President Trump has spent years demonizing the press. He popularized the phrase “fake news” and branded journalists the “enemy of the people.” He frequently sues news outlets. His administration is investigating broadcasters. Trump and his followers falsely claim that news organizations, including The Times, are bankrolled by the government.
Bashing the press is a time-honored tradition for presidents of both parties. But Trump has gone much further, attacking the very notion of an independent news media, one that will refute his distortions. He wants journalists to parrot his views and face consequences if they don’t. In today’s newsletter, we’ll look at how the president is already acting on his threats — and what additional peril the press faces in the Trump era.
Trump vs. journalism
Trump’s crackdown on the press began almost immediately after he returned to office.
The White House excluded Associated Press reporters from events because the wire service wouldn’t reclassify the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. It plans to select which reporters and news outlets are part of the press pool that covers the president, a tactic used by authoritarian leaders. The Federal Communications Commission is investigating whether TV networks like CBS and PBS are operating in the public interest, as required by law. An administration official accused a Voice of America reporter of treason when he quoted someone who had criticized Trump.
Media executives and lawyers expect more of the same. The Justice Department could prosecute reporters under anti-spying laws. Some news outlets are bracing for retaliatory investigations into their compliance with immigration and tax laws.
For Trump personally, litigation remains a favorite cudgel. Last spring, he sued ABC News for defamation after an anchor erroneously said that Trump had been found liable for rape. (A jury found him liable for sexual abuse.) More recently, he sued CBS and The Des Moines Register, arguing that an edited TV interview and a faulty poll were akin to deceptive advertising. In addition, Trump’s lawyers and aides often threaten news outlets with litigation over critical articles.
Supreme Court protections
Traditionally, lawsuits like these don’t work.
That’s because a series of Supreme Court decisions, starting with New York Times v. Sullivan in 1964, made it hard for public figures to win defamation cases. The court didn’t want the rich and powerful to be able to use litigation to muzzle the press or stop it from informing the public and exposing abuses. So the justices required public figures to prove that reporters knew what they published was false or acted with reckless disregard for accuracy. That is a high — but not insurmountable — bar.
Trump and many other conservatives are pushing to overturn those precedents — a campaign I detail today in a Times Magazine article adapted from my forthcoming book, “Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful.” Doing so would make it easier to sue the press. It would make even the threat of litigation much scarier for news outlets. A likely result: More publications would treat the rich and powerful gently.
In recent years, the effort has gained momentum. Politicians and other public figures — including Trump, Sarah Palin and the Republican megadonor Steve Wynn — have asked judges to overturn or narrow the Sullivan precedents. At least two Supreme Court justices have endorsed that effort, though it’s unclear whether any of their colleagues will join them. An intermediate option might be for the court to tighten the definition of who is a public figure so that more famous people could win libel suits.
Harassing newsrooms
Regardless of what happens to Sullivan, newsrooms already feel the impact of this anti-press campaign. Local politicians, business owners and others are using the legal system to harass small news organizations and independent journalists.
Plaintiffs don’t need to win in court in order to be effective. Defending against them is expensive and time-consuming. News organizations that get sued often find that insurance companies jack up premiums — or cut them off altogether. Sometimes editors have to choose between backing down or incurring years of overwhelming legal costs. Maybe it’s just safer not to scrutinize that local mogul.
Even some of the country’s largest media organizations are finding that they are vulnerable. Why? Because they are owned by companies or individuals with interests before the Trump administration.
Executives at Disney, which owns ABC, will pay $16 million to settle Trump’s lawsuit in part because they didn’t want the president to see their company as an enemy. Meanwhile, CBS’s parent company, Paramount, needs F.C.C. approval to complete a multibillion-dollar merger. It’s not a coincidence that Paramount is also considering a deal to resolve Trump’s lawsuit against CBS. The Washington Post, owned by Jeff Bezos, scrapped its endorsement of Kamala Harris and drew praise from the White House last week for its plan to move the opinion section rightward. Amazon and Blue Origin, Bezos’ other companies, have large federal contracts.
Media lawyers and some of Trump’s allies say the concessions have emboldened the president’s legal team. More lawsuits are likely. They will probably be accompanied by other attempts to delegitimize the press — an important strategy for a White House that uses lies to advance its agenda.
Sean Baker’s “Anora,” a comedy-drama about an exotic dancer from Brooklyn who marries the son of a Russian oligarch, won five Oscars and was the big winner of last night’s awards.
The movie, which cost just $6 million to make, took home best picture. Mikey Madison, its star, won best actress, and Baker won for directing, editing and his screenplay. The film’s sweep is reflective of an academy that has become younger and edgier, Brooks Barnes writes.
Elsewhere, “The Brutalist,” a three-hour epic about a Hungarian architect and Holocaust survivor, secured three awards, and “Wicked” took home two.