The Media Research Center took a little time away from gloating that ABC paid Donald Trump millions of dollars to settle a lawsuit he filed claiming it had falsely stated that he had been “found liable for rape by a jury” (even though the judge agreed that’s what happened) to complain that ABC host George Stephanopoulos signed a new contract with the network (while still gleeful it was likely for less than he had been making). Curtis Houck served up the complaint in a Dec. 19 post:
On Wednesday, Puck’s Dylan Byers revealed that – in a complete coincidence – ABC’s Good Morning America and This Week co-host George Stephanopoulos “Stephanopoulos has just signed a new, multiyear contract with the network, unrelated to the timing of” the network’s $15 million donation Saturday to President-Elect Trump’s future presidential library as settlement for a defamation suit stemming from Stephanopoulos’s false comments about Trump and the E. Jean Carroll case on March 10.
“Several insiders speculated that Stephanopoulos’s new deal includes a pay cut, and noted that he is likely to eventually take on a more limited role, after already ceding pole-anchor position on special event coverage to David Muir,” Byers added.
Houck went on to grumble that the settlement was criticized:
Byers’s scoop was tucked inside an item that was largely a kvetching about ABC settling. Byers griped it triggered “a predictable shitstorm over the weekend among First Amendment advocates, legal scholars, and Chuck Todd types, who rightly noted that Disney would have been in a strong position to win the case had it not caved, and thus expressed fear over the precedent this might set for the media in the Age of Trump II.”
He whined ABC caved despite what he felt was an “error” that “seemed to fall well short of the high bar for defamation of a public figure as established 60 years ago by The New York Times Co. v. Sullivan” and quoted a “one media executive” as having felt “it’s a terrible sign for the news media.”
Referring to Disney’s legal counsel, Byers said they settled because any trial “would have been overseen by an unfavorable judge and a potentially biased jury in the largely pro-Trump Southern District of Florida” and could have ended up before a conservative Supreme Court.
To his credit, at least Byers pointed out the real reason for a settlement: discovery.
Clay Waters complained the settlement was discussed in a Dec. 19 post:
Amanpour & Co. host Christiane Amanpour talked to former Washington Post executive editor Martin Baron about Trump’s “massive chilling effect” on the press on Wednesday, and added another metaphor to describe the media supposedly bowing down to Trump’s threats (since when!).
[…]The press remained blameless in Baron’s view. He never once stopped to wonder if perhaps the press had made fatal mistakes or engaged in partisan coverage which contributed to the decline in public confidence.
[…]Amanpour responded with a tedious cliché, employed whenever a reporter is challenged by a Republican, quoting partisan Democrat lawyer Marc Elias, never mentioning he’s a partisan Democrat.
[…]None of Baron’s reasons included an obvious one, the discovery process, which would risk uncovering potentially embarrassing internal communications from ABC News that would confirm the news network’s inexorable hostility toward Trump.
Amanpour moved on to another metaphor, the supposed idea of quivering media lickspittles making pilgrimages to Mar-a-Lago to kiss King Trump’s ring.
A part of the Trump Regime Media, it’s Waters’ job to kiss Trump’s ring.
Rich Noyes whined about more complaints in a Dec. 22 post:
There was an air of despair on MSNBC’s The Weekend on Sunday morning, as an anti-Trump panel expressed outrage about the President-elect’s various lawsuits against journalists and news organizations, but also despair that the liberal media establishment is failing to step up as leaders of the #Resistance, singling out ABC News for its $15 million settlement earlier this month.
“Donald Trump isn’t even in office yet, but his promises of retribution against the news media are already becoming a reality,” co-host Michael Steele warned at the top of the 9am ET hour.
Co-host Alicia Menendez casually labeled Trump a “tyrant” as she asked anti-Trump lawyer George Conway: “What kind of guardrails are there, constitutionally speaking, to prevent a tyrant like this from a retribution tour?”
After Conway noted that most libel and defamation lawsuits are either settled or dismissed by the courts, co-host Symone Sanders-Townsend groused: “Isn’t that part of the chilling effect? It doesn’t actually go anywhere, but if someone pays money, like ABC has a $15 million judgement – ” referring to the amount ABC paid Trump after its star host George Stephanopoulos repeated — and wrongly — claimed Trump was deemed ‘liable for rape’ in a civil proceeding earlier this year.
Conway interjected: “Well, that was ridiculous.”
“Well, they are paying it,” Sanders shot back.
Noyes didn’t mention the judge stated that what the jury found Trump did was in fact rape, as commonly understood, meaning it was not “wrongly” claimed.
Tim Graham whined that Trump’s war on the media was pointed out:
The front page of Monday’s Washington Post bubbled over with liberal panic after ABC News settled with President Trump over George Stephanopoulos repeatedly smearing Trump on his show This Week as “liable for rape.” Somehow, that’s not as hostile or combative as Trump’s rhetoric.
Media reporters Sarah Ellison and Jeremy Barr are all about pushing scary talk about Trump oppressing his haters in the press. The headline:
Trump signals plans to use all levers of power against the media
Press freedom advocates say they fear that the second Trump administration will ramp up pressure on journalists, in keeping with the president-elect’s combative rhetoric.
“Press freedom advocates” are apparently those who think Stephanopoulos should be free to say all kinds of nasty things about Trump. Saying nasty things about Trump is their idea of journalism.
Ellison and Barr says this settlement has “spurred concerns that his efforts could drastically undermine the institutions tasked with reporting on his coming administration, which Trump has promised will take revenge on those he perceives as having wronged him.”
If someone said “Jeremy Barr is liable for rape,” would it just be he perceived being wronged?
Graham offered no evidence that Barr has ever been accused of sexual assault or was adjudicated to be a rapist, like Trump has. His falsely suggesting so would seem to be a more actionable that the alleged offense against Trump.
He then played whataboutism: “Now ask if the media’s four years of downplaying or ignoring Biden’s cognitive decline defines ‘vibrancy’ or knuckling to Democrat pressure to ‘self-censor.'” Does Graham think Fox News was being “vibrant” when it repeatedly lied to its viewers in promoting election fraud conspiracy theories as fact?
Jeffrey Lord devoted his Dec. 28 column to complaining that Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson pointed out that Trump is demanding a compliant media:
The Washington Post and its allies in the so-called “mainstream media” are anything but being about “independent journalism.” They are central players in what is much more accurately known as the “liberal media.” They themselves are the compliant ones who have long ago abandoned “independent journalism” to take sides – one side – in the political arguments of the day.
Lord would never be so gauche as to point out that his beloved Fox News is anything but “independent journalism,” having chosen to be part of the right-wing media. Indeed, the only mention of Fox News in his column involved touting how ” Fox News shared with America the study by our late-night comedy expert Alex Christy” whining about how are aren’t enough liberal-bashing jokes on late-night TV.
Graham returned for a Jan. 3 post that played more whataboutism:
Point and laugh at The Hollywood Reporter. After four years of Team Biden pressuring Big Tech to crush dissent on social media, not to mention Team Biden pressuring the news media to crush any word of Biden’s mental decline, they’re going to warn the world about Donald Trump and censorship.
The silly headline on this silly article is “Trump’s Media Censorship Arsenal Is Growing.” Beware, says the subhead: “A new roadmap for the president-elect and his advisors to chill free speech has surfaced as he targets networks critical of him.”
Nowhere in this 1,000-word joke does young Berkeley-educated writer Winston Cho mention Biden or his team’s tawdry record of censorship and “chilling” negative reporting in any way, shape, or form.
The “censorship” Graham is referring to is presumably calling out fake news and misinformation, which the MRC nonsensically insists is “censorship.”