Legal Info

Group Legal documents

Frivolous Media Lawsuits

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Article in Vox by Ellen Ioanes, 12/18/24

Headline:  “Trump’s media lawsuits could do serious damage to America’s free press”

Subhead:  “Lawsuits against ABC and the Des Moines Register are meant to chill the media.”

“President-elect Donald Trump’s contempt for the media is well-known, but two lawsuits filed against news organizations offer a worrying look at the next four years for outlets and reporters covering his administration.

“Disney, the parent company of ABC News, settled a suit with Trump for $15 million; Trump sued the company because anchor George Stephanopoulos mistakenly said Trump was found liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll, when he was actually found liable for sexual abuse. Trump also sued the Des Moines Register, an Iowa newspaper, this week because they published a poll showing Vice President Kamala Harris would win the state; he also sued the person who produced the poll. Trump is alleging this is election interference. These developments come amid ongoing lawsuits Trump has against CBS and publisher Simon & Schuster.

“These kinds of lawsuits aren’t new. They’re meant to be expensive and time-consuming for news companies, even if the outlets win the case.”

https://www.vox.com/donald-trump/391810/trump-media-lawsuits-abc-slapp-des-moines-register

Broadcasters – Beware!

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Article in Ars Technica y Jon Brokdin, 12/17/24

Headline:

Subhead:  “Brendan Carr backs Trump’s war against media, but revoking licenses won’t be easy.”

“President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, wants the FCC to crack down on news broadcasters that he perceives as being unfair to Trump or Republicans in general.

“Carr’s stated goals would appear to mark a major shift in the FCC’s approach to broadcasters. Carr’s predecessors, including outgoing Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Republican Ajit Pai, who served in the first Trump administration, both rejected Trump’s calls to punish news networks for alleged bias.

“Carr has instead embraced Trump’s view that broadcasters should be punished for supposed anti-conservative bias. Carr has threatened to revoke licenses by wielding the FCC’s authority to ensure that broadcast stations using public airwaves operate in the public interest, despite previous chairs saying the First Amendment prevents the FCC from revoking licenses based on content.”

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/12/trumps-fcc-chair-can-hassle-the-living-daylights-out-of-news-broadcasters/

Will Our Free Press Burn?

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Article in The Nation by Chris Lehmann. 12/17/24

Headline:  “Trump’s Attack on the Free Press Is Just Getting Started “

Subhead:  “The president-elect’s recent settlement with ABC News is an early volley in an all-out MAGA war against media independence.”

“. . .MSNBC’s erstwhile resistance mascots Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski started the ball rolling with a deferential post-election junket to Mar-a-Lago. Los Angeles Times publisher Patrick Soon-Shiong chimed in by throttling stories critical of MAGA prerogatives—and then announced an absurd AI feature that allowed readers to clock and correct alleged bias in the paper’s coverage, thereby downgrading the chronicle of current events into a choose-your-own adventure computer app for irate ideologues.”

“. . . Now, ABC News, a subsidiary of the Disney Corporation, has accelerated the quisling march of mainstream journalism into inert MAGA observance with a $15 million settlement of a defamation suit that Trump brought against the network”

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-abc-settlement/

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Article in Common Dreams by Robert Reich, 12/17/24

Headline: “ABC News Shows What It Looks Like When Corporate Media Bows to Trump”

Subhead: “We are beginning to see this all over the U.S. political-economic system — giant corporations and hugely wealthy people going out of their way to appease King Trump even in advance of his coronation.”

“ABC shouldn’t have agreed to settle the defamation case Trump brought against it — handing him $15 million for his presidential “library” (whatever monument that turns out to be) and another million for his legal fees, along with an apology.

It shouldn’t have, first, because the standard for defamation of a public figure requires that a plaintiff prove that the defendant acted with “actual malice” — that is, knew their statement was false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.

“But when on March 10, ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos asserted that Trump had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll, there’s zero evidence that Stephanopoulos knew it to be false or was acting with reckless disregard for the truth.

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-attack-on-free-press

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Staff, 12/17/24

Headline:  “Questions ABC News Should Answer Following the $16 Million Trump Settlement”

Subhead:  “The decision to cave and apologize has unnerved American journalists. The network owes them an explanation.”

As someone who practiced press law for more than twenty years, and served as a senior executive of news organizations for just as long, I was shocked by the decision of ABC News last week to pay $16 million to settle Donald Trump’s libel case over George Stephanopoulos’s This Week broadcast in March. The shock came, and still lingers, because I—and every experienced press lawyer not involved in the case with whom I have discussed it—considered the case one in which ABC was likely to eventually prevail.

https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/questions-abc-news-should-answer-16-million-trump- settlement.php

 

Lawyers Fight Any Bad News

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Article in The Hill by Dominick Mastrangelo & Brett Samuels, 12/17/24

Headline:  “ABC News settlement with Trump sends chill through media”

“ABC News’s decision to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by President-elect Trump is sending a chill through the media, with press organizations suggesting it is a major blow.

“It should not be seen as normal for powerful elected officials to wage legal campaigns against members of the press and their employers,” Caroline Hendrie, executive director of the Society of Professional Journalists, told The Hill on Monday.”

https://thehill.com/media/5042894-abc-news-settlement-with-trump-sends-chill-through-media/

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Article in The Hill by Zach Schonfeld, 12/17/24

Headline:  “Trump sues Des Moines Register, pollster”

“President-elect Trump sued The Des Moines Register and pollster J. Ann Selzer on Monday over a poll released just before Election Day indicating Vice President Harris had a sizable lead in Iowa.

The poll found Harris leading Trump in Iowa by 3 percentage points days before Trump won the Hawkeye State by 14 percentage points as voters sent him back to the White House.

Trump’s lawsuit, filed in Iowa state court in Polk County, accuses the outlet and pollster of violating Iowa’s consumer fraud laws by engaging in deception.

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5043821-donald-trump-des-moines-register-ann-selzer-lawsuit/

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Article in FAIR by Ari Paul, 12/16/24

Headline:  “ABC Settles With Trump in a Case It Could Have Won”

“ABC has agreed to pay $15 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s presidential library and $1 million toward Trump’s legal fees “to settle a defamation lawsuit over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate on-air assertion that the president-elect had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll” (AP, 12/14/24).”

https://fair.org/home/abc-settles-with-trump-in-a-case-it-could-have-won/

 

 

Threats Against Media

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Article in Daily Beast by Grace Harrington, 12/16/24

Headline:  “Trump Steps Up Revenge Tour on Media With New Threats to Sue”

Subhead: “The president-elect unveiled plans for one lawsuit and boasted about more high-profile targets.”

“Donald Trump announced Monday he would sue political pollster Ann Selzer and The Des Moines Register, which published a shock poll showing Trump losing Iowa by three points.

“I’m not doing this because I want to, I’m doing this because I feel I have an obligation to,” the president-elect said.

Trump’s announcement comes after he received a settlement from ABC News after he filed a defamation suit against the network. ABC News’ star anchor, George Stephanopoulos, said multiple times Trump was found “liable for rape,” when he was actually found liable for sexual abuse. As a result, ABC will contribute $15 million to Trump’s future presidential library. Trump’s win against ABC would embolden him to sue even more news organizations, critics said.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-says-hell-sue-pollster-ann-selzer-for-wrong-prediction-in-the-des-moines-register-about-iowa/

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Article in The New Republic by Edith Olmsted, 12/16/24

Headline:  “Trump Unleashes Dangerous New Attack on Media After ABC Win”

Subhead:  “Donald Trump is feeling emboldened in his war on journalism.”

“Donald Trump promised Monday to launch a lawsuit against the Des Moines Register over a preelection poll that found Vice President Kamala Harris had “leapfrogged” the Republican candidate, in a state he went on to handily win.

During a press conference at Mar-a-Lago, one journalist asked Trump about his ongoing defamation cases, asking, “Could you see moving that to other people with individual platforms, social media influencers, people that—”

“Or newspapers, yeah.” Trump interrupted.

https://newrepublic.com/post/189441/donald-trump-new-attack-media-lawsuit-abc

 

Attacking Media That Inform Us

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Article in The Verge by Adi Robertson, 12/9/24

Headline:  “Politicians already feel emboldened to use the legal system to target journalists.”

Subhead:  “404 Media is fighting a subpoena from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to seize confidential reporting material”

“In order to do our job well, journalists need to be independent from the government and from outside corporate interests. … Our sources—many of whom are particularly vulnerable—share information with us specifically because we are independent from the state.

“As we’ve said before: tell your Senator to pass the PRESS Act.”

https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/9/24317197/politicians-already-feel-emboldened-to-use-the-legal-system-to-target-journalists

Media Empire Trouble

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Article in The Guardian by Lauren Aratani, 12/9/24

Headline:  “Rupert Murdoch loses battle to control succession to his media empire”

Subhead:  “Media mogul’s three adult children will retain control despite attempt to give his son Lachlan complete control”

“Rupert Murdoch’s three adult children will retain control over their father’s media empire upon his death, a Nevada court has ruled after Murdoch launched a campaign to wrest away their power and give it all to his oldest son.

“The New York Times reported on Murdoch’s loss, citing a sealed court decision that was filed on Saturday. The family battle took place outside of the public’s eye, despite attempts from the media to gain access to the trial.”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/dec/09/rupert-murdochmedia-empire-children

Press Freedom Jeopardy?

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Article in FAIR by Ari Paul, 12/6/24

Headline:  “Appeals Court Upholding TikTok Ban Is a Grim Sign for Press Freedom”

“Donald Trump is just weeks away from returning to the White House, and when he gets there, it is all but assured that he will attack press freedom (FAIR.org, 11/14/24; NBC, 12/4/24).

“But the will and desire to clamp down on free speech and expression isn’t just a Trumpian phenomenon. A US District Court of Appeals panel, with two Republican-appointed judges and one picked by a Democrat, has upheld a law forcing the sale of TikTok because of its alleged Chinese government control (AP, 12/6/24).

“All corners of government, joined by members of both major parties, concur that national security concerns should allow the government to scrap First Amendment principles. This means that Trump’s aggressiveness against free speech isn’t an anomaly of his Make America Great Again movement, but a general feature of American state power. The enormity of this decision, if upheld by the notoriously conservative Supreme Court, is a dire sign of what is to come.”

https://fair.org/home/appeals-court-upholding-tiktok-ban-is-a-grim-sign-for-press-freedom/

TikTok – Medium of Free Speech or Espionage?

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Update:

Article in Washington Post by Madalin Necsutu and Anthony Faiola, 11/6/24

Headline:  “Romanian court annuls presidential vote after Russian interference claims”

Subhead:  “Calin Georgescu won the first round of the election after being propelled by TikTok. Romania’s security services pointed to ‘Russian hybrid actions.’ “

“The Constitutional Court took the extraordinary step of annulling Romania’s presidential election Friday after the country’s security services assessed that the nation had been the target of ‘Russian hybrid actions’ that used TikTok to promote a candidate who has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/12/06/romania-court-annuls-presidential-election/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

Headline:  “Appeals court upholds nationwide TikTok ban-or-sale law”

Subhead:  “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit made the expedited decision ahead of the TikTok ban’s looming Jan. 19 deadline, in a high-profile case pitting national security concerns against free speech.”

“A federal appeals court has turned away a challenge to a fast-approaching nationwide ban of short-video app TikTok unless it divests from Chinese ownership, placing national security before free speech concerns and bringing the app’s 170 million U.S. users closer to losing access to the wildly popular platform.

“he U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Friday sided with the Justice Department, which argued that the U.S. government has the authority to ban TikTok based on the national security risk that TikTok could be pressured by the Chinese government to expose Americans’ data or influence what they see. TikTok’s parent, ByteDance, is based in China.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/12/06/tiktok-ban-court-ruling-justice-department-bytedance/

Journalists Will Be Muzzled?

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Article in The Columbia Journalism Review by Kyle Paolette, 11/22/25

Headline:  “A New Normal”

Subhead:  “If Donald Trump returns to the White House, the Espionage Act offers a clear path for him to stifle press freedom.”

“It’s the summer of 2025, and the home screen of every major news outlet bears the same image: a journalist being escorted by a cloud of black suits across a brick plaza to a hearing at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia. She is the first American reporter ever to be charged under the Espionage Act.”

“. . .Since the eighties, the Espionage Act has served as the primary means of prosecuting government employees for disclosing confidential information. This century, the threat has grown significantly. During the George W. Bush administration, Judith Miller—a Times reporter whose coverage of the Iraq War drew upon what turned out to have been fabricated intelligence—was jailed for refusing to reveal a source being investigated under the Espionage Act. . . .”

https://www.cjr.org/covering_the_election/new-normal-paoletta-trump-espionage-act-project-2025-prosecute-enemies.php