this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2024
445 points (98.3% liked)

News

23661 readers
4684 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Godort@lemm.ee 210 points 1 week ago (9 children)

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.

[–] takeda@lemmy.world 166 points 1 week ago (6 children)

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@lemmy.world 42 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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

[–] Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Reality_Suit@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Boom! Fediverse

[–] Godort@lemm.ee 19 points 1 week 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.

[–] phx@lemmy.ca 18 points 1 week ago

The country already knowingly voted for the fascists, just under the thought that "they're our kind of fascists"

[–] Xanis@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week 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.

[–] trustnoone@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week 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.

[–] someguy3@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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

[–] NotAnonymousAtAll@feddit.org -1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week 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.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 31 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I actually did not vote for this

[–] zbyte64@awful.systems 20 points 1 week ago

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.

[–] krashmo@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

I'd bet you would like more action on climate change too and yet the world cares not.

[–] tacosanonymous@lemm.ee 14 points 1 week ago

I don’t see how the payment will stop orange man from punishing them (and other media outlets he doesn’t like) anyway.

[–] Subtracty@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago (2 children)

If media conglomerates with millions of dollars don't stand up to him, how can they expect any of us to do so effectively.

[–] A7thStone@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

That's the neat part, you don't.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 week ago

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.

[–] Fashim@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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.

[–] winterayars@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

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.

[–] venusaur@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Another perspective is that republicans, democrats and certainly large media companies are all prioritizing profit, polarization and fear.

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Justice is too expensive. Maybe the tariffs will fix it.