Murdoch’s Smartmatic Secrets
Late in the afternoon on Wednesday, motions for summary judgment hit the docket in the blockbuster Smartmatic v. Fox News case. The voting technology company asked the judge overseeing the matter to rule in its favor ahead of a looming high-stakes trial. The right-wing channel, predictably, asked the judge to do the same.
The arguments in the two filings weren’t especially surprising. Smartmatic alleged that Fox News’ coverage was defamatory and claimed that “billions in value have forever been lost.” Fox News, in turn, portrayed the lawsuit as a desperate cash grab—a ploy by Smartmatic to secure a massive payday. You’ve heard it all before.
Indeed, the most telling aspect of the summary judgment motions wasn’t what appeared in the filings—it was what didn’t. Most notably, Smartmatic…
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Matt Drudge. (Photo by Mark Reinstein/Corbis via Getty Images)
Status Scoop | Drudge Zings His MAGA Doppelgänger: The White House on Wednesday announced that it had launched a new propaganda website, “White House Wire,” fashioned after the Drudge Report. The site, published on the official whitehouse.gov domain and apparently supported by taxpayer dollars, mimics the minimalist design of Matt Drudge’s iconic page, linking out to MAGA Media outlets portraying Trump in a positive light. It’s a clear rip off of Drudge, who once was a big fan of Trump, but soured on the president many years ago. When I asked Drudge for comment, he responded…
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