Following up on Tom’s post below here’s Philip Bump on Fox’s mistakes that may lead to losing a billion dollar defamation suit: “There will be a lot of noise and confusion generated by Dominion and their opportunistic private equity owners,” the spokesperson said, “but the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution and protected by New York Times v. Sullivan.” That will be determined in court. But these are the decisions that led to the suit in the first place. Failing to challenge Trump’s false claims during his presidency. There would be no appetite for Trump’s false claims about election fraud had they not been given oxygen for months before the election. From the spring of 2020 forward, he and his team at the White House were elevating debunked and misleading claims about the purported risk of electoral fraud. Over and over, it was pointed out that these assertions were meritless and clearly motivated by Trump hoping to undermine a likely defeat. But Fox News rarely held Trump or his claims up to significant scrutiny. “They, you know, by and large, didn’t get tough with us,” Trump’s former press secretary Stephanie Grisham said of the network in 2021. “They just took what we were saying and disseminated it.” This was clearly because the network understood that Trump supporters were a central part of its audience. The Republicans most loyal to Trump were the ones who watched Fox News. On-air personalities…