Expect more US politicians to sue the news media
This is a troubling era in which politicians of both parties use lawsuits as weapons against media outlets in the war to control the narrative
PARAMOUNT Global announced on Tuesday (Jul 1) that it would pay US President Donald Trump US$16 million to settle what many legal experts had dismissed as a frivolous lawsuit over a CBS 60 Minutes interview with then vice-president Kamala Harris. Trump claims it was deceptively edited.
This comes after a similarly controversial US$15 million settlement by ABC, following host George Stephanopoulos’ on-air statement that Trump was found civilly liable for rape, rather than for sexual abuse.
We may have officially entered a troubling era in which politicians of both parties use lawsuits against media outlets as a weapon in the war to control the narrative, in an increasingly fractured information environment.
Consider that last week, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced he was suing Fox News and network host Jesse Watters for defamation.
What a difference two years can make. Back then, Fox News host Sean Hannity made Newsom an offer he apparently could not refuse: sit down for a prime-time interview.
Sure, the network was known for pushing wild conspiracy theories about elections, and for fearmongering about crime and homelessness in blue states. Democrats, Newsom had reasoned then, had to stop playing it safe, and enter what his advisers have called the “lion’s den” to make their own case to Republican voters.
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That Newsom is now suing Fox News rather than sitting down for another interview – this time related to the recent Los Angeles protests – is a sign of just how much has changed.
This will not be particularly good for democracy or press freedom. Nevertheless, “we have crossed over into a new world”, as Lee Levine, a retired First Amendment attorney, recently told the Los Angeles Times. “Everybody has taken note and tried to position themselves the best that they can.”
Newsom, it seems, is borrowing a page from the president’s litigious playbook.
Also this week, Trump decided to push forward with a legally questionable lawsuit against Iowa pollster Ann Selzer and The Des Moines Register, moving it from federal court to state court to allege fraud over a poll predicting that he could lose the state in last year’s presidential election. (He ended up winning Iowa handily.) The newspaper has said it would “continue to resist” Trump’s “litigation gamesmanship”.
Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, in Florida to tour the new detention centre for migrants rounded up under enforcement action, said the Trump administration might prosecute CNN for reporting the existence of an app that helps Americans track immigration raids.
“What they’re doing is actively encouraging people to avoid law enforcement operations,” she told reporters, prompting Trump to again threaten to sue the network, as well as The New York Times, over reporting about the US airstrikes in Iran. (CNN and the Times have defended their reporting.)
And who can forget Trump’s beef with the Associated Press over its refusal to adopt his renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America”?
And now there is Newsom.
The governor, a likely presidential candidate in 2028, sued Fox News on Friday, alleging the network defamed him by implying that he had lied about phone calls with Trump related to last month’s deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles.
Watters aired a video that was deceptively edited to intentionally mislead viewers, Newsom and his lawyers argue. Sound familiar? And in what surely is not a coincidence either, the governor’s US$787 million demand for damages is nearly identical to what Fox News paid Dominion Voting Systems to settle a defamation lawsuit in 2023.
Newsom has said: “I believe the American people should be able to trust the information they receive from a major news outlet. Until Fox is willing to be truthful, I will keep fighting against their propaganda machine.”
In a statement, Fox News called the lawsuit a “publicity stunt”. And it is – one of many that the ambitious Democrat has pulled in his political career, from legalising same-sex marriage as mayor of San Francisco to starting a podcast to interview right-wing influencers as governor.
But unlike Trump, who has a track record of using lawsuits to settle old scores and punish perceived enemies, Newsom has said he would drop his lawsuit if Fox News issues a retraction and Watters apologises. That is a sign the governor is trying to make a broader point about misinformation – not just to collect millions of dollars in damages.
And misinformation has become a real problem. Left unchecked, it is warping reality – and, by extension, policy decisions and Americans’ lives – at a speed that seems to increase with each news cycle.
As governor, Newsom has had to deal with this first-hand this year. During the Los Angeles fires in January, a string of false and exaggerated narratives took hold about California’s water supply, culminating with Trump justifying wasteful releases from a dam hundreds of miles away in the state’s Central Valley.
Then last month, when the Trump administration deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles, Newsom’s office had to counter the popular fiction that violent riots had overtaken the city in a “rebellion”.
To be effective in such situations, and to prevent negative narratives from morphing into negative policies, Newsom has had to split his time between battling misinformation and doing the job Californians elected him to do.
Reality matters. But what people believe is reality matters, too.
For that reason, we will probably see more politicians doing what Newsom is doing: trying to get a bigger megaphone by any stunt necessary, including by suing traditional media outlets.
Still, that may not be as effective as they hope. Most Americans now get their news from social media, reported Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in its latest Digital News Report. This is undoubtedly why Newsom also has made a point of throwing some red meat to left-wing influencers, including talking about his lawsuit with YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen.
The governor told Cohen last week: “Remember, this is the largest news organisation – cable news organisation – in the United States.”
Perfect for weaponisation. BLOOMBERG
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