Fox and Dominion settle

For $ 787.5 million, just on the Fox side of meeting halfway. Unsurprising.

Settling the typical defamation is problematic from a First Amendment standpoint--the court loses an opportunity to declare First Amendment values and the prospect of that even a nuisance settlement (which partisans will pitch as more, see Nicholas Sandmann) will incentivize new suits. Dominion was the rare case in which the plaintiff had a genuine chance to win and the evidence from the summary judgment record showed genuine wrongdoing by the media outlet. The settlement thus deprives the public of insight into the Fox News' problematic operations. And Fox News and others retain incentives to do this all over again.