In the wake of ABC News settling a defamation suit with Donald Trump for $16 million, the far-left New York Times is melting down over this new era of media accountability. Naturally, because we are talking about the New York Times, they are also lying about what this long overdue era means.
Normal people understand that it means that President-elect Trump is leading the way to put an end to decades of the regime media using blatant lies to smear and defame their political opponents on the political right. Oh, and in the case of the New York Times, Israel too.
To the surprise of no one, though, because the Times must affirm the worldview of the leftist subscribers keeping it alive, outright lying about Team Trump is falsely described as “critical coverage.”
Headline: “Trump and His Picks Threaten More Lawsuits Over Critical Coverage”.
Sub-headline: “The small flurry of threatened defamation suits is the latest sign that the incoming Trump administration appears poised to do what it can to crack down on unfavorable media coverage.”
Really? Falsely accusing a man of rape is now “critical coverage?”
How far the Times has fallen.
Here’s how the Times describes the Stephanopoulos episode:
On Saturday, ABC News said it had agreed to give $15 million to Mr. Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum to settle a defamation suit that Mr. Trump filed against the network and one of its anchors, George Stephanopoulos. Mr. Trump sued in March after Mr. Stephanopoulos inaccurately said the former president had been found “liable for rape” in a civil trial in New York, though the judge in the case later noted that the state has a narrow legal definition of rape. In fact, Mr. Trump had been found liable for sexual abuse.
Man alive, do Democrats got it good, or what?
Let’s pretend, all things are the same except the politics of the players. Here’s how that New York Times paragraph would read:
On Saturday, the far-right outlet said it had agreed to give $15 million to Mr. Obama’s future presidential foundation to settle a defamation suit that Mr. Obama filed against the far-right network and its right-wing activist George Stephanopoulos. Mr. Obama sued after Mr. Stephanopoulos repeatedly lied when he said the former president had been found “liable for rape.” There are no questions involving the motives of Mr. Stephanopoulos. He’s a shameless partisan and his guest was Rep. Nancy Mace (D-CT), a rape victim, who he was desperately attempting to shame over her support for Mr. Obama. She’s also taller than he is, which has been known to bring out a unique hostility in Mr. Stephanopoulos.
I especially love this Times quote: “Even before the settlement was reached, Elizabeth McNamara, a prominent media lawyer, said she expected that the trend ‘is only going to increase,’ given the political environment.”
Well, who changed the “political environment?” We all know who. Overnight, in their increasingly desperate pursuit of Trump, the regime media went from biased to flat-out insane with hoax after hoax after hoax… Years of the Russia Collusion Hoax, the Very Fine People Hoax, Seven-Hour Gap Hoax, Russian Bounties Hoax, Trump Trashes Troops Hoax, Arlington Cemetery Hoax, Trump Assaulted Secret Service Agents and Grabbed Steering Wheel of Beast Hoax, COVID Lab Leak Theory Is Racist Hoax, Hunter Biden’s Laptop Is Russian Disinformation Hoax, COVID Deaths are Overcounted Is a Conspiracy Theory Hoax, Trump Killed Japanese Koi Fish Hoax, Trump Told People to Drink Bleach Hoax…
In the closing days of the 2024 presidential campaign, the legacy media described Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally as a “Nazi rally.” Then the media lied about Trump calling for the execution of Liz Cheney. Then the media spent the entire weekend before Election Day hyping a suppression poll out of Iowa.
So, I agree, that the political environment has changed. Still, it’s been changed by a media that is so blinded by ideology and hate that there is no lie they will not tell, even if those lies encourage and excuse riots and political assassinations.
Over at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey reveals the subtext in this panic from the Times and the decision by ABC News to settle: the fake media are terrified that one of these defamation suits might end up in the Supreme Court.
Morrissey writes:
One other risk exists for the mainstream media in this fight. The more they publish false information as “fact,” the more likely that a defamation claim will reach the Supreme Court. When that happens, at least one member of the court is already itching to reverse the 1964 Sullivan doctrine that requires a higher threshold of “actual malice” when it comes to public officials and other “public persons.” Clarence Thomas has written repeatedly on this topic, and Neil Gorsuch joined in that call in 2021’s Berisha v Lawson. Gorsuch wrote that Sullivan had so perverted the incentives that media orgs might dispense with fact-checking prior to publication as a defense[.]
Currently, the standard for defamation, especially of a public figure, is almost impossibly high.
In part, here is what Gorsuch wrote:
What started in 1964 with a decision to tolerate the occasional falsehood to ensure robust reporting by a comparative handful of print and broadcast outlets has evolved into an ironclad subsidy for the publication of falsehoods by means and on a scale previously unimaginable.
…
Again, it’s unclear how well these modern developments serve Sullivan’s original purposes. Not only has the doctrine evolved into a subsidy for published falsehoods on a scale no one could have foreseen, it has come to leave far more people without redress than anyone could have predicted. And the very categories and tests this Court invented and instructed lower courts to use in this area—“pervasively famous,” “limited purpose public figure”—seem increasingly malleable and even archaic when almost anyone can attract some degree of public notoriety in some media segment. Rules intended to ensure a robust debate over actions taken by high public officials carrying out the public’s business increasingly seem to leave even ordinary Americans without recourse for grievous defamation. At least as they are applied today, it’s far from obvious whether Sullivan’s rules do more to encourage people of goodwill to engage in democratic self-governance or discourage them from risking even the slightest step toward public life.
Sure, the groomers at Disney settled Trump’s suit against ABC to avoid the embarrassment of having its top anchor sit for a deposition that was scheduled the following day. Sure, they were terrified of what discovery might turn up as far as emails and texts… But it seems perfectly reasonable to assume Disney was under pressure to end this case before it reached a Supreme Court that appears poised to reconsider the media’s grossly unfair defamation protections.
The Times is also angry that defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth has made clear he will sue anyone for defamation who makes false accusations against him.
Why would any decent American have a problem with that? If you tell the truth, you have nothing to worry about. Doesn’t the New York Times want to know the truth?
Riddle me this: Why is it okay to sue Alex Jones out of business for spreading falsehoods, but not ABC or CNN or NBC?
The New York Times is angry that Trump has said he will sue the Des Moines Register and pollster Ann Selzer for election interference over the suppression poll mentioned above.
Why would any decent American have a problem with that? If the poll was just an oopsie, discovery will show that. If it was rigged, discovery will show that. Doesn’t the New York Times want to know the truth?
You see, that’s what’s missing from this Times article — The Truth.
In a 1500-word article defending the media, not once will you find the words “true” or “truth.” Because that’s not what the Times is fighting for. Instead, the Times is fighting for the right to slander, lie, defame, and libel without consequences.
You would think reporting the truth would be the media’s primary goal, the thing it would fight the hardest to protect. But if you believe that, you’ve been living underground for 30 years.
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