Fox News HUMILIATES Newsmax After Lawsuit Implodes (“You Can’t Sue Your Way Out of Failure”)

Look how they massacred my boy…

Imagine suing Fox News with a Word doc that reads like ChatGPT word salad. That’s basically what Newsmax handed a federal judge this week…and it got tossed before the ink was dry. In short, a Florida federal judge just tossed Newsmax’s antitrust lawsuit against Fox News, calling it a “shotgun pleading.” Translation: every count was bloated with recycled allegations until the whole thing looked like a Reddit conspiracy thread. 

(Source: Giphy) 

The suit, filed Wednesday, lasted less than 24 hours before Judge Aileen Cannon yeeted it into the bin… but gave Newsmax until Sept. 11 to refile something that doesn’t look like low-grade dog food. For context, Cannon’s the same Trump-appointed judge who’s been at the center of his classified docs drama, so she’s not exactly allergic to controversy. If she thinks your legal draft is garbage, you really phoned it in. 

(Source: CNBC) 

However, the complaint accused Fox News of abusing its top-dog status in cable by coercing distributors into unfair deals that supposedly made it harder for smaller conservative rivals to compete. In other words, Newsmax claims Fox uses its No. 1 spot in ratings to bully cable providers into keeping challengers off prime packages, which would, in theory, choke off Newsmax’s growth. On paper it sounds spicy, but in practice it came across like a mad-lib of antitrust buzzwords.

(Source: Giphy) 

Fox’s response was predictable and savage: “Newsmax cannot sue their way out of their own competitive failures… simply because they can’t attract viewers.” Ooof. When your ratings are already a bean counting error next to Tucker reruns on YouTube, getting dunked on in a press statement just adds insult to irrelevance. Still, Newsmax isn’t walking away. Its CEO Chris Ruddy is promising “significant and serious” damages once the case is properly refiled. The ask includes a permanent injunction blocking Fox’s alleged monopoly tactics. But in reality, this fight isn’t necessarily about congrats with pay-TV distributors… Instead, it’s primarily focused around clout in a conservative media ecosystem where Fox is Goliath, and Newsmax is a guy with a slingshot full of blanks.

(Source: Giphy) 

With that said, even if Newsmax somehow scraped together a better complaint, proving Fox has a monopoly on conservative news is like arguing Starbucks has a monopoly on coffee because your local gas station sells piss water. Dominance doesn’t equal illegality, and courts have nuked weaker antitrust theories than this. Which is why when it comes to investors, Fox Corp. barely shrugged. Shares were flat, presumably because Wall Street knows Newsmax trying to topple Fox is like RadioShack suing Apple. If anything, this is more about Newsmax chasing headlines than changing the balance of power in cable news. 

Meaning, unless Newsmax comes back with a complaint that’s less fan-fiction and more airtight lawyering, this ends with Fox sipping chardonnay while Ruddy refiles for the third time. Until then, consider this another episode of “Conservative Media Civil War,” brought to you by the people who gave us MyPillow. Until next time, friends… 

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News holds positions in Apple as mentioned in the article.