Trump’s attack on press freedom has just begun

Like all sequels, the incoming Trump administration promises an even more gruesome body count, driven by an even more incredible narrative arc. Case in point, the media’s disgusting capitulation to Trump’s culture of impunity ahead of the president-elect’s inauguration next month. MSNBC’s erstwhile Resistance mascots Joe Scarborough and Mike Brzienski kicked things off with a respectful post-election trip to Mar-a-Lago Activity. Los Angeles Times Publisher Patrick Soon-Shiong chimed in, limiting stories critical of MAGA’s franchise, then announced a ridiculous AI feature that would allow readers to time and correct alleged bias in newspaper coverage, relegating the chronicle of current events to one of your own choosing. Contents An adventurous computer application designed specifically for angry theorists. It’s a bit like the Weimar media greeting the Reichstag fire with a campaign to legalize arson.

Now, Disney-owned ABC News has accelerated mainstream journalism’s march toward inert MAGA activity after George Stephanopoulos said Trump was found “responsible ” Later, Trump filed a defamation lawsuit against the network and settled the lawsuit for $15 million. “For rape” in the successful civil suit brought against him by E. Jean Carroll. ABC and Stephanopoulos will further demand that the incoming Trump administration issue an on-air apology for the anchor’s remarks.

The agreement has almost no legal basis. Under New York law, Carroll’s claim that Trump digitally penetrated her with force did not meet the full definition of rape, but Judge Lewis Kaplan issued a statement that found it was largely a distinction, not a difference. “The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of New York criminal law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her, as many people commonly understand the term ‘rape’ .

By defamatory standards, Stephanopoulos’s remarks were clearly fair. For a public figure like Trump, a defamation lawsuit must prove a defendant’s reckless disregard for the facts or actual malice. In this case, Stephanopoulos clearly summarized the significance of the judge’s own reasoning in Carroll’s complaint; ABC’s strong defense not only vindicates outspoken coverage of Trump and his movement, but marks As the entire industry engages in a critical reversal of appeasement of Trump.

Instead, the network chose scrolling. The bulk of the settlement will be donations to the Trump Presidential Library—a cruel joke in itself, a text-driven monument to a post-literate CEO who hopes to use 15 Fox News celebrities come to decorate his incoming cabinet (counting so far). But the larger point of the settlement is to signal to the incoming Trump administration that the network will stand with Huang, Scarborough, Buczewski and many others in the face of Trump-approved narratives and policy measures Care passionately. After all, the nominal cost of the settlement was a rounding error to Disney and likely would have been protected by ABC’s defamation insurance provision anyway. In other high-profile network television defamation lawsuits, such as Gen. William Westmoreland’s complaint against CBS News, settlements have not involved cash payments beyond attorneys’ fees — in this case, the U.S. Broadcasters’ contributions to the Trump library are similar to those being made by other media companies doling out funds to the Trump inaugural committee — a standard pay-to-play draw from corrupt authoritarian regimes.

Of course, this is not counting the independent media complex, which has become a full-scale TV advertising program for the MAGA movement. In an exchange over the weekend on the cursed social media platform effect. (That doesn’t include $2.5 billion in direct spending by Musk to Trump-aligned super PACs in the 2024 cycle.) Fox News isn’t just a pipeline for new members of Trump’s Cabinet; last year, the network was forced An even more significant $787 million defamation settlement was reached with Dominion Voting Systems over a series of lies the company told in connection with the theft to rig Joe Biden’s 2020 election. A second Trump administration will serve as a grim case study in the event that the deal makes absolutely no difference; the still-lucrative Fox Corporation will continue to enjoy privileged access to the White House as Trump himself sets out to deliberately rewrite the narrative around The history of his failed coup on January 6th. Pardons are granted to convicted defendants. (Here, South Korea exposed the country’s shabby political and media complex, impeaching President Yoon Seok-yeol and ousting his ruling party after he failed to declare martial law.)

Trump himself is still filing a $1 billion lawsuit against CBS News for allegedly biased editing of the news. 60 minutes Interviewed by Kamala Harris and threatened to revoke ABC’s license for fact-checking his answers during a debate with Harris. (Indeed, during a recent Mar-a-Lago press conference, he threatened to sue Iowa pollster Ann Selzer and des moines register Released survey results falsely show Trump trailing Harris in Hawkeye states while also threatening lawsuits against Harris washington post Political reporter Bob Woodward reiterated his lawsuit against the Pulitzer Peace Prize Committee.

Examples of Trump’s strongman press bullying have also gained wider attention in MAGAland. Lawyers for embattled Trump defense secretary nominee and Fox News host Pete Hegseth are threatening civil blackmail against victims of Hegseth’s alleged sexual assault at a conference of conservative activists in California actions and made defamatory threats against the victim. vanity fair and new york times Awarded for articles on Hegseth’s alcoholism and marital difficulties. Trump’s vengeful FBI director Kash Patel threatens to prosecute former Mike Pence aide Olivia Troye after she… Olivia Troye called him a delusional liar on MSNBC. Patel also promised in a 2023 interview on the Steve Bannon podcast that “we will find the conspirators not only in the government but also in the media. Yes, we will go after those who are targeting American citizens.” Media personalities who lied and helped Joe Biden rig the presidential election.

These pursuits of retaliation against critical media outlets dovetail nicely with Trump’s push to dismantle key bastions of media independence. A lame-duck Congress appears to have let a federal shield law that protects journalists from revealing their sources fall by the wayside. Trump and his allies will continue to pressure the courts to “relax defamation laws,” that is, overturn the high standards for libel and libel cases set out in the Supreme Court’s landmark 1964 ruling Sullivan v. New York Times. Trump also appointed anti-media bait lawyer Brendan Carr as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and serial election denier Kari Lake as chairman of Voice of America. It’s unclear how far Trump’s officials will go to destroy what remains of principled independent media in the crumbling American republic. Regardless of their records, however, many of them could probably add a cushy sinecure as ABC commentator to their resumes.