What is the legal definition of "malice."

[LAS14]

Chris Hayes set me back a bit last night when he expressed doubts about the legal foundation for the Dominion lawsuit. Just doubts... not a negative judgement. As far as I could tell this was because "malice" is hard to prove. I was awake for quite a while mulling over Fox's motivation. I doubt that it was to harm Dominion - although they had to know it would. It was to make it's viewers happy.

Is this a problem? I really do respect Chris Hayes.

And while I'm at it, can punishments like "Make a retraction on your TV show," be imposed in a civil trial? Or is that sort of thing limited to criminal proceedings.

tia
las

[Walleye]

1. I saw the movie "Absence of Malice" with Paul Newman and Sally Field

I couldn’t follow it and didn’t understand it

[Torchlight]

2. I think publishing a statement while either knowing that it is false

or acting with reckless disregard for the statement's truth or falsity is the legal standard.

I think the uncovered texts already lay a strong evidentiary foundation, and that which is not yet being made public will further cement that foundation.

[moniss]

3. Right you are

and too often that aspect for defamation is overlooked.

[rsdsharp]

4. The standard is "actual malice" which is publishing something

with knowledge that it is false, or with reckless disregard for whether it is true or false.

It has nothing to do with malice in the normal sense of the word.

[Ocelot II]

5. "Actual malice" in defamation law isn't the same as hatred or intending to cause harm.

It does require publishing a statement knowing it's false or with reckless disregard for the truth. Most of the time it is hard to prove actual malice as defined because it's usually difficult to determine the state of mind of the person publishing the statement. However, the evidence of actual malice in the Dominion case is extraordinarily strong; I've heard several legal talking heads say that it's the strongest media defamation case they've ever seen. Fox published the defamatory statements about Dominion over and over, even after Dominion warned them multiple times that they were false, and Fox executives are on record in writing and in their depositions saying they didn't actually believe any of it and that Giuliani, Powell, and Trump himself were crazy. But they didn't want to lose their MAGAt audience so they kept lying. I can't imagine a better defamation case than this one.

[moniss]

6. Reckless disregard

of the truth is clearly proven here and in law that is sufficient to support a finding of defamation. Dominion has focused heavily on that aspect about Faux knowing what they and their "guests" were saying was false but saying/promoting it anyway. I put guests in quotes because when the show producers/hosts are putting together their segments it is not like someone is just invited on and then they have some sort of spontaneous discussion. The depositions show that there was a desired narrative. The producer then puts together a segment with a script and people to appear who will interact with the host/script and establish/reinforce the desired narrative. They reach out to the "guests" and prep them and then pay them for their appearance.

We are a long way from Cronkite and Huntley/Brinckley. Unfortunately.

[Ocelot II]

7. Yes, that distant whirring sound is Walter Cronkite spinning in his grave.