'He needs no encouragement': ABC News slammed as breaking 'rule 1' on Trump - Raw Story
By: Brad Reed (Raw Story - Celebrating Years of Independent Journalism)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Donald Trump shows passion while delivering a campaign rally speech at the Mohegan Sun Arena. (Evan El-Amin / Shutterstock.com)
ABC News' decision to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by President-elect Donald Trump drew harsh criticism from former New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan Monday.
Writing on her Substack page, Sullivan ripped ABC for agreeing to pay $15 million to Trump's presidential library in exchange for the president-elect dropping his defamation lawsuit against the network.
Among other things, Sullivan predicted that ABC News' settlement with Trump will only encourage him to launch more lawsuits against news organizations who give his administration negative coverage.
"ABC News should never have caved," she contends. "They might well have prevailed if they had hung in there. The legal bar is very high for libeling a public figure, and Trump is the ultimate public figure. Instead, this outcome encourages Trump in his attacks on the press — and he needs no encouragement."
ALSO READ: 'Will bring havoc': Religion expert lifts lid on 'crazy' plan evangelicals have for Trump
She then drew a line between ABC's settlement and a warning that Yale historian Tim Snyder gave in his book "On Tyranny" in which he offers lessons for resisting authoritarian governments.
In particular, she pointed to "Rule 1" that commences Snyder's book: "Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do."
"Regrettably," comments Sullivan. "That's what ABC News just did for Trump."
SmartNewsTrump News
Trolling, taunting, spamming, and off-topic comments may be removed at the discretion of group mods. NT members that vote up their own comments, repeat comments, respond to themselves, or continue to disrupt the conversation risk having all their comments deleted. Please remember to quote the person(s) you are replying to preserve the continuity of this seed. Posting debunked lies will be subject to deletion
No Fascism References, Source Dissing.
Tags
Who is online
262 visitors
OMG they dared to settle a loser case..........
Maybe, just maybe, ABC shouldn't have lied.
Had they not settled, they would have paid out 200 Million.
They knew they wouldn't win at trial.
$15 Million to maintain press access to the White House is cheap. It’s kind of a bribe, but that’s how the world works these days.
15 million? Chump change.
Fox and dominion settled for what, 787 MILLION?