NEW YORK (NewsNation) — Emails, texts and sworn testimony have all put Fox News in the spotlight recently as they’ve become public as part of Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against the network over its coverage of the 2020 presidential election. But will these unflattering and embarrassing revelations end up being more of a public relations problem rather than a legal one?

NewsNation media contributor Colby Hall says it may be a matter of just how much Fox is willing to spend.

“I think Fox News will end up spending as much money as they can to avoid the PR disaster of going to trial,” said Hall.

Fox has long been seen as a power in GOP politics with its large conservative fan base. But thousands of pages of documents released in the libel suit filed by Dominion show how the network blurred the line between journalism and party politics. Dominion sued after it became the target of 2020 election conspiracy theories, often promoted on Fox’s airwaves.

“This hurts their reputation more than anything else — mostly with people who didn’t hold them in very high esteem,” said Hall. “Their viewers, I don’t know if they care that much. I think they will continue to get good ratings.”

Dominion has produced evidence that prominent people at Fox knew the fraud allegations were untrue, even as they and the president’s allies were given airtime to repeat them. Fox’s Sean Hannity said in a deposition that he did not believe the fraud claims “for one second,” but he wanted to give accusers the chance to produce evidence.

That approach, Hall says, is ultimately what landed Fox in this legal headache.

“They have a very lucrative business,” he said. “In part, that’s why they’re in the problem that they’re in because they’ve focused on serving their viewers what they want instead of what they need to hear.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.