In Front of Our Noses: Media Intimidation

An attack on the First Amendment in plain sight.

Source: The White House

“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”-George Orwell.

For previous entries, click here.

This is not a healthy way for a president and a cabinet secretary to talk about the media. It is antithetical to the First Amendment.

It is especially problematic when joined with this headline via the BBC: Paramount to pay Trump $16m to settle 60 Minutes lawsuit.

According to the lawsuit filed in federal court in Texas, CBS aired two versions of the Harris interview in which she appeared to give different answers to the same question about the Israel-Gaza war.

Interviewer Bill Whitaker asked the Democratic nominee about the Biden administration’s relationship with Israel. The network later aired two different versions of her response, according to the claim.

One clip aired on Face the Nation and the other on 60 Minutes. Trump claimed Harris’s “word salad” answer had been deceptively edited in one version to shield her from backlash.

CBS said it edited Harris’s answer for time, in accordance with television news standards.

Trump sued, originally claiming for $10bn (£8.5bn) but that figure was later increased to $20bn ($17bn) for damages.

In May this year, the company offered $15m (12.7m) to settle the suit but Trump wanted more than $25m (£21m).

[…]

According to both the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, the settlement was agreed – with the help of mediator – so as to not affect Paramount’s planned merger with Skydance Media, which the Federal Communications Commission has been reviewing and therefore Trump technically has the power to halt.

Let me not bury the lede: this is Paramount paying out a settlement to a case they know they would win because they fear Trump would use the presidency to scuttle a business deal. This is essentially a shake-down of a corporation by a sitting president.

Never mind that the practice was normal. Never mind that there were no damages to Trump (what would they even be? He won the election).

Also, a trip down memory lane via NPR: ABC settles with Trump for $15 million. Now, he wants to sue other news outlets.

BTW, also in front of our noses as per the photo at the top of this post: the president advertising his merch during official duties. Moreover, it is part of an ever-present move to replace unifying national symbols with Trump-centric symbols. For those worried about the erosion of patriotism and national pride, take note of who is actively denigrating shared symbols/replacing them with personalistic ones.

FILED UNDER: Law and the Courts, Media, The Presidency, US Constitution, US Politics, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter and/or BlueSky.

Comments

  1. Kathy says:

    Next you prosecute news outlets for reporting on terrorism, as that publicizes terrorists and their goals. And then for reporting crime, same reason, unless it’s useful in portraying blue states and cities as hellholes. Then you have state controlled media. Then you ban neutral outlets like the BBC. Then VPNs.

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  2. CSK says:

    @Kathy:

    Hey, according to the MAGAs, the BBC isn’t a neutral outlet; it’s a communist-driven anti-Trump propaganda outlet.

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  3. Charley in Cleveland says:

    Bribery! More charitably, a quid pro quo, but nonetheless a high crime/misdemeanor. By my tally, media outlets have paid Trump $56M to settle frivolous lawsuits*. Shari Redstone’s $16M to grease the skids for Paramount’s pending purchase that needs FCC approval is clearly a bribe, as Elizabeth Warren noted recently. But what will be done about it? Nothing. Trump does it because he gets away with it. Every. Time.

    *Trump extorted $25M from Zuckerberg over Meta suspending his accounts after Jan 6th; and ABC coughed up $15M to get rid of the Stephanopoulos “rapist” defamation case (Trump’s argument: I was *only* found liable for sexual assault.) A veteran like Stephanopoulos should have known better, but still…. And the best, i.e., the sleaziest, of all was Bezos agreeing to give Melania $40M for the rights to a documentary. That makes it $96M that Trump has pocketed in his media intimidation campaign.

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  4. Slugger says:

    Politics is not bound by natural laws the way a interaction of subatomic particles is, but while there are no constraints that we can describe with mathematical formulas, there are generalizations we can make. I believe that centralization of power in one person’s hands is a long term trend. The checks and balances envisioned in the late eighteenth century and written into the bill of rights served to slow this process, but the Civil War and later emergencies like the Depression eroded these barriers, and clearly the process continues. Trump’s aggressive stance versus the media erodes the first amendment. No matter who succeeds him, this will not be reversed. Eventually, we will have an official media. The press will be tamed. The internet will be tamed in the guise of protecting our children from pornography no doubt. The future maximum leader has already been born. Sorry.

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