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.

  • @takeda
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    1661 month ago

    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.

    • @Reality_Suit
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      421 month ago

      Our media has long been bought. That’s through advertising. News should not be allowed to run ads.

      • @[email protected]
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        71 month ago

        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.

    • @[email protected]
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      191 month ago

      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.

    • @[email protected]
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      181 month ago

      The country already knowingly voted for the fascists, just under the thought that “they’re our kind of fascists”

    • LeadersAtWork
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      141 month ago

      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.

      • @takeda
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        41 month ago

        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.

    • @[email protected]
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      1 month ago

      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.

    • BarqsHasBite
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      21 month ago

      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.

      • @takeda
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        21 month ago

        What is happening though is that US news is not presenting the news in an unbiased way.

        • NotAnonymousAtAal
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          1 month ago

          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.