Fox's Banderas: "I would be a billionaire" if I sued Media Matters and "every person that said a bad thing about me on the Internet"
Summary: On Fox News' The Big Story Primetime Edition, host Julie Banderas criticized a recent defamation lawsuit brought against a popular website, by saying: "[I]f I sued every person that said a bad thing about me on the Internet, I would be a billionaire, and so would many of us here at Fox, 'cause people love to talk about us. ... Media Matters -- they love to bash Fox."
On the July 9 edition of Fox News' The Big Story Primetime Edition, host Julie Banderas discussed the merits of a lawsuit filed by Todd Hollis, a criminal defense attorney, who claimed that anonymous postings on a popular website have "hurt him both personally and professionally," according to a report in The Miami Herald. Banderas criticized the defamation lawsuit, saying: "[I]f I sued every person that said a bad thing about me on the Internet, I would be a billionaire, and so would many of us here at Fox, 'cause people love to talk about us. ... Media Matters -- they love to bash Fox." She concluded by saying, "Bring it on. It's good ... publicity."
From the July 9 edition of Fox News' The Big Story Primetime Edition:
BANDERAS: Welcome back to The Big Story. I'm Julie Banderas. Well, you know break-ups are hard to bear, especially if you find out you have been cheated on. Well, one angry woman used a popular website as a platform to out her ex-boyfriend. You just heard him right there. She claims he's a cheater, and now, he's taking it to the courts.
[...]
LIS WIEHL (Fox News legal analyst): If you're flipping through the Yellow Book to try to find a lawyer and you hear this about this guy, I think you might flip to the next page and not hire him. I mean, I could see that he can definitely make that claim. And he's making a claim for $25,000. I know that's a lot of money, but in the scheme of things, when you're talking about a man who is saying, anyway, that his reputation has been completely ruined, his business is ruined by false things, you know, untrue allegations, then $25,000 is not much.
BANDERAS: Yeah, well, you know, I guess, you know, a lot of bad things are going to be said on the web. I mean, my god, if I -- if I sued every person that said a bad thing about me on the Internet, I would be a billionaire, and so would many of us here at Fox, 'cause people love to talk about us. But, we don't go after them. We don't sue the websites. I mean, Media Matters -- they love to bash Fox.
WIEHL: But you know what?
BANDERAS: We take it. We take it. In fact, you know what? Bring it on. It's good -- it's good publicity.
MERCEDES COLWIN (criminal defense attorney and Fox News legal analyst): Bad or good, it's good publicity and, frankly, lawyers are not really well regarded as to -- looking at these cases. I mean, you look at these lawyers -- they have all these lawyer jokes. I mean, frankly, he created this chaos for himself. He should just let it go, let it die, and move on.
—E.R.
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