Where have all the free press champions gone?

What has happened to the media rights advocates who stick together when the broad contours of the First Amendment are at stake?

They appear to have taken a pass on the Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion civil defamation lawsuit against Fox News for its duplicitous election fraud claims and blaming Dominion machines as a wrongdoer.

Is it because the free press patrons consider Fox News Network a toxic rightwing cable channel and they don’t want to be sullied by affirming support for the long-held constitutional standard for public figure libel?

Or do they consider the Dominion case so airtight with evidence of dishonest, reckless journalism by Fox News that it is an exception to protection from New York Times vs. Sullivan and not a threat to First Amendment precedent?

Whatever the answer, the Dominion lawsuit is scheduled for jury trial April 17 in Delaware Superior Court. Barring a settlement, legal experts consider it one of the most significant media libel cases in years.

Judge Eric M. Davis framed the issue at stake in his March 31 detailed statement covering the arguments, facts, evidence and witness depositions presented during the lengthy pre-trial discovery process.

He ruled Fox News definitely defamed Dominion with a litany of falsehoods and debunked accusations that the company had committed election fraud by rigging its voting machines against then-President Trump and for Democrat Joe Biden.

Still, the judge said, a jury should decide if the false information was aired “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”

That’s the actual malice libel standard for public figures set by a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in 1964 in an appeal by the New York Times from an Alabama civil rights era libel case brought by L.B. Sullivan, a city commissioner in Montgomery.

It is the standard Fox News now stands on in its effort to rebuff Dominion’s defamation lawsuit.

Judge Davis said in his ruling that Dominion had been libeled that he did not weigh the evidence to determine who at Fox News Network may have been responsible for the defamation, “and if such people acted with actual malice – these are genuine issues of material fact and therefore must be determined by a jury.”

Dominion is certain it has sufficient facts proving Fox News Network hosts and executives intentionally targeted the voting systems company to sway public opinion and appease its conservative audience that the 2020 election had been stolen.

Fox News insists it is protected by the free speech and free press clauses of the First Amendment as a matter of constitutional law, including the Times vs. Sullivan barrier against public figure defamation. It rejects the $1.6 billion damages payment sought by Dominion as excessive and baseless.

Media rights defenders are either remaining silent or staying neutral on the journalism implications of Dominion vs. Fox News Network.

That contrasts with some other big deal First Amendment cases when supportive statements and even amicus legal briefs aid the news organization under siege.

The justification is roughly stated as “we may not agree with what you say but we will defend to death your right to say it” – in defense of the First Amendment and press freedom.

It is a tradition that caused Col. Robert McCormick, the conservative publisher of the Chicago Tribune, in the late 1920s to support a despicable, scandalous Minneapolis newspaper, The Saturday Press, against a Minnesota nuisance law that shut down the publication with a judicial gag order.

The weekly scandal sheet and its owner-editor, Jay M. Near, did not have the financial means to challenge the law. McCormick stepped in not because he agreed with the paper’s vulgar, defamatory content. He did not. He saw the law’s prior restraint effect as an existential threat to all newspapers and the First Amendment.

His alarm eventually won the embrace of many newspaper publishers and editors who initially had kept their distance based on the sleazy reputation of The Saturday Press.

Despite losing in the Minnesota courts, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1931 ruled the nuisance law a violation of The Saturday Press’ First Amendment right to publish. The historic decision in Near vs. Minnesota created the legal doctrine against prior restraints of the news media that still exists today.

There’s every expectation that whatever the Delaware jury decides in the Dominion vs. Fox News Network lawsuit, the appellate process will find the case at some point before the Supreme Court for final judgment.

Bill Ketter is CNHI’s senior vice president for news. Reach him at wketter@cnhi.com.