A federal judge in Miami on Friday dismissed an antitrust lawsuit that the right-wing cable channel Newsmax filed against Fox News earlier in the week. The judge said Newsmax could refile the complaint.
Newsmax’s lawsuit was “an impermissible ‘shotgun pleading,’” in which four of the five counts incorporated allegations from the preceding counts, wrote the judge, Aileen Cannon of U.S. District Court.
“Each count must identify the particular legal basis for liability and contain specific factual allegations that support each cause of action within each count,” Judge Cannon said. She said Newsmax could file an amended complaint by Thursday.
“We understand this is just a technical matter, and our law firm is refiling,” a Newsmax spokesman said in a statement.
In a court filing on Wednesday, Newsmax accused Fox of operating as a near-monopoly in conservative cable television news and deploying anticompetitive tactics to bar rivals.
The complaint argued that Fox had used its market power to put pressure on cable and satellite distributors not to include Newsmax and other “right-leaning news channels” in their entry-level package of channels or to face paying more.
“Fox’s campaign to stunt Newsmax’s business has delayed, for almost a decade, Newsmax’s growth in pay-TV distribution,” the complaint said.
On Friday, a Fox spokeswoman pointed to a statement the company released on Wednesday: “Newsmax cannot sue their way out of their own competitive failures in the marketplace to chase headlines simply because they can’t attract viewers.”
Katie Robertson covers the media industry for The Times. Email: [email protected]
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