ABC/Disney's bad presidential precedent

Get the Point!

Last week, ABC News, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company, settled a defamation claim brought on behalf of Donald Trump—a suit that alleged that George Stephanopolous, the longtime host of the network's This Week news show, acted with "actual malice" last March by saying on air that Trump was found "civilly liable" of "raping" journalist E. Jean Carroll.

Trump and Stephanopolous circa 2020

Now, if you are reading this and thinking, "well, isn't that what happened," hyper technically speaking, no, the jury heard testimony from Ms. Carroll that Trump used his hands to push her against a wall, remove her underwear, and force his penis inside of her until she was able to "knee him" and "get away," but instead of finding the former president liable for rape, the jury found Trump “responsible for a lesser degree of sexual abuse" and "defamation" before awarding damages in the amount of $5 million. (AP report, May 9, 2023).

When I first read that ABC chose not to defend Stephanopolous' legally slight rhetorical error and settle at this early stage for $15 million and a donation to the Trump presidential library, cognizant that the Disney Corporation earns hundreds of billions in profits each year, I immediately concluded that such was akin to the company "kissing the ring" of "Godfather Don Trumpleone," or in an a reference to the HBO Game of Thrones series, "bending the knee" to the once and future king of the West Wing.

Ordinarily, major corporations like Disney usually fight these type of claims because they have LONG money and legions of lawyers that can tie such cases up in litigation for decades! But ABC capitulated not because Mr. Stephanopolous acted with "actual malice," the legal standard that's been around since the early days of British Common Law which requires proof that the declarant (Stephanopolous) acted with conscious disregard to the truth." No, I believe that ABC caved to protect its bottom line—which is to make money for its corporate shareholders!

You see, with Mr. Trump promising to file suits against news corporations and individual journalists that he believes are "defaming" him—all the while attacking federal broadcast licensing rights for those news organizations who dare oppose his will, it's far easier for said corporations to make peace and retain access to the administration than to find that they are banished to the "Island of Misfit Toys," as popularized in Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer!

A second reason that ABC quickly waved the white flag of surrender was first espoused by conservative radio host (and former lawyer) Erick Erickson, who opined last week that the “$15 million settlement is not the cost of doing business. It is avoiding discovery.” For those unaware, the "Discovery" phase in any legal case is where the opposing parties exchange information by issuing subpoenas for records, taking depositions and propounding interrogatories, and by demanding admissions that could be used at mediation (in civil cases) or during trial (in both civil and criminal cases). By settling now, ABC (and Disney) will not have to hand over emails, documents, text message logs, or anything that could lead to further litigation—or impact its financial bottom line.

So while I can understand the legal bases behind ABC's settlement, I also can (and do) lament the problems that I have with the corporate media model in the modern world; lest we forget that when the Constitution was ratified in 1787 and established as its very first amendment a free press, most newspapers and pamphlets were very small in scope and catered to a local crowd—and few journalists or publishers earned extreme wealth from their trade.

But as time passed by and the corporate model arose in print and later broadcast journalism, the age-old charge for "fair and balanced" reporting has, for some, become a secondary consideration to ensuring that advertising dollars which keep shareholders happy and journalists earning a living don't dry up!

And with the entire media profession undergoing massive changes in the 21st Century, some of which includes a "Back to the Future" model if you will that now finds journalists laid off or leaving major news organizations to create podcasts and blogs on fora like Substack, I sense that we will find that those with the courage to call out the lies and misdeeds from the incoming administration will be relied upon far more by the rational reading public than the major corporate types who are seeking to curry favor with Trump and his minions.

Indeed, when I saw that usual MSNBC Trump critics Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski traveled to Mar-A-Lago last month to re-establish ties with Trump, such was a mere harbinger of more major media deference to come—and the potential normalization of Trump's abnormal penchant to lie, distort, and hyperbolize matters great and small when it furthers his ends.

Like many of you, I learned way back in elementary school that you can't run from (or bargain with) a bully—you have to stand up and defend yourself against their aggression! Sadly, the ABC/Disney honchos who authorized this settlement remind me of the kids who used to immediately hand their lunch money or tray over to the school bully! Which is somewhat odd, mind you, when considering that ABC/Disney has money and influence far longer and stronger than Trump, but the company clearly cares more about its corporate bottom line than journalistic integrity or accountability to the public writ large!