"The stakes are very high for Fox News. If it is found guilty of defamation, the channel could potentially have to pay around a billion dollars," said Nicole Hemmer, associate professor of history at Vanderbilt University and media specialist.

"This is not enough to bankrupt it, but enough to have real effects on its future plans and its overall financial health," she adds about the pearl of the empire of tycoon Rupert Murdoch, sounding board of ideological battles of conservatives.

In total, Dominion Voting Systems, which operated in 28 states during the 2020 election, is seeking $1.6 billion in damages in a civil court in the eastern state of Delaware from the most watched US cable channel and its parent company, Fox Corporation.

Rare convictions

A staggering sum but at the height according to her of the prejudice for having been presented on Fox News as "the villain" of a "fabricated story" after the presidential election of 2020 lost by Donald Trump, she writes in her complaint.

In a tense atmosphere, Donald Trump accused without evidence the Biden camp of fraud of all kinds. His advisers, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, pointed the finger at Dominion on Fox News, presenting the company as linked to Hugo Chavez's regime in Venezuela.

The trial will be closely watched in the United States, where it is seen as a test for freedom of expression, protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution, but also for the fight against disinformation.

The case is considered strong and the company has already won a round when Judge Eric Davis said in a March 31 order that it was "crystal clear that no claim about Dominion in the 2020 election (was) true."

But media defamation convictions are rare in the United States, as the plaintiff must establish a deliberate intent to spread false information in order to harm him.

The jury will have to decide unanimously to find Fox News guilty, after hearings that are expected to see the network's main stars testify. Dominion Voting Systems also called Fox Corporation founder Rupert Murdoch, 92, and his son, CEO Lachlan Murdoch, as witnesses.

Rupert Murdoch, president of News Corp and Fox News, on July 13, 2017 in Sun Valley, © Idaho Drew Angerer / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP

"Crazy"

Regularly accused of being a sounding board for conspiracy theories, Fox News wants to make the trial an emblematic case of press freedom.

For the channel, it was legitimate to give the floor to the Trump camp when it contested the vote and "essential for the search for the truth" to let all parties speak.

But the affair gave rise to an embarrassing unpacking for Fox News, with the publication of email or text message exchanges showing that within the channel and its parent company Fox Corporation, there was little belief in the scenario of a rigged election, until the big boss Rupert Murdoch.

A "really crazy thing. And damaging," he wrote in an email titled "Watching Giuliani!" to Fox News boss Suzanne Scott.

The numerous messages, obtained as part of the procedure and also emanating from stars of the channel, such as Tucker Carlson or Laura Ingraham, are at the heart of the plaintiff's argument, according to which Fox News was lying deliberately, so as not to lose its viewers.

Instead, the channel accuses Dominion Voting Systems of making a truncated and biased selection.

Jury selection is set to wrap up this week, before the proceedings begin in earnest on Monday.

© 2023 AFP