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It feels like the forces upholding the free press in the United States are beginning to buckle.
ABC's recent $15 million settlement with Donald Trump — stemming from the president-elect's lawsuit alleging anchor George Stephanopoulos defamed him — was a bad omen.
Trump had accused Stephanopoulos of defaming him when he said on air in March that Trump “has been found liable for rape by a jury," referring to author E. Jean Carroll's civil litigation. The jury found Trump was liable for sexually abusing Carroll in the 1990s but found he did not rape Carroll, as that crime is defined under New York law
As civil rights attorney Maya Wiley and MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance separately explained, ABC seemed to have a pretty strong case for why Stephanopoulos characterized Trump’s abuse of Carroll as “rape,” given the judge who oversaw Carroll's trials said the jury found that Trump “raped” Carroll, as that word is commonly understood.
But ABC, which Trump has said should have its broadcast privileges rescinded, opted to settle rather than fight the power. Per the settlement, ABC will pay $15 million to “a Presidential foundation and museum to be established by or for” Trump, which means the company will help fund what could be a shrine to Trump's ego.
And predictably, the settlement seems to have emboldened Trump to launch more legal attacks on the media over coverage he doesn't like. During a news conference on Monday, Trump threatened to “straighten out” the press using the courts and said more lawsuits would be forthcoming. And he announced his plans to sue veteran pollster Ann Selzer, who conducted a pre-election poll showing Vice President Kamala Harris leading in Iowa, a state Harris ultimately lost. He filed the lawsuit Monday night in Iowa, accusing Selzer, her polling firm, The Des Moines Register and the newspaper’s parent company, Gannett, of “election interference.”
Lark-Marie Anton, a spokesperson for The Des Moines Register, said in a statement Tuesday that Trump’s lawsuit is “without merit.”
“We have acknowledged that the Selzer/Des Moines Register pre-election poll did not reflect the ultimate margin of President Trump’s Election Day victory in Iowa by releasing the poll’s full demographics, crosstabs, weighted and unweighted data, as well as a technical explanation from pollster Ann Selzer,” Anton said. “We stand by our reporting on the matter and will vigorously defend our First Amendment rights.”
Even if this lawsuit and other potential lawsuits brought by Trump against media companies are unsuccessful, they could have a chilling effect on reporting seen as unfavorable to Trump. It's alarming to consider the possibility that some outlets could elect to avoid this type of coverage rather than publish it and risk what they feel might be an inevitable — and expensive — legal fight.
And some of Trump's Cabinet picks seem intent on deploying similar lawfare. The New York Times noted attorneys for Pete Hegseth — the scandal-plagued former Fox News host Trump wants to lead the Defense Department — and Trump's pick to lead the FBI, loyalist Kash Patel, have already issued pre-emptive legal threats to news outlets over unfavorable news coverage. Patel, for the record, has openly discussed his desire to target the media if he's put in a position of power. (He's backed off some of his tough talk about going after the media in recent months.)
So let's not sugarcoat things here: The state of American media is on a dire path. ABC settled and other outlets targeted in the future could follow. Wealthy owners of The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times stepped in to quash editorial endorsements in the last presidential race, inserting themselves in the decision-making process in ways that benefit Trump. Both Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos said they made their decisions in the name of appearing unbiased. Trump's incoming Federal Communications Commission chair has signaled a desire to punish the free press over coverage conservatives don't like and target social media platforms that engage in content moderation. And several major social media platforms are led by uberwealthy elites eager to get in Trump's good graces, be that TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg or X owner Elon Musk.
In 2022, when Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán advised Republicans they need their “own media” to exert maximum political power in the United States, I took him to mean two things. The first is that Republicans should create their own media platforms and ecosystem of influencers to peddle their propaganda — which they have. And second, Republicans should use the courts to wield crippling power — yet to be seen in the U.S. — over the media organizations that already exist. MAGA world is making headway on that front, as well.
And rather than let Trump run roughshod over them, media outlets interested in maintaining a free press need to fight these efforts head-on, with vigor.