As ABC News caves to Trump, it’s even more crucial to support fearless media
Here are some examples of journalists meeting the moment.
It sure felt like a terrible week for journalism. There were very high-profile examples of cowardice and capitulation that continue to undermine the integrity and trust of America’s news organizations. The most shocking (so far) came last Saturday when ABC News suddenly stopped fighting a defamation claim by Trump and instead agreed to pay him a $15 million settlement.
ABC News has been one of Trump’s prime media targets since the network fact-checked his relentless lies during the September presidential debate with Kamala Harris, even repeatedly threatening to pull the network’s broadcast license.
News reports say the settlement came just days after execs from ABC’s parent company Disney met with the Trump transition team. Is there a link? Media critic Margaret Sullivan writes:
“Was this settlement, which includes ABC’s public expressions of regret, a simple case of kissing the ring? It sure looks that way. Trump has sworn to get revenge on his enemies and he values, above all, loyalty and kowtowing. But loyalty and kowtowing isn’t the job of the press, which is supposed to represent the public in holding powerful people and institutions accountable.”
Sadly, kowtowing from powerful media owners is exactly what we are seeing right now. Other examples from the past week include:
Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos donated $1M to the Trump inauguration plus another $1 million worth of live streaming of the inauguration on Amazon Prime. Of course, this all follows Bezos’ last minute effort to kill a Post endorsement of Trump’s rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg also promised to help fill the Trump coffers with his own $1M donation. This follows some in person-groveling where the “I’m done with politics” mogul was seen putting hand over heart during a Jan. 6 insurrectionist choir performance of the Star Spangled Banner at Mar-a-Lago.
The anti-journalism hits keep coming from Los Angeles Times’ billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong. He’s already welcomed CNN right-wing pundit Scott Jennings to the paper’s editorial board and promised to add a ridiculous AI-driven fairness meter to articles. And last week, we learned that he had killed an editorial critical of Trump’s cabinet picks.
This is only the beginning of media moguls caving to Trump, especially the ones who have other businesses that could win or lose because of Trump’s decisions. Meanwhile, Trump is threatening more of the same: attacking and suing truth tellers. During a press availability Monday morning, Trump threatened to also sue the Des Moines Register for publishing the Ann Selzer poll that showed him trailing Harris in Iowa.
It’s a classic autocratic move, as journalist Anne Applebaum explains:
“When you undermine journalism … And by the way, this goes for judges and the legal system and the prosecutors, meaning the attorney general as well and the Department of Justice. When you undermine those things, that can have two effects. One is it makes it easier for you to go after enemies, but it also makes it easier for you to protect yourself. If there’s a biased or partisan system in place, then it’s much easier for you to commit crimes or to be corrupt; or not even to commit crimes but to be corrupt in a broader way. Really, you see this: Any declining democracy—look at Hungary, look at Turkey, look at Venezuela—sooner or later becomes pretty profoundly corrupt because the effect of tearing down those institutions, anything that creates transparency and accountability, whether it be media, courts, law enforcement, inspectors generals of various different kinds. When you tear that down, then you make it much easier to get away with things in secret.”
Fortunately, journalism is still far from dead. It is thriving among hundreds of journalists and news outlets, many doing important coverage of Donald Trump. Some have highlighted his atrocious nominees, inhuman deportation schemes, reckless policy plans, broken campaign promises, nepotism and grifting. Others are reporting on many other critical stories here in the U.S. and around the world. Some of this comes from non-profits with no paywalls, so their news coverage is available to everyone. There are also a growing number of sole practitioners, usually former employees at legacy media companies, who now publish well-reported, clear-eyed newsletters. There are also some standouts in legacy media. All of these hard-working journalists are doing the difficult and necessary work to report, analyze and explain where we are in these final weeks before Trump 2.0 takes over the federal government.
Some of the recent coverage that is meeting the moment includes:
Mother Jones on Trump’s looming war on scientists and the GOP attempt to overturn the election of a Democratic state Supreme Court justice
Greg Sargent in The New Republic on Republican senators surrendering to Trump and the Elon Musk-type tech bros government takeover.
Chris Hayes on MSNBC on how Trump/Musk team want to destroy bank regulations
Liz Dye in Public Notice with an explanatory piece about the Impoundment Control Act and Trump’s plans to subvert this law to steal Congress’s budget authority.
Catherine Rampell’s fearless fact-checking of Jennings and her solid economics reporting for the Washington Post, including how Trump 2.0 will cook the books.
ProPublica’s reporting of Wall Street billionaires skirting the law to avoid millions in Medicare taxes.
As I wrote last month, this is the kind of fearless journalism that we continue to benefit from even as other media is faltering. All of them subscribe to the same mission outlined here by Jennifer Sahn, editor of High Country News, a non-profit covering the Western part of the country. She wrote:
“We will not let assaults on what we value deter us. We will not be intimidated by lies and obfuscation. It’s more important than ever for us to be truth-tellers — to be journalists. To make every story matter for our readers and the communities we serve…And we will continue to tell the truth, over and over again, no matter what. Because that is our purpose. It’s what we do.”
I am not yet quite ready to say that news organizations that have meant so much to America for decades are no longer relevant or trustworthy, though many of them are making that case for themselves. Fortunately, what is clear is that American journalists themselves (many listed here) are not ready to go quietly into the night, and they are finding new ways to do the important work we need.
Jennifer Schulze is a Chicago journalist talking about journalism. Follow Jennifer on Bluesky @newsjennifer.bsky.social or Threads @newsjennifer_schulze.