FCC Paramount/Skydance Decision Redoes Broadcast Journalism by Bureaucratic Fiat
reason.com
reason.com
Apparently the court felt differently if it didn't dismiss the case. The statement above is opinion, not fact as written.
Personally, I'm more opposed to further media consolidation as it stands. The current status quo is already leading to too few, excessively large media conglomerates. Without access to communications between the FCC and Skydance/Paramount, it's impossible to say what was or was not communicated or implied. Making the entire story a biased speculation, "completely without merit."
If I'm reading it correctly, you're not talking about the legal standard of evidence, but rather about the article's characterization of the article as "accurate". If so, though, I would have to interpret any court decisions as matters of legal procedure, rather than any comment on the truth of the statement one way or the other.
Motion for summary judgement will only be entertained if both sides agree that there are no material facts in dispute (not true in this case). Also won’t be entertained if either side requests a jury trial (not sure about this case).
Motion to dismiss will only be entertained only for very specific reasons. They are basically all procedural or they require the judge to assume the worst case for all arguments put forward from the moving party (an extremely high bar to clear).
In both cases, a denied motion doesn’t mean much about the likelihood of success of either party.