harassment lawsuits against him. But occupying several lines on Fox’s legal balance sheet didn’t stop O’Reilly from weighing in on the Dominion suit.
“This is what happens when money becomes more important than honest information,” O’Reilly wrote in a message on his website. “Since I left FNC, the template changed from ‘Fair and Balanced’ to ‘tell the audience what it wants to hear.’ And millions of Trump voters, to this day, want to believe the 2020 election was rigged.” O’Reilly had previously called the lawsuit a “disaster” for the network.
To say that O’Reilly “left” Fox News Channel is a bit of an understatement given his ousting appeared to come from the top, but the former host has a point. Despite the public revelations, it is unlikely that the hosts and executives involved in spreading conspiracies about Dominion will meet the same fate as him, or that Fox will change its tune.
“We acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false,” Fox said in a statement announcing the agreement. “This settlement reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards. We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues.”
As the lawsuit progressed, hosts such as Tucker Carlson, who took over O’Reilly’s 8 p.m. ET time slot, continued to suggest without proof that the 2020 election was fraudulent. But as evidence exchanged between Fox and Dominion spilled into public view, it became clear that the network’s major talent was fully aware that there was no substance to Trump’s allegations of election theft. Network executives compounded the issue, castigating correspondents and anchors that attempted to inject truth into the network’s coverage of the election, citing fears of viewer backlash.
Fox has recently eschewed the (however flimsy) standards of conduct it held its anchors to at the time the O’Reilly scandal broke. The network seems to be focused on insulating its talent from accountability and the coddling of its viewership. O’Reilly helped mold the network into the right-wing misinformation machine it is today. Unfortunately for him, his downfall came too soon to reap the benefits of a network that now appears to view its talent as wholly untouchable.
This piece was updated at 10:00 PM EST to reflect Fox News’s statement on the settlement