![]() ![]() In deciding that question, American courts look to the totality of the circumstances: the context in which the statement was made (for instance, a news article vs. What’s the difference? The question is whether a reasonable viewer, or reader, would interpret the statement as suggesting a provably true or false statement of fact. Argument, rhetoric, hyperbole, figurative language, and opinion (unless based on false facts) cannot be defamation. Only a provably false assertion of fact can be actionable defamation. Here’s her complaint:įox’s lead argument was predictable to any First Amendment litigator and has been widely misrepresented and misunderstood: they argued that Tucker Carlson’s words were rhetoric and opinion, not fact, and therefore not defamation. You’d do this even though the money in question did not come from or go to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. If you were a federal prosecutor on a political mission, you would construe those extortion payments as campaign contributions. Oh, but you're not a federal prosecutor on a political mission. Now, more than two years later, Trump is a felon for doing this. Yet, for whatever reason, Trump caves to it, and he directs Michael Cohen to pay the ransom. Now, that sounds like a classic case of extortion. Two women approached Donald Trump and threatened to ruin his career and humiliate his family if he doesn’t give them money. Now, assuming honesty isn’t usually a wise idea with Michael Cohen, but for the sake of argument, let’s do it in this case, everything he says is true, why is what Cohen is alleging a criminal offense? ![]() ![]() We’re going to start by stipulating that everything Michael Cohen has told the feds is absolutely true. McDougal (who was not named, but whose picture was displayed) extorted Trump to get the money: Tucker used the story to riff on how terribly unfair investigators were, potentially, to Trump. Carlson discussed allegations that the National Enquirer ’s owner had paid former model and actress Karen McDougal $150,000 for the rights her story about her relationship with Trump in order to contain and kill the story. On December 10, 2018, Tucker Carlson took a break from panicking over Roma bowel health and promoting white nationalist talking points to discuss the imminent sentencing of Michael Cohen, former lawyer to Donald Trump. That has nothing to do with whether and to what extent Fox can be regulated, shut down, or otherwise censored in the way that some short-sighted Fox-haters want. To teal deer it, Fox successfully argued that one particular segment on Tucker Carlson’s show could only be reasonably interpreted as making political arguments, not making factual assertions, and therefore couldn’t be defamation. You may ask, “is that true? Did they admit that? Is it a thing?” ![]() It’s ubiquitous now: whenever anyone reasonably decries the proto-fascist agitation and moronic propaganda on Fox, someone will bust out with “Fox admitted in court that they’re entertainment, not news, and that nobody should believe what they say, so why can’t we just regulate them on that basis?” ![]()
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