
Lawyers for Fox News and a voting machine company tangled Wednesday over the high bar to prove defamation in a $1.6 billion lawsuit that has embarrassed the conservative network over its airing of false claims related to the 2020 presidential election.
The argument is at the heart of each side's attempt to persuade a Delaware judge that he should grant summary judgment in its favor and avoid a jury trial scheduled to start next month that would focus in part on media protections afforded in a nearly six-decade-old libel standard.