Red Herring

Herring Networks, parent company of extreme-right One America News Network, must pay MSNBC and its broadcast personality, Rachel Maddow, $250,000 in lawyers’ fees for a failed defamation lawsuit. Herring had accused Maddow of defamation for reporting that an OAN journalist also contributed to a Russian state-owned news outlet, and saying the network “literally is paid Russian propaganda.” Herring demanded $10 million in damages. A district judge ruled that there was “no set of facts that could support a claim for defamation based on Maddow’s statement.”  OAN will soon be facing litigation over a two hour long video it ran that was produced by the MyPillow guy, purporting to prove that the 2020 election was stolen from ex-president Trump because the electronic voting system companies Dominion and Smartmatic conspired against him. Dominion has filed a $1.3 billion defamation suit against Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani for pushing the same claims.