Trump launches new assault on the free press (1 Viewer)

[superchuck500]

Interesting for a man who professes to be a "Lover of the Constitution". And let's be clear about this - Donald Trump knows that this lawsuit will fail based on the First Amendment . . . this is nothing more than an intimidation tactic (and strongly reflective of malignant narcissism).

So, on the theory of "election interference" - which isn't actually a private cause of action - and an Iowa consumer fraud statute, Trump has sued the Des Moines Register and its well-known pollster/poll-expert Ann Selzer for publishing her polling analysis that showed Harris leading Trump in Iowa. Trump has been stating for weeks now that he intends to file other suits against the press and even stating that some members of the press should be prosecuted for crimes.

Many states have an "anti-SLAPP" law that allows for defamation defendants to recover attorneys fees (100% and sometimes more) where it it ruled that the plaintiff had no legitimate case and used the lawsuit to try to intimidate the speaker from free exercise of speech regarding the plaintiff. Iowa has no such law. I don't have the lawsuit yet because the press remains wildly incompetent about covering legal matters and it isn't available on the Iowa courts site yet.

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 state by 14 percentage points as voters sent him back to the White House.

Trump’s lawsuit, which was filed in Iowa state court in Polk County, accuses the outlet and pollster of violating Iowa’s consumer fraud laws by engaging in deception.

“Selzer’s polling ‘miss’ was not an astonishing coincidence — it was intentional,” the complaint states.

The lawsuit asks for an unspecified amount of damages and an order preventing the pollster from “releasing any further deceptive polls” and compelling them to disclose information they relied upon in publishing the November survey.

Trump sues Des Moines Register, top pollster for 'brazen election interference,' fraud over Harris poll

FIRST ON FOX: President-elect Donald Trump is suing the Des Moines Register and its top pollster Ann Selzer for “brazen election interference" and fraud over its final 2024 presidential poll showing Vice President Kamala Harris leading him in Iowa, despite his ultimate victory in the state by...

www.foxnews.com

 

[Dragon]

Spotted on Bluesky—one of the best explanations I’ve seen for the mess we’re in today. It’s from the UK, but it applies to the U.S. just as well.

And an actual example from today

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/23/politics/trump-presidency-chaos-success-analysis/index.html

 

[DaveXA]

Spotted on Bluesky—one of the best explanations I’ve seen for the mess we’re in today. It’s from the UK, but it applies to the U.S. just as well.

And an actual example from today

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/23/politics/trump-presidency-chaos-success-analysis/index.html

Yep, this is why you can't win with hate filled people. Their world view services and feeds into that hatred. It's certainly why Trump has so much success demonizing whole groups of people. Conservatism is a valid point of view. MAGA/fascism is not.

 

[Optimus Prime]

There have been so many red alerts for press freedom in the United States over the past few months that it can be hard to know which ones really matter.

The one at CBS’s 60 Minutes really matters.

It came as a one-two punch. First, Bill Owens, the highly respected executive producer of the venerable news show stepped down, writing in a letter to employees that he no longer felt he had crucial editorial independence. It had become clear, he wrote, “that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it”.

Although he wasn’t specific, corporate interference was clearly the problem, as the network’s parent company, Paramount, has been trying to get federal approval for a big media merger.

Owens’s departure was a shocker, but one that was mostly felt internally at CBS and in media-watching circles.

Last Sunday night, the problem went public – dramatically so. One of the most well-known faces of 60 Minutes, the correspondent Scott Pelley, closed out the program with a remarkable statement to the audience. He praised Owens and made the context painfully clear.

“Stories we’ve pursued for 57 years are often controversial – lately, the Israel-Gaza war and the Trump administration,” Pelley said. “Bill made sure they were accurate and fair … but our parent company, Paramount, is trying to complete a merger. The Trump administration must approve it. Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways.”

Pelley said that, to date, no story had been killed but that Owens “felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires”.

Pelley’s comments were picked up widely, and now the world knows that viewers can no longer fully trust what they see on the Sunday evening show that has done such important and groundbreaking journalism for decades.


Of course, as with so many of the red alerts mentioned above – lawsuits, threats, changes in long-held practices that protect the public’s right to know – the problem involves Donald Trump’s overweening desire to control the media. Controlling the message is what would-be authoritarians always do.

Trump sued 60 Minutes for $20bn a few months ago, claiming unfair and deceptive editing of an interview with his then rival for the presidency, Kamala Harris. And his newly appointed head of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, took an aggressive approach by reopening an investigation into CBS over supposed distortion of the news. The editing of the Harris interview, by all reasonable accounts, followed standard practices.

What has happened with 60 Minutes is a high-octane version of what is happening everywhere in Trump 2.0.

Those who could stand up to Trump’s bullying are instead doing what scholars of authoritarianism say must be avoided, if democracy is to be salvaged. They are obeying in advance.……..

Did all his bending the knee – including killing a Post endorsement of Harris just before the election – buy him long-term protection? Certainly not. When Amazon reportedly planned to display the cost of Trump’s tariffs next to prices on the site, the White House went ballistic, calling it a “hostile and political act”.

You can guess what happened next. Amazon buckled, disavowing and scrapping the plan.

If the rich and powerful won’t stand up to Trump, what hope can there be for the disenfranchised and powerless?……..

The loss of editorial freedom at 60 Minutes is a sorry milestone for US media | Margaret Sullivan

What has happened with 60 Minutes is a high-octane version of what’s happening everywhere in Trump 2.0

www.theguardian.com

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

Spotted on Bluesky—one of the best explanations I’ve seen for the mess we’re in today. It’s from the UK, but it applies to the U.S. just as well.

And an actual example from today

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/23/politics/trump-presidency-chaos-success-analysis/index.html

Karl Popper wrote about the paradox of tolerance. Unlimited tolerance leads to the total disappearance of all tolerance, because if you tolerate the intolerant, the intolerant crowds out and crushes everyone else.

 

[Optimus Prime]

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order aiming to slash public subsidies to PBS and NPR as he alleged “bias” in the broadcasters’ reporting.

The order instructs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies “to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS” and further requires that that they work to root out indirect sources of public financing for the news organizations.

The White House, in a social media posting announcing the signing, said the outlets “receive millions from taxpayers to spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news.’”

It’s the latest move by Trump and his administration to utilize federal powers to control or hamstring institutions whose actions or viewpoints he disagrees with.

Since taking office, Trump has ousted leaders, placed staff on administrative leave and cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to artists, libraries, museums, theaters and others, through takeovers of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Trump has also pushed to withhold federal research and education funds from universities and punish law firms unless they agreed to eliminate diversity programs and other measures Trump has found objectionable.

The broadcasters get roughly half a billion dollars in public money through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and have been preparing for the possibility of stiff cuts since Trump’s election, as Republicans have long complained about them…….

Trump signs executive order directing federal funding cuts to PBS and NPR

President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order aiming to slash public subsidies to PBS and NPR as he alleged “bias” in the broadcasters’ reporting.

apnews.com

 

[DaveXA]

Not really on the press, but 1A related. Thoughts? I'd think this is blatantly unconstitutional.

 

[UriUT]

Not really on the press, but 1A related. Thoughts? I'd think this is blatantly unconstitutional.

I had read long ago about this evangelical fascination with israel and the end times. I didn't process it until a friend literally traveled to israel to confirm that israel is real. It's so bonkers.

The constitutional ideals are rapidly dying.

 

[Optimus Prime]

In the telling of Donald Trump and his Republicancolleagues, the US media is fake news, stocked with “radical-left monsters” who are guilty of “illegal” reporting on the president.

The reality is different.

Since Trump’s election, a number of US news organizations have appeared to bend to Trump’s will, with a growing number of examples of billionaire owners seemingly setting aside journalistic independence in favor of staying in Trump’s good grace.


Despite that acquiescence, Trump has continued to threaten journalists, branding pollsters “negative criminals” who “should be investigated for election fraud”. In April, he attacked “radical lunatic Democrats and their comrades in the fake news media”, adding: “Those lying to the American People on behalf of violent criminals have to be held responsible by the Agencies and the Courts.”

The attacks overlook the ways in which some outlets have submitted to Trump’s will – either by executives settling frivolous lawsuits or wealthy owners interfering to avoid upsetting Trump.

Jeff Bezos, the Washington Post owner, ordered an overhaul to the paper’s editorial pages in February that effectively muzzled the newspaper’s criticism of Trump. The Los Angeles Times dropped its endorsement of Kamala Harris under pressure from Patrick Soon-Shiong, its billionaire owner.

In December, ABC News settled a Trump lawsuit, in a move first amendment experts said could foster more attacks on the media. And in another blow, the owner of CBS News is said to be considering settling a $10bn lawsuit brought against the network over the editing of a Kamala Harris interview.

The New York Times reported that lawyers for Paramount were planning to mediate with Trump over the issue, despite legal experts dismissing the lawsuit as frivolous. CBS said its show 60 Minutes edited one of Harris’s answers for time, a normal journalistic practice. Paramount is in talks to be sold to Skydance, a sale that needs approval from the Trump administration. Shari Redstone, Paramount’s controlling shareholder, would land a huge windfall if the deal went ahead, and has told Paramount’s board of directors she is in favor of settling with Trump, according to the Times.

“The people bowing to Trump are the owners of all of these media outlets, or top management,” said Heather Hendershot, a professor of communication studies and journalism at Northwestern University.

“It’s hugely problematic, and it’s absolutely driven by their bottom lines. Jeff Bezos doesn’t need to make money off of the Washington Post. He could break even, or lose money on the Washington Post, and he would be just fine, but it could make trouble for him and his other business enterprises, so he’d rather toe [Trump’s] line.”…..

Trump complains the US media aren’t bending to his will. Aren’t they?

Despite owners and networks forsaking journalistic independence, Trump continues to threaten journalists

www.theguardian.com

 

[MT15]

Of course he continues his attacks. Any fourth grader can tell you that acquiescence toward a bully only encourages that behavior. This is truly elementary.