Nick Sandmann was a high school student in 2019 from Covington, Kentucky when he was in Washington, D.C. attending an anti-abortion rally when he had an encounter with Omaha tribe elder Nathan Phillips, who was beating a hand-held drum and singing at the Indigenous Peoples March at the Lincoln Memorial on the same day. A video went viral of Sandmann in his MAGA cap with a smirk on his face while standing inches from Phillips, as though he was blocking his path. He felt the media slighted him with its coverage and he sued several outlets, including CNN, The Washington Post, and NBC. He sued the Post for $250 million and CNN for $275 million. The Post and CNN settled with Sandmann even though they didn’t do anything wrong.

Even though neither news outlet ever told an untruth about Sandmann, he felt they allowed others to lie about him on the air and just basically make people see him in a negative light, but anytime you put a MAGA hat on your head, you have a hard case to prove that someone else made you look racist. But the news outlets settled basically to make the case go away as paying Sandmann a few bucks would be cheaper than their legal fees after a lawsuit. CNN said it paid him off “to avoid a lengthy and potentially unpredictable trial.” Part of the settlement agreement is that neither side will reveal the amount, but veteran defamation attorneys speculate that Sandmann got peanuts compared to his initial demands.

Later, Sandmann became a GOP rock star. I mean, not to the extent of shooting Black Lives Matter protesters in Kenosha, but he still got a speaking slot at Trump’s Republican National Convention (along with the St. Louis gun-wielding mustard stain couple who were upset black people were walking in front of their house in their lily-white gated community) where he got to put on his MAGA cap and display the smirk again. Republicans rejoiced that he “defeated” the “fake news.” Those same people are silent today over Fox News’ settlement with Dominion Voting Systems.

Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News for lying about their product. Fox News pushed the narrative that Trump won but the election was stolen from him partly because Dominion switched votes from Trump to Biden. Fox News knew that Trump lost legitimately yet allowed its hosts to lie on the air. They allowed guests to come on their network and spread lies that Fox News knew weren’t true. Even the hosts knew what the lies were yet they allowed the madness to continue. Dominion sued for $1.6 billion. Yesterday, Fox News paid them $787.5 million, which is about half of what Dominion wanted.

Dominion settled because while they can prove Fox News knowingly lied, proving the defamation and actual malice is trickier with a jury, and who knows how much a jury would award. What if Fox News viewers got on the jury? Fox News settled because they knew they were going to lose, the price was a bargain, and it spares Fox News further public embarrassment with a trial.

Many Fox News critics, such as myself, are disappointed there was a settlement because Fox News got away without having to admit they lied. There will be no on-air apology and the network got away with only giving a statement saying, “We acknowledge the Court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.” That statement only acknowledges what the Court said, it’s not endorsing it. Perhaps the only person to mention the settlement on air was media reporter Howard Kurtz.

Later, Fox News said, “This settlement reflects FOX’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards.” So the lying continued immediately.

Fox News is the only major “news” outlet that has knowingly lied to its audience. There is zero proof that any other outlet, whether it’s TV, print, or digital, that’s knowingly lied to its viewers. Yes, there are other propaganda outlets lying, like Breitbart, Sputnik, Daily Wire, OANN, Newsmax, etc, but they’re not major “news” outlets. Fox News should have at least been required to remove “news” from its name.

Flipping channels yesterday, I saw that CNN and MSNBC were talking about the settlement. When I switched over to Fox News, they were talking about gang violence in California. On FoxNews.com at this very moment, there are 47 “news” articles and four “opinion” pieces on the home page, and not one, out of over 50 stories, is about the Dominion settlement. Not one. I was tempted this morning to leave my TV on Fox News all day just to see how often they mention it, but then I’d have to watch Fox News all day.

So if you’re a Fox News viewer, you won’t know about the settlement. And I’m sure when you do see tweets and other posts about it on social media, you’ll probably say “fake news.”

This nation is full of ignorant people who believe conspiracy theories and lies. Yesterday, Marjorie Taylor Greene was tweeting without any proof that China bribed Joe Biden. Millions of red-cap-wearing nuts still believe Donald Trump won the election. Kari Lake is still claiming she’s the governor of Arizona. There are still people out there who believe in Pizzagate and the government is adding toxins to water to turn frogs gay. 60 Minutes even allowed Large Marge to go on their show and claim that Democrats are pedophiles without any real pushback on the lie.

The damage has been done, but Fox News is not out of the woods yet. Smartmatic, another voting machines company, is suing them for $2.7 billion. Dominion said “We’re not done,” which might mean future lawsuits for the MyPillow Fucker.

Fox News isn’t done either. They’re going to continue to lie to their viewers who want to remain uninformed. Tucker Carlson has the highest-rated news show, and it’s public information that he knowingly lies. And it doesn’t seem to matter because his white nationalist audience will never know or believe the truth.

The damage will continue.

Visit Clay Jones’ website and email him at [email protected].