Media Hiding Under Desks?

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Article in The Washington Post by Jennifer Rubin, 12/20/24

Headline:  “Courage is in short supply among Democrats and the media”

“. . . Most problematic to me are the troubling decisions of legacy media owners. We saw the pattern starting with The Post’s and the Los Angeles Times’s refusal to endorse a presidential candidate, followed by MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski’s trek to Mar-a-Lago and then the spectacle of legacy and new media owners (including Post owner Jeff Bezos) kicking in $1 million each for the Trump inauguration. The widely panned ABC News defamation settlement might have been the worst instance of capitulation in the history of major defamation litigation. (In a whole other category of awful: the new, patently absurd L.A. Times “bias meter,” a sort of trigger warning for readers who cannot figure out which way a Times opinion columnist leans, and the constant owner-meddling.”

“Decisions like these don’t mollify Trump; they invite further abuse. . .”

“. . . The sort of behavior we have witnessed from many legacy outlets will not help win back audiences who have lost faith in them. (Progressives are horrified; right-wingers will never patronize them.)”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/12/20/trump-democrats-media-courage/

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Encyclopedia Brittanica

Article in Committee to Protect Journalism by Staff, 12/18/24

Headline: “The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a Kyrgyzstan court’s decision upholding convictions against four journalists from anti-corruption investigative outlet Temirov Live, two of whom were sentenced to lengthy prison terms.”

On Wednesday, the Bishkek City Court upheld an October 10 first instance court decision sentencing Makhabat Tajibek kyzy to six years in prison, Azamat Ishenbekov to five years in prison, and reporter Aike Beishekeyeva and former reporter Aktilek Kaparov to three years of probation. Prosecutors did not appeal the acquittals of seven other current and former Temirov Live staff.”

https://cpj.org/2024/12/kyrgyzstan-court-upholds-convictions-of-4-anti-corruption-journalists/

 

Media Blackout Soon?

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Article in Daily Kos by Alan Singerm 12/19/24

Headline:  “Could Trump Silence the Media?”

“With the Presidency, the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court controlled by rightwing Republicans, the fundamental mechanism embedded in the Constitution by its authors, checks and balances that can constrain extremists and can control a radical President, may no longer operate.”

“. . . Trump and his allies are also launching legal attacks on the media charging it with misrepresentation and bias in campaigns to silence criticism.”

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/12/19/2292750/-Could-Trump-Silence-the-Media?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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

Columnist Bows, Corrects View

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Article in Raw Story by Erik De La Garze, 12/18/24

Headline: ” ‘Incredibly craven’: Social media slams NYT columnist’s reversal on ‘Never Trump’ “

“Social media users came out swinging against a conservative New York Times columnist who this week declared he was ‘done with never Trump,’ and suggested the movement defeated itself.

“The online backlash came in response to a Tuesday opinion piece by Bret Stephens, who said he believes Trump’s second term could be ‘as bad as his most fervent critics fear,’ but still urged readers to send warm wishes to the new administration and give his cabinet selections ‘the benefit of the doubt.’

“ ‘It is incredibly craven to pretend to take a principled stand against Trump only to rescind it when it becomes clear that Trump isn’t actually going away and there is nothing to be personally gained from the ostentatious display of ‘principle,’ University of Texas at Austin professor Mike Boyla-Kolchin wrote on Bluesky.”

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-2670492806/

Threatening the Press Threatens Us All

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Freedom House Poster

Article in The Hill by Juliann Venture, 12/18/24

Headline:  “Ex-Post editor Martin Baron: Trump team will do ‘everything to undermine public confidence in the press’ “

Martin Baron, the former executive editor for The Washington Post, said in a new interview that President-elect Trump’s team will do ‘everything’ to undermine confidence in the press.

Baron offered the remarks as Trump won a big victory when ABC settled a lawsuit with him involving incorrect comments by anchor George Stephanopoulos.

Trump days later launched a new suit against The Des Moines Register and pollster Ann Seltzer.

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5047691-marty-baron-trump-press-undermine/

Relax, Nothing to Report Here

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Article in The Guardian by Dani Anguiano, 12/18/24

Headline:  “LA Times owner asks editorial board to ‘take a break’ from writing about Trump – report”

Subhead:  “Billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, who said paper is ‘echo chamber’, also blocked paper’s board from endorsing Harris”

“Patrick Soon-Shiong, the owner of the Los Angeles Times, reportedly asked the newspaper’s editorial board to “take a break” from writing about Donald Trump, in the latest report of the billionaire owner’s growing influence over the newspaper’s coverage.

“The newspaper and its owner were embroiled in controversy for weeks this fall after Soon-Shiong blocked the board from endorsing Kamala Harris for president. The decision led to a wave of resignations on the editorial board and the loss of thousands of subscriptions.”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/dec/18/la-times-patrick-soon-shiong-trump

Broadcasters – Beware!

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

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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/