The cable news channel that once paid $787 million to settle an election-defamation case is being sued again. This time, the plaintiff is an environmental group from Utah.
The lawsuit concerns a broadcast that aired on a program regularly praised by Sleepy Don for its fairness. During the segment, Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary identified two local activists by name and stated, as fact, that they were operatives of the Chinese Communist Party. O’Leary, who wants to build a 40,000-acre data center in the state, had apparently concluded that only a foreign adversary would oppose his project.
The network did not push back. It did not seek comment. It did not, according to the complaint, perform the basic journalism exercise of checking whether the activists were, in fact, Chinese agents.
“We are not cells,” said Gabby Finson, one of the named individuals, in a video response. “This is Utah. He’s from Canada. He’s wearing flip-flops with a suit.”
The plaintiffs argue that the accusation was broadcast as a declaration of fact, not as opinion. That distinction matters, because defamation law draws a line between calling someone a communist spy and calling someone a knucklehead. The former costs $787 million. The latter just costs advertisers.
Fox News later issued a joint apology with O’Leary. The statement acknowledged that there was “no evidence” the activists were funded by China. The network expressed regret for the error and then did nothing to scrub the original clips from its streaming platform.
A Fox News spokesperson explained the editorial process. “The segment was vetted in accordance with our usual standards,” she said. “Mr. O’Leary had a chart.”
The lawsuit notes that the offending videos were still publicly available at the time of filing. O’Leary’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment. A follow-up call was returned by a production assistant from Shark Tank, who asked if we were interested in licensing a clip.
