Trump’s Big Win in His Escalating War on the Press
A failure of media ethics and the need now for law reform
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Donald Trump just achieved a major legal victory over a media organization he sued for reporting he did not like. Paramount, owner of CBS, has agreed to settle Trump’s claim that “60 Minutes” violated Texas state deceptive trade practices law by selectively editing an interview with Kamala Harris to help her, and hurt him, politically. At stake for Paramount is a merger with Skydance media which, it reportedly fears, will founder on administration opposition if it does not settle the CBS claim. The importance of the deal to Paramount, together with the wish to avoid other retaliatory action by the administration, apparently outweighed all other considerations.
Trump now prevails on a more-than-dubious legal claim—characterized by one expert as “ridiculous junk” worthy only of being “mocked”—and demonstrates that he can use a combination of a personal lawsuit and implicit threats of federal government power to pressure a news organization into political submission. It also highlights the central role of civil society, within the media industry and elsewhere, in taking seriously—or not—an ethical responsibility for the defense of democratic norms and institutions.
Law firms have had choices to make in this context, as have universities. Sometimes these paths cross. In the Paramount case, the company brought in as counsel a law firm, Gibson Dunn, that has shied away from pro bono representation related to immigration for fear of drawing punitive administration action (and was among the major firms that declined to sign an amicus brief against the retaliatory actions—found unlawful in four separate cases—directed at other firms).
Paramount apparently seeks to discharge its professional ethical obligations by settling without an apology or statement of “regret.” But as a disgraced member of Congress, Michael “Ozzie” Myers, memorably declared years ago, “Money talks and bullshit walks.” The $16 million payout appears to be, for Trump, apology enough. News organizations above all others understand how the story will be reported: a win for Trump and a defeat for the press in his war on “fake news,” defined by unfavorable coverage, or, in this instance, favoritism displayed to his opponents.
It is important to bear in mind that Trump is not alleging that he was defamed. His complaint is that CBS had engaged in “partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference through malicious, deceptive, and substantial news distortion calculated to … confuse, deceive, and mislead the public” and to “attempt to tip the scales in favor of the Democratic Party as the heated 2024 Presidential Election … approaches its conclusion.” This, he alleged, was only one instance of the political harm done to him by “legacy media organizations [that] have gone into overdrive to get Kamala elected.” According to Trump, Harris was a bad candidate, known for “word salad,” and CBS made her look better with “deceitful, deceptive manipulation of news.” None of the arguments Trump and allies have made for changing the libel laws to enable aggrieved politicians to sue news media organizations more successfully are involved in this case.
Trump’s Truth Social attacks on CBS, presented to the Court in his complaint, speak clearly to the purely political nature of this legal claim:
A giant Fake News Scam by CBS & 60 Minutes. Her REAL ANSWER WAS CRAZY, OR DUMB, so they actually REPLACED it with another answer in order to save her or, at least, make her look better. A FAKE NEWS SCAM, which is totally illegal. TAKE AWAY THE CBS LICENSE. Election Interference. She is a Moron, and the Fake News Media wants to hide that fact. An UNPRECEDENTED SCANDAL!!! The Dems got them to do this and should be forced to concede the Election? WOW!”
While not legally relevant, Trump alleged in his suit that CBS conceded that the 60 Minutes interview with Harris was deceptively edited. In fact, CBS declared that claim, over which it is now settling for millions of dollars, to be false.
Trump’s threatened or actual resort to legal process to intimidate, or otherwise bring to heel, news organizations will surely now continue. It seems likely to accelerate. Only days ago, Trump’s lawyers threatened to sue the New York Times and CNN over their reporting on a preliminary intelligence assessment of the success of the U.S. bombing attack on Iranian nuclear sites. And his administration is threatening prosecution of CNN for reporting on an app that would help users monitor immigration detention officials. Even before this latest threat, news media executives were “reportedly instructing their newsrooms to temper their coverage of President Trump and his administration.”
No major politician before him, and certainly no president, has ever relied so heavily on litigation—much less litigation backed by government threats—to hound his political adversaries or advance his personal political interests. These are not the products of pure impulse, just days of rage: This is a strategy. He has carried it over from his business career: “I’m like a PhD at litigation,” he once declared. When he was a candidate, or on the verge of candidacy, these legal strikes often failed, but, as president, he is finding more success. It is impossible to imagine that Paramount would have settled this case when Trump was just a candidate or had he lost the election.
The question now is what can be done in the absence of reliable ethical responses on the part of companies like Paramount or law firms confronted with baseless legal attacks with a direct bearing on the health of democratic institutions. Presidents now enjoy vast (though in key respects not clearly defined) legal immunities, both during and after leaving office. A president like Donald Trump may, most probably does, imagine that he can abuse with impunity the legal process to harass and silence press and other critics—and deploy the full force of the federal government to weaken or overcome defenses against his private and political vendettas. This, then, is now a project for law reform, as complicated as it would be.