I spend many of my days telling the stories of local newsrooms around the country doing exemplary work, serving their communities with practical information, uplifting perspectives — building community, as we say. Over the decades I’ve been on this “beat,” it’s been thoroughly rewarding work. Not only do I enjoy turning the spotlight on these storytellers, it’s fortified my long-standing belief that journalism is foundational to democracy. Without the First Amendment, nothing that becomes before or after it in the U.S. Constitution really matters. Without it, a nation spirals into autocracy, theocracy, despotism. Without it, corruption runs unbridled.
And I still believe this with every cell and synapse of my being.
But I’ve grown weary. The constant onslaught of anti-press rhetoric, endorsed by the highest offices in the land has admittedly weakened my resolve in recent years. The nation’s slide toward authoritarianism — our inability to even argue from a baseline of facts — is such a profound disappointment. At times, it makes me wonder if all the hard work of my colleagues in the media is worth it when it increasingly feels like screaming into a void.
I felt at the lowest point when I read the news that ABC News had settled a lawsuit brought by the President elect for comments made by anchor George Stephanopoulos during a “This Week” interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC). During the interview, the news anchor pressed Mace on her endorsement of the then candidate, considering Mace herself has spoken openly about being raped when she was a teenager. During his query, the anchor said that Donald J. Trump had been found liable for rape in the civil defamation suit E. Jean Carroll brought and won — with the jury awarding her $83.3 million.
Trump took issue with the word “rape” and filed suit against the network. Keep in mind that even the judge in the case described the initiating offense in this way: “The jury’s finding of sexual abuse therefore necessarily implies that it found that Mr. Trump forcibly penetrated her vagina.”
If forcibly penetrating a woman’s vagina – whether with a penis, an object or a hand — isn’t “rape,” then once again, it feels as if we’re not operating from a baseline of facts. It feels like arguing semantics in Atwood’s Gilead.
Before the case could advance further to the discovery phase, ABC News and George Stephanopoulos agreed to a settlement that required an escrowed $15 million to fund a future Donald J. Trump Presidential museum, another $1 million for Trump’s legal fees, and a public apology by the journalist – in other words, an admission of defamation.
Tim Miller and William Kristol — notably former Republicans — had a conversation about the perils of criticizing Trump. They wrote on thebulwark.com, “ABC News and George Stephanopoulos have joined the preemptive capitulation parade by settling Trump’s defamation suit—and by conspicuously paying out protection money ahead of the inauguration. The potential chilling effect on a key First Amendment issue is breathtaking.”
Northeastern Professor Dan Kennedy opined in his newsletter: “What Stephanopoulos said arguably wasn’t even false, and surely it didn’t amount to actual malice. A deep-pockets defendant like Disney ought to stand up for the First Amendment lest its cowardly capitulation to Trump harm other media outlets without the wherewithal to fight back.”
On Twitter/X, Jeff Jarvis, author and journalist, issued a warning:
Of course, none of us had a seat at the conference table surrounded by high-hourly-rate lawyers, so it’s purely speculation as to why the news media publisher agreed to settle. Some say the legal definition of rape in New York is a higher benchmark than this form of sexual assault. Others said the network didn’t want to be forced into protracted and expensive discovery, during which the President’s legal team could request all sorts of documentation, from producers’ correspondence to business strategy, personal calendars and diaries, footage from every show that mentioned Trump, social media posts, you name it.
Discovery is long and hard fought, typically with the Plaintiff asking for everything under the sun, and the Defendant having to go to court to argue against each non-related or protected journalist-source item.
Still others speculated that the $15 million settlement was such an insignificant amount for the parent organization, the Walt Disney Company, that it just made sense to pay it and get it over and done with. After all, an ongoing legal battle would’ve further impeded the network’s ability to gain access or fairly report on the incoming Administration. All of these reasons could simultaneously be true, too.
But the impact of the settlement has ripples — no, asphyxiating currents — that will reach far beyond the parties. It’s ammunition for a President and party that has continued to portray the press as “the enemy of the people.” It may not further embolden Trump himself to bring lawsuits against news outlets — he’s done that, usually unsuccessfully, for decades and long before he fatefully descended down the Trump Tower escalator to declare his first candidacy. And there’s no sign that he plans to slow down. Last week, he filed suit against the Gannett-owned Des Moines Register and pollster Ann Selzer over an unfavorable poll they published prior to election, alleging the poll — a poll, for goodness sakes — was akin to “election interference.”
But it will embolden others, particularly the political and powerful classes, to wield lawfare as a weapon to intimidate the press, to send a chill through the media, and in some cases, to kill off news outlets entirely — destroyed by the weight of defending protracted legal battles. Death by billable hour.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Cartoonist Mike Luckovich so perfectly memorialized the settlement, shared on Twitter/X:
In E&P’s January issue, Columnist Rob Tornoe shares a conversation with Luckovich about being a political cartoonist in the era of Trump. You’ll want to read it.
And let’s be clear, lawfare is not just a threat to large media conglomerates. It oozes down to regional and local newsrooms, as well.
“I fear the federal attack on the press will trickle down locally, and it will be harder to get information through normal channels and freedom of the press requests,” Katie Honan, reporter for THE CITY, observed in Nieman Lab’s “Predictions for Journalism, 2025” series.
The other way it corrodes our profession is by signaling to journalists that your company, your superiors, may not have your back. They may, in fact, sell you out, make you pay, make you grovel. As a journalist there is little that’s more demoralizing than feeling as though your superiors would throw you under the bus rather than stand in solidarity with you.
Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark wrote that “Disney has cut off ABC News at the knees and put everyone in its news division on notice that they will not be supported by corporate if they make enemies with Trump world.”
But I’m feeling a little better, a little stronger, more resolved for a couple of reasons. This Des Moines Register case is so petty, so meritless, it’ll surely be tossed out, right?
Right?
And I spent the past few weeks learning about the journalism program at the University of Oregon, where the curricula, the practical experiences and skills the students learn, and the remarkable faculty who guide them have sent some welcome breezes from the west to lift my wings. Asked about the aspirations and temperament of the new class of journalists coming into the profession, one member of the faculty described them generally as motivated, inspired, idealistic, energetic.
I figure, if they can be, I can muster, too.
Gretchen A. Peck 