What’s New
President-elect Donald Trump’s administration is “salivating” to prosecute journalists after filing several lawsuits against the media, Martin Baron, the former executive editor of The Washington Post said on Saturday.
Newsweek has reached out to Trump’s transition team via email for comment.
Why It Matters
There are growing concerns that recent lawsuits against the media may embolden Trump to intensify his legal actions against critics in the press when he returns to office next month.
In addition, even if the lawsuits don’t succeed, concerns remain that they could still have a chilling effect on the press and its reporting ability.
This comes as Trump has a history of targeting journalists, news organizations, and book publishers over coverage he finds unfavorable. In October, he sued CBS News, seeking $10 billion, alleging unfair editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.
A CBS News spokesperson previously told Newsweek via email that “Trump’s repeated claims against 60 Minutes are false.”
Last weekend, Trump scored a legal victory when ABC News agreed to pay $15 million toward a Trump presidential library to settle a defamation lawsuit after anchor George Stephanopoulos inaccurately said Trump had been found civilly liable for rape.
While it is unclear what Trump will do once in office, Kash Patel, Trump’s nominee to lead the FBI, has hinted at plans to “come after” those in the media.
What to Know
In a Saturday interview with CNN’s host Christiane Amanpour, Baron, who served as editor from 2013 to 2021, spoke about the recent lawsuits and said that Trump’s incoming administration is “salivating for the opportunity to prosecute journalists.”
“They have a lot of tools in their toolbox, and I think they will use every single one of them. That’s already evident from the measures that they are promising to take. I think they are salivating for the opportunity to prosecute journalists for leaks of supposed national security information,” Baron said.
He added: “I think that they’ve already threatened to revoke the licenses for stations affiliated with some of the major networks, they are already…likely to sue a lot of media outlets for supposed defamation and other supposed offenses.”
Trump filed a lawsuit on Monday against former pollster J. Ann Selzer, her polling firm, The Des Moines Register and its parent company Gannett for “brazen election interference” and “consumer fraud” over a poll published days before November’s election, according to documents reviewed by Newsweek.
The lawsuit alleges Selzer’s poll showing Harris ahead in Iowa by 3 percentage points was intended to sway the election. It alleges a pattern by Selzer of trying to influence political races in favor of Democratic candidates and says her large platform offers “a significant and impactful opportunity to deceive voters.”
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
What People Are Saying
Lark-Marie Anton, a spokesperson for The Des Moines Register dismissed the lawsuit as meritless in a previous statement to Newsweek.
“We believe this lawsuit is without merit. We have acknowledged that the Selzer/Des Moines Register pre-election poll did not reflect the ultimate margin of President Trump’s Election Day victory in Iowa by releasing the poll’s full demographics, crosstabs, weighted and unweighted data, as well as a technical explanation from pollster Ann Selzer.”
Seth Stern, advocacy director for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said the lawsuit “creates an environment where journalists can’t help but look over their shoulders knowing the incoming administration is on the lookout for any pretext or excuse to come after them.”
Political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen said ABC News’ settlement has “opened the floodgates for a newly emboldened Trump to wage legal war against everyone in the media that he doesn’t like.”
He added: “They have made the entire media ecosystem less safe, and ushered us one step closer to the very brand of illiberal democracy that Trump has threatened for so long. This is what it looks like when a media outlet puts its own interests about the very democracy that they purport to want to protect.”
Regarding the recent lawsuits Trump said during a press conference on Monday, “I’m doing this not because I want to, I’m doing this because I feel I have an obligation to.”
“I feel I have to do this. I shouldn’t really be the one to do it. It should have been the Justice Department or somebody else, but I have to do it. It costs a lot of money to do it. But we have to straighten out the press.”
What Happens Next
While the outcome of the latest lawsuit against Selzer and The Des Moines Register remains to be seen, Baron said he suspects that Trump’s upcoming administration will “deny information to major media outlets” and “threaten advertisers” in an effort to “undermine public confidence.”
“I suspect a lot of the wealthy allies of Donald Trump will underwrite those lawsuits. I suspect that they will deny information to major media outlets routinely. I suspect that they will threaten advertisers for major media outlets as well. So, they will do everything to undermine public confidence in the press, to further undermine public confidence in the press, and to undermine its economic sustainability,” he said.
