By Helen Coster
(Reuters) – Fox News’s $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems over its coverage of false vote-rigging claims in the 2020 U.S. election made headlines on Tuesday, except on the cable channel itself, whose mention of it was somewhat muted.
Hosts Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, who had been expected to testify in the Dominion trial, did not reference the settlement, the largest struck by an American media company, during their primetime broadcasts on Tuesday night.
Dominion had alleged that statements made on Carlson’s show after the 2020 election were defamatory and that messages between Carlson and his team were proof he and his team knew claims that Denver-based Dominion’s ballot-counting machines were used to manipulate the election in favor of Democrat Joe Biden were false.
Fox News is owned by Fox Corp and is the most-watched U.S. cable news network.
Fox anchor Neil Cavuto broke into his headline news show “Your World” about 4:30 p.m. ET to report the settlement and read a statement by Fox in which it said it was pleased to have reached an agreement to avert a trial and acknowledged the judge’s ruling that the claims about Dominion were false.
Howard Kurtz, the host of Fox News’ MediaBuzz show, appeared on Cavuto’s show and during “Special Report with Bret Baier.” On “Special Report” Kurtz read the Fox statement, but did not include the dollar figure of the settlement.
In response to a Reuters request for comment about Fox’s coverage of the settlement, a spokesperson shared the company’s statement about the Dominion settlement that aired on Cavuto and Baier’s shows.
(Reporting by Helen Coster in Wilmington; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
