Legal Info

Group Legal documents

Blackmailing the Media

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Article in The Washington Post by Sara Ellison & Jeremy Barr, 7/2/25

Headline:  “How Trump’s media war brought Paramount to its knees”

Subhead:  “Tuesday night’s $16 million settlement with Trump followed months of tension between CBS’s journalistic mission and its corporate interest.”

“The breaking point came on a Saturday night in the middle of May. CBS President George Cheeks called news division chief Wendy McMahon with a suggestion: “It’s probably time.”

“Two days later, McMahon announced her departure.

“The forced resignation marked a turning point: The network of Edward R. Murrow, which stood against McCarthyism and once defined American broadcast journalism, was capitulating to White House pressure as its corporate owner sought approval for a lucrative merger. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/07/02/trump-paramount-cbs-settlement-media/

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Article in The Washington Post by Eric Wemple, 7/2/25

Headline:  “Paramount betrays ‘60 Minutes’ and the rest of us

Subhead:  “Parent company caves to baseless suit by Donald Trump.”

“. . .On Tuesday night came the news that Paramount had agreed to pay $16 million to settle the suit, which stemmed from a ‘60 Minutes’ interview with then-vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. The money, which covers the president’s legal fees and costs, will go to his future presidential library.

What happened between disputation and capitulation? . . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/07/02/paramount-settlement-trump-betrayal/

Changing Media Horses?

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Article in Status by Jon Passantino, 6/28/25

Headline:  “Gavin Takes Off the Gloves”

Subhead:  “Gavin Newsom spent months cozying up to MAGA media – now he’s suing Fox News for $787 Million, signaling a sharp break from his flirtation with the far right”

“After months of cozying up to the far right—hosting MAGA extremists on his podcast where he offered them praise, and trying on a strange ‘reach across the aisle’ persona—the California governor made a sharp reversal. On Friday, the likely 2028 contender filed a defamation lawsuit against Fox News, alleging the network manipulated video footage to falsely portray him as lying about a phone call with Donald Trump. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.status.news/p/gavin-newsom-fox-news-lawsuit

 

“Media Matters” Sues FTC

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Article in Media Matters by Staff, 6/23/25

Headline:  “Media Matters files suit in federal court to block retaliatory FTC investigation and protect its First Amendment rights”

Subhead:  “Investigation into Media Matters is the latest example of Trump administration abusing power to target perceived political opponents”

“Media Matters for America filed suit today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to block an investigation launched by the Federal Trade Commission. The investigation is the latest effort by Elon Musk and his allies in the Trump administration to retaliate against Media Matters for its reporting on X, the social media site Musk controls, and it’s another example of the Trump administration weaponizing government authorities to target political opponents. The suit alleges that the FTC has violated Media Matters’ First Amendment rights by retaliating against the organization for its reporting on Elon Musk and X. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.mediamatters.org/justice-civil-liberties/media-matters-files-suit-federal-court-block-retaliatory-ftc-investigation

Settle or no Media Deal

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Article in UPI by Mark Moran, 6/19/25

Headline:  “Paramount stalls $35 million ’60 Minutes’ settlement, slowing merger”

“Paramount has pulled back on a $35 million settlement with President Donald Trump after he sued the media company over a segment on CBS’ News’ “60 Minutes.”

“The lawsuit alleges that the program edited an interview with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris ahead of the 2024 election to change how she would appear to viewers.

“The stalled settlement is holding up a potential $8 billion takeover of Paramount by Skydance, a deal that the two companies negotiated over a year ago. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2025/06/19/paramount-stalles-35m-trump-settlement/7591750371277/

Writing Laws to Stifle Press

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Jon Alsop, 6/3/25

Headline:  “The Insidious Spread of ‘Foreign Agent’ Laws Continues”

Subhead:  “Hungary and other nations are pushing a Russian-style crackdown on the press.”

“. . .Last month, Fidesz, Orbán’s party, introduced a bill, with the innocuous-sounding title ‘On the Transparency of Public Life,’ that essentially aims to legislate his rant. The bill would allow Hungary’s (decidedly less innocuous-sounding) ‘Sovereignty Protection Office’ to recommend the blacklisting of organizations, including news outlets, that receive funding from abroad and are deemed a threat to sovereignty—an incredibly broad designation that, per Politico, includes activities such as ‘influencing public opinion, promoting democratic debate, or challenging state-defined values like Christian culture and traditional family roles.’ . . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/insidious-spread-foreign-agent-laws-continues-hungary-orban-trump-fara.php

Public Media Are Sueing

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Article in The Hill by Dominick Mastrangelo, 5/30/25

Headline: “PBS sues Trump administration in wake of calls to strip funding”

“PBS is suing President Trump’s administration on First Amendment grounds, arguing the president is trying to pull funding the from the broadcaster because of editorial coverage he disagrees with.

“The suit filed Friday in federal court in Washington, D.C., accused the president of trying to “upend public television” and argues the law “forbids” him from pulling funding to it and other public broadcast outlets.

“PBS’s suit follows a similar lawsuit filed earlier this week by NPR. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5326430-pbs-sues-trump/

NPR Tuning Out Trump?

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Article in Status News by Oliver Darcy, 5/27/25

Headline: “NPR Flips the Dial on Trump”

Subhead: “When Trump signed an order to defund NPR, the network faced a choice over how it would respond—but CEO Katherine Maher made one thing clear from the start: there would be no backroom negotiations.

“In the days following Donald Trump’s May 1 executive order to strip NPR of all federal funding, leaders at the public broadcaster began deliberating their options. But even before the network’s legal team got to work on the litigation, one decision had already been made. NPR chief executive Katherine Maher made clear that the outlet would not quietly negotiate with the White House—an approach other media companies have recently taken under immense political pressure.

“As an independent media organization,” Maher told me by phone Tuesday, “we wouldn’t go ahead and have that conversation because that would be negotiating on editorial principle.” . . .”

Read the full story here:

https://www.status.news/p/npr-sues-trump-funding-katherine-maher-interview

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Article in AP by David Bauder, 5/27/25

Headline:  “NPR sues Trump administration over executive order to cut federal funding to public media”

“National Public Radio and three of its local stations sued President Donald Trump on Tuesday, arguing that his executive order cutting funding to the 246-station network violates their free speech and relies on an authority that he does not have.

Earlier this month, Trump instructed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and federal agencies to cease funding for NPR and PBS, either directly or indirectly. The president and his supporters argue their news reporting promotes liberal bias and shouldn’t be supported by taxpayers.

Retaliation is Trump’s plain purpose, the lawsuit argues. It was filed in federal court in Washington by NPR and three Colorado entities — Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio and KUTE, Inc., chosen to show the system’s diversity in urban and rural areas.

“By basing its directives on the substance of NPR’s programming, the executive order seeks to force NPR to adapt its journalistic standards and editorial choices to the preferences of the government if it is to continue to receive federal funding,” Katherine Maher, NPR’s CEO, said Tuesday.

Read the full story here:

https://apnews.com/article/npr-trump-lawsuit-public-radio-f320314b30df6934238a5b6af47c5067

Broadcaster Over the Volcano

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Article in MSN by Meg James, 5/27/25

Headline:  “Trump, ’60 Minutes’ and corruption allegations put Paramount on edge with sale less certain”

“One fateful October decision to trim two convoluted sentences from a ’60 Minutes‘ interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris has snowballed into a full-blown corporate crisis for CBS’ parent company, Paramount Global, and its controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone.

“President Trump’s $20-billion lawsuit — claiming ’60 Minutes’ producers deceptively manipulated the Harris interview to make her look smarter — has festered, clouding the future of Paramount and the company’s hoped-for $8-billion sale to David Ellison’s Skydance Media.

“The dispute over the edits has sparked massive unrest within the company, prompted high-level departures and triggered a Federal Communications Commission examination of alleged news bias. The FCC’s review of the Skydance deal has become bogged down, according to people familiar with the matter who weren’t authorized to comment.. .”

Read the full article here:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/ar-AA1FyJMu

Media Ignore Charges

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Article in The Intercept by Natasha Lennard, 5/20/25

Headline: “Trump is Prosecuting a Congressional Democrat for Doing Her Job. The Media’s Response: No Big Deal”

Subhead:  “You’d never know reading the New York Times that charges against Rep. LaMonica McIver are nothing but an authoritarian attack.”

“You may have come across a common thought experiment that asks how the establishment U.S. media might cover a given domestic news event were it to occur in a maligned foreign country. The latest disturbing news from Donald Trump’s Justice Department, for example, might be framed as something like: ‘Trumpist regime targets opposition politician with fabricated charges for carrying out oversight.’

“Instead, the typical mainstream reports were muted on the Justice Department’s obscene decision Monday night to charge New Jersey Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver with ‘assaulting’ a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer when the member of Congress attempted to conduct an oversight visit earlier this month at a massive, new ICE detention facility in her hometown of Newark . . .”

Read the full article at: 

https://theintercept.com/2025/05/20/trump-prosecuting-democrat-mciver-ice-media/