NYT’s Ben Smith Calls Potential for Costly Smartmatic Lawsuit a ‘Huge Threat’ to Cash-Strapped OAN, Newsmax

New York Times media columnist Ben Smith called out the potential for a costly Smartmatic defamation lawsuit against the pro-Trump channels OAN and Newsmax as a “huge threat” to those networks’ media strategies.

During an appearance on MSNBC’s Deadline: White House on Monday afternoon, Smith went into further detail about his weekly Times media column from Sunday. In it, he noted that voting machine companies Smartmatic and Dominion are arming themselves with powerful legal teams that could hit those cash-strapped cable news organizations with near-fatal defamation lawsuits.

On Monday, Newsmax began airing an extensive fact-check of its own previous election fraud conspiracy theories, in which the network falsely suggested Smartmatic voting machines had somehow deleted or flipped millions of votes. The stunning on-air correction followed a similar series of reality checks that ran on several Fox shows that had pushed similar fake claims about the voting company. In fact, Smartmatic machines were only used in Los Angeles County — and so had no discernible impact on the outcome of the 2020 election — and there is no evidence that they malfunctioned to affect any votes.

“Smartmatic and Dominion, the other company, both hired very aggressive experienced defamation lawyers,” Smith told host Nicolle Wallace, pointing out the lawyer hired by the former won a massive settlement from ABC News over the infamous “pink slime” case. “He’s basically saying: ‘I don’t think this is just about clearing their names.’ I think that they see dollar signs and think there’s quite a bit of money to be wrung from these companies for damaging their reputations. Defamation lawsuits are messy.”

“There’s precedent for massive punitive damages where they feel like harm has been done,” Wallace noted. “I imagine it depends obviously who’s on a jury, but that seems to get political, too. If you have a sense that what Trump has done over the last 37 days damaged our very democracy, this seems to be an area, the area of punitive damages seems like it could represent some exposure for these companies.”

Smith agreed, explaining “it’s a very, very scary thing” for the companies being sued.

“This is a case where for two of the companies, for OAN and Newsmax, it’s a huge threat,” Smith added. “Right now, they’re burning money. They’re trying to create a new Fox, to the right of Fox. They need to keep raising money. And it’s very hard to raise money if you have a huge defamation claim hanging over you.”

Fox, on the other hand, can withstand a massive lawsuit thanks to its lucrative revenue and corporate legal protection. But OAN and Newsmax are not profitable, he emphasized, and still desperately trying to attract new investors. “And you don’t want to buy something that could wind up being owned by a voting machine company after some jury in Florida breaks against you,” Smith said.

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.