President-elect Donald Trump and his Republican allies in the House of Representatives have wasted little time since his reelection last month making it clear to everyone who’s paying attention that they will be going after their political enemies and detractors come Jan. 20.
To that end, Trump won an unusual legal victory last week when ABC News, a Disney-owned company, settled out of court with him for $15 million, $1 million in legal fees and an apology from anchor George Stephanopoulos for his 2023 on-air use of the term “rape” when discussing civil judgments against Trump in the E. Jean Carroll case. Trump was found liable for $88 million in damages for defamation and sexual assault.
Credit: handout
Credit: handout
What makes the settlement so stunning is that Trump is notorious for filing defamation lawsuits against anyone and everyone who opposes him, speaks against him or reports on him. He’s been doing it for decades, though he’s usually unsuccessful in the courts. Most of his suits are thrown out as frivolous or dismissed by the presiding judges.
Not this time. Instead of defending its journalist, another powerful media conglomerate has bent its knee to Trump.
For ABC/Disney to settle for such a large sum and do so publicly sends a chilling message to journalists writ large. ABC threw a credible journalist under the proverbial bus for repeating what a federal judge said was the truth. As PEN America Director Katie Blakenship said, “It sends a message to be quiet. It sends a message to err on the side of caution.”
I agree.
Now it feels as if the media are powerless to fight back, to stand our ground, to honor the core principles set at our nation’s founding of freedom of speech and a free press. There can be no doubt: Powerful forces are at play. Disney-ABC settled, according to the New York Times, allegedly because the company feared retribution in Florida and elsewhere once Trump takes office.
This comes after what many considered a very damming reversal of reporting on Trump by prominent MSNBC “Morning Joe” show hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. The pair announced they had made the trek to Mar-a-Lago to establish an open dialogue with Trump after the 2024 election. Scarborough and Brzezinski, both repeatedly attacked by Trump, had been among Trump’s harshest critics.
Worse still: On Tuesday, Trump sued famed Iowa pollster Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register newspaper for a campaign poll Selzer released just weeks before the 2024 election showing Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump in Iowa. Of course, the poll was a snapshot in time, and Trump won Iowa handily. The lawsuit, filed in state court in Polk County, claimed “Selzer’s polling ‘miss’ was not an astonishing coincidence — it was intentional.”
Also this week, Trump’s allies in the House Republican majority released a report suggesting former congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming should be criminally prosecuted for her role in the official January 6 House Select Committee investigation. Trump had earlier posted the same sentiment on social media.
This is where we are, and it will not get better.
There are few people, if any, in the incoming Trump administration who will restrain him. Trump is appointing only loyalists to his Cabinet and key positions. He is not going to repeat the mistake he made in his first term in appointing qualified Republicans — Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, Gen. Jim Mattis or Gen. John Kelly — who would stand guard against corruption and authoritarianism. There will be no guardrails to stop Trump from acting on his worst instincts and cravings for vengeance.
So, the question for the media is how do we honor and protect our proper role?
1. As Tim Snyder’s “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century” warns us: Do not obey in advance, as it appears some are already doing. The press must remain free, it must have access, and it must be protected by the courts.
2. Stand up for truth with reliable, relatable and provable facts.
3. Do not “both-sides” the truth. It is either dawn or midnight. It cannot be both. Tell the truth. Report the truth, and do not give false equivalence to what is not the same. If it is raining and Democrats say it is raining, there is no need to quote a Republican who claims it is not.
4. News editors, corporate media leaders, editorial boards, executive producers and reporters must decide now if they are going to stand with truth — and with the Constitution.
5. Finally, media companies must back their reporters, just as CNN did when Trump revoked White House Reporter Jim Acosta’s press pass in 2020. CNN took him to court and won.
We must be willing to be reviled, assailed, attacked and even jailed for speaking and reporting the facts over the next four years. Will we? Time will tell.
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