Summary
ABC News faces bipartisan backlash after settling a $15M defamation lawsuit with Donald Trump over anchor George Stephanopoulos’s inaccurate claim that Trump was “found liable for rape” in E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuits.
The settlement includes a public apology, $1M in legal fees, and a $15M donation to Trump’s presidential library.
Critics, including legal experts and political figures, accuse ABC of prioritizing profit over principle, arguing the case was winnable if litigated.
This follows broader debates on media accountability and legacy outlets’ handling of defamation lawsuits. Trump denies wrongdoing in Carroll’s related cases.
Was the case winnable? Yeah, almost certainly.
Would the upcoming administration try to get revenge after losing a high profile case like this? Also almost certain.
ABCs bean counters realized that $15M as a donation would be cheaper than trying to fight the government constantly over the next 4 years.
You voted for this.
Complying in advance is how we get fascist government.
That is the first lesson in “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the 20th Century” by Prof. Snyder
This is sign that our media completely capitulated and won’t even try to fight to preserve our democracy.
Our media has long been bought. That’s through advertising. News should not be allowed to run ads.
It was all the consolidation. They’re little feifdoms now.
Best we can hope for is some new medium to rise up that they cannot buy out.
Boom! Fediverse
The country already knowingly voted for the fascists, just under the thought that “they’re our kind of fascists”
You’re not wrong, but ABC is definitely not trying to fight tyranny. They’re a corporation with the sole goal of making money. This has been true of basically any US media company since the Reagan administration.
ABC is looking to literally buy some goodwill so that they can continue to make money after Trump’s term.
Traditional media hasn’t tried to preserve anything other than whatever spin on a story gets the most views and clicks. Independent media are the ones we all need to look out for and tune into now.
A good example from the tech world is GamersNexus.
Yeah, after reading his books I now scheduled recurring donations for ProPublica, NPR and also an subscribed to a local news paper that still does some real journalism.
Complying in advance is how we get fascist government.
Apparently we don’t have to do anything as advanced as that to get one. Because the American people would just as easily vote one in.
If you’re looking for media to fight for democracy, I think you’re looking in the wrong place. Media is supposed to present the news. Then people can act on it.
What is happening though is that US news is not presenting the news in an unbiased way.
There is no such thing as unbiased news. The best you can hope for is a diverse selection of news sources where the biases mostly cancel out in most situations.
I actually did not vote for this
Most people did not vote for this. He did not even get 50% of the popular vote. Let’s stop pretending the system doesn’t stack the odds against the people. If we did that we wouldn’t have been afraid to stack the courts, and so on.
I’d bet you would like more action on climate change too and yet the world cares not.
I don’t see how the payment will stop orange man from punishing them (and other media outlets he doesn’t like) anyway.
If media conglomerates with millions of dollars don’t stand up to him, how can they expect any of us to do so effectively.
That’s the neat part, you don’t.
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Would the upcoming administration try to get revenge after losing a high profile case like this? Also almost certain.
Would the incoming administration try for revenge after winning a case like this? Also almost certain.
Dunking on weakness is their entire theme.
Probably still gonna be fighting the government for the next 4 years
Unless this is an indication that they don’t intend to fight, and instead will be tiptoeing around any criticism of Trump.
Also the likelihood of it being winnable goes down a lot the moment Trump takes office. I don’t like it but i understand the decision. Still, we have to fight.
Justice is too expensive. Maybe the tariffs will fix it.
Another perspective is that republicans, democrats and certainly large media companies are all prioritizing profit, polarization and fear.
He is the epitome of privilege. A criminal that not only faces no consequences but gets rewarded. A temper tantrum throwing cry baby yet some how doesn’t affect his character (to about half the country).
He’s just the personification of the fall of the US. Basically the Caligula or Nero of this particular empire.
And he can’t even fiddle.
Inaccurate how?
Because at the time of the judgment, the legal definition of “rape” in the state of New York did not cover what Trump was found to have done to E. Jean Carroll.
Stephanopoulos didn’t defame Trump. The legal definition of “rape” in NY was wrong, and I believe it has since been changed such that it would have covered Trump’s actions had it been correct at the time of his finding of liability.
In NY, rape is legally defined as sexual intercourse. If this were in Florida, it would have been legally defined as rape (unwanted penetration with an object).
This was nothing more than ABC paying into trump’s protection racket. They absolutely would have won in a trial.
Stop pretending that infotainment channels like NBC, ABC and CBS are still journalism outlets.
I mean if Joe Biden could make the excuse that he couldn’t let the justice system to take it course, say that the justice system is political, and pardon his son, I mean why in the hell would ABC and George Stephanopoulos run the risk of political retribution also?
Only their sound bytes are trustworthy to an extent. Even then they’ve probably clipped them to fit a narrative.
Surprise, surprise
Money? Fine. The public apology should have been the sticking point.
