Press Freedom

Lawyers Fight Any Bad News

by


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/

—————

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/

—————

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

by

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/

———————————

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

 

Refuge for Congo Journalists

by

RWB Photo

Article in Reporters Without Borders by Staff, 12/16/24

Headline: “DRC: RSF and UNPC open a residence for displaced journalists in North Kivu province”

“Since last September, two journalists have been killed and multiple media workers have been attacked. Around twenty community radio stations have been closed, censored or subjected to control by the M23 rebel group this summer, while others have been threatened with prosecution by the government. Due to the many dangers journalists face in North Kivu, a north-eastern province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), they are forced to flee their homes. Around fifty journalists from North Kivu had been displaced by the end of June 2024.”

https://rsf.org/en/drc-rsf-and-unpc-open-residence-displaced-journalists-north-kivu-province

Government Control and Public Media

by

Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Sacha Biazzo, 12/11/24

Headline:  “Lucia Annunziata on the Transformation of Italy’s Public Broadcaster Under Giorgia Meloni”

Subhead:  “An anchor turned politician on her exit from RAI.”

“Historically, RAI, Italy’s public broadcaster, has always been subject to government control. During the political era dominated by Silvio Berlusconi, the late media mogul turned three-time prime minister, for example, the infamous “Bulgarian Diktat” caused an uproar: following a declaration by Berlusconi, management effectively removed the journalist Enzo Biagi, anchor Michele Santoro, and satirist Daniele Luttazzi . . . from public TV altogether.

“Today, under the right-wing prime minister Giorgia Meloni, efforts to align RAI with the government’s agenda have been seen as even more pervasive—the broadcaster has undergone a series of radical transformations, often referred to using the shorthand TeleMeloni.”

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/qa_lucia_annunziata_telemeloni_italy_rai.php

Hope for Syrian Journalists

by


Article in Committee to Protect Jounalists by Staff, 12/11/24

Headline: CPJ calls on new Syrian leaders to protect journalist safety, hold Assad’s media persecutors to account

“As Syria transitions to a new government following the December 8 toppling of Bashar al-Assad, the Committee to Protect Journalists calls on authorities to take decisive action to ensure the safety of all journalists and hold accountable those responsible for the killing, imprisonment, and silencing of members of the media during the country’s 13-year civil war.

“ ‘Scenes of journalists rushing to cover Syria’s post-Assad regime raise hope for the start of a new chapter for the country’s media workers,’ said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna. ‘While we wait for the missing to return and the imprisoned to be released, we call on the new authorities to hold the perpetrators to account for the crimes of killing, abducting, or jailing reporters.’ ”

https://cpj.org/2024/12/cpj-calls-on-new-syrian-leaders-to-protect-journalist-safety-hold-assads-media-persecutors-to-account/

Billionaire Media Owners Know Best

by


Article in The Guardian by Emily Bell, 12/13/24

Headline:  “Can billionaire media moguls be trusted in Trump’s America?”

Subhead:  “The new gatekeepers use ‘trust’ to discredit the press and talk about removing bias with AI – distracting us from their own shift to the right”

“If we want to know what news organisations will look like under the second Trump administration in America, well, we are beginning to get an idea. At the Dealbook conference in New York last week, Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post and multi-billionaire founder of Amazon, gave a very favourable assessment of Donald Trump’s upcoming second term. “I am very hopeful … he seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation,” beamed Bezos. It was surprising, then, that the Washington Post did not endorse Trump in its pre-election editorial. Instead the writers crafted an endorsement of Democratic candidate Kamala Harris which Bezos killed, in his first act of blatant editorial interference since he bought the title in 2013.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/13/can-billionaire-media-moguls-be-trusted-in-trumps-america

——————–

Article in Daily Kos by Alex Samuela, 12/13/24

Headline:  “America’s largest media and tech moguls line up to kiss Trump’s ass”

“Jeff Bezos’ Amazon is reportedly planning to donate $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration—mirroring a similarly large donation from Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman.

“The billionaires’ respective decisions to open their pocketbooks to the incoming president come as other tech leads and media moguls have similarly begun to soften their approach toward Trump—despite his promise to exact vengeance on news outlets that anger him. On Thursday, Rolling Stone reported that Trump’s lieutenants are planning more personal lawsuits and legal threats against news outlets during his second White House stint.”

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/12/13/2291744/-America-s-largest-media-and-tech-moguls-line-up-to-kiss-Trump-s-ass?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_1&pm_medium=web

——————–

Article in Mediaite by David Gilmour, 12/13/24

Headline:  ” ‘He’s Right!’ Colby Hall Says Media Has Been Tamed – And Trunp’s Person Of The Year Was A Veiled Threat”

“Mediaite’s Colby Hall agreed with President-elect Donald Trump’s take that the media had somewhat “tamed” in its coverage of him since the election but flagged Trump’s Person Of The Year speech at the New York Stock Exchange as a veiled threat.

The analysis came after Trump appeared on Wall Street Thursday to ring the bell in celebration of being named Time’s Person of the Year. Delivering a speech at the event, the president-elect mused about the more benevolent coverage he’d been receiving.

After thanking Time for the honor, he said, “The media is tamed down a little bit. They like us much better now I think. If they don’t, then we’ll just have to take them on again, and we don’t want to do that.”

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/hes-right-colby-hall-says-media-has-been-tamed-and-trumps-person-of-the-year-speech-was-a-veiled-threat/

 

Sudan Journalists at Risk

by

Photo: AFP/Amaury Falt-Brown

Article by Staff in Citizens to Protect Journalists, 12/12/24

Headline:  “Rapid Support Forces kill Sudanese journalist Hanan Adam and brother”

“On Monday, December 8, soldiers with the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed journalist Hanan Adam, a correspondent for local Sudan Communist Party-affiliated newspaper al-Midan, and her brother, Youssef Adam, at their home in the village of Wad Al-Asha in the east-central al-Gezira state, according to statements by the Sudanese Journalists’ Union and the Sudan Communist Party.

“We are deeply shocked and outraged by Rapid Support Forces’ brutal killing of journalist Hanan Adam and her brother in al-Gezira state, which further illustrates the extreme conditions journalists and their families currently face in Sudan,” said CPJ Interim MENA Program Coordinator Yeganeh Rezaian, from Washington, D.C

https://cpj.org/2024/12/rapid-support-forces-kill-sudanese-journalist-hanan-adam-and-brother/

Reporter Records Seized in Past

by

Article in AP by Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer, 12/10/24

Headline:  “Justice Department ignored some policies when seizing reporters’ phone records, watchdog finds”

“Federal prosecutors sidestepped some Justice Department rules when they seized the phone records of reporters as part of media leak investigations during the Trump administration, according to a new watchdog report being released as the aggressive practice of hunting for journalists’ sources could again be resurrected.”

https://apnews.com/article/justice-department-inspector-general-reporters-congress-records-d337eb87f286b9c14779adb8b4b14365

Press Freedom Jeopardy?

by

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/

Biased About Media Bias?

by

Article in The Guardian by Anna Betts, 12/6/24

Headline:  “Owner of Los Angeles Times says paper will employ AI-powered ‘bias meter’

Subhead:  “Biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong also wants to include more conservative voices in paper’s opinion section”

“Patrick Soon-Shiong, the owner of the Los Angeles Times, has announced plans to incorporate an artificial intelligence-powered “bias meter” into the newspaper’s coverage.

“Soon-Shiong, the biotech billionaire who bought the Los Angeles Times in 2018, made the comments on a podcast hosted by conservative commentator Scott Jennings, who is soon joining the LA Times editorial board.

The proposed move is the latest controversy to rock the newspaper which has suffered a wave of resignations and layoffs under Soon-Shiong’s ownership. Most recently, Soon-Shiong blocked the paper from endorsing Democrat Kamala Harris in last month’s presidential election, sparking outrage from many staff.”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/dec/06/la-times-ai-bias-meter-owner