What happened
Dominion v. Fox News is the single best-documented case of the attack-dog dynamic this project's media layer exists to record: an outlet knowingly amplifying a governing party's false claims because its audience demanded them, at measurable cost to democratic institutions.
The documentary record is unusually complete because it comes from discovery, not journalism. Tucker Carlson privately texted that the fraud claims were "absurd" and demanded a colleague who fact-checked them on air be fired for hurting the stock price. Sean Hannity testified he "did not believe it for one second." Rupert Murdoch acknowledged in deposition that several hosts "were endorsing" the false narrative and that he "could have" stopped it but didn't. Executives tracked viewers defecting to Newsmax whenever Fox told the truth about the result.
Judge Eric Davis's summary judgment ruling (Delaware Superior Court, March 2023) found it "CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true" — meaning the trial would have been solely about actual malice and damages. Fox settled for $787.5 million on 18 April 2023, the day trial was to open, while its acknowledgment was limited to a single sentence noting the court's falsity ruling. No host apologised on air. A parallel Smartmatic suit continued separately.
The stolen-election narrative Fox amplified was the mobilising claim behind January 6. The settlement documents the knowledge; the scale of the audience documents the reach.
Evidentiary class: court ruling on falsity (summary judgment, Delaware Superior Court, 2023) and settlement ($787.5M, 2023), with internal communications in the public court record.