How To Intimidate The Media

 

Trump sues Des Moines Register and Iowa pollster, escalating attack on media

President-elect Donald Trump filed a lawsuit Monday night against the Des Moines Register newspaper and its highly respected former pollster, adding to his ongoing legal attacks against news media companies.

The suit — which names the newspaper’s parent company, Gannett, its former pollster J. Ann Selzer and her polling firm — centers on a Selzer poll released three days before the presidential election that showed Trump trailing Vice President Kamala Harris.

The poll, released by what has been considered one of the nation’s most respected polling firms, caused a national stir and buoyed some Democrats’ hopes, as it showed Harris leading Trump in the red state by three percentage points and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. Trump ended up winning Iowa by about 13 points.

Trump asks judge to advance suit against Bob Woodward

President-elect Trump’s attorney asked a federal judge to move forward with his lawsuit against journalist Bob Woodward over published audio tapes of interviews the famed Watergate reporter conducted with Trump for a 2020 book.

The case has stalled for months as the judge weighs the defendants’ bid to dismiss the lawsuit, but the sudden activity comes as Trump mounts a more emboldened posture in scrutinizing media outlets in the wake of his November presidential victory.

“Since President Trump’s decisive victory resulting him being due to become the 47th President of the United States, there has been a renewed accountability among those who violated his rights over the last four years,” Trump attorney Robert Garson wrote in Tuesday’s letter.

Hungary: Media Curbs Harm Rule of Law

 The Hungarian government’s interference with media freedom and pluralism, part of its systematic attack on the rule of law, obstructs the work of independent journalists in holding the authorities to account and prevents the public from accessing information, Human Rights Watch said today.

The 29-page report, “‘I Can’t Do My Job as a Journalist’: The Systematic Undermining of Media Freedom in Hungary”, documents the increased obstacles and constraints independent journalists and media face under the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Serbia

The Law on Public information and Media says that publishers or producers of media content cannot be “established, directly or indirectly, by the republic, an autonomous province [of Serbia] or a local government unit, or an institution or a legal entity that is wholly or partly in public ownership, ie. which is wholly or partly financed from public revenues”. 

It however allows exceptions in cases when the founder of the media outlet is “a capital company that carries out electronic communications activities, in accordance with the law regulating electronic media”. 

This exception would, in practice, allow the state to legally own and control media through telecommunications company Telekom Serbia, in which it has a majority share.

Its these types of lawsuits and laws  lead to the dismantling of a free press and the creation of state run media. Which is meant to serve the government and not its citizens.