Feck You, ABC News

Welcome back to “Feck You”, a recurring column on The Handbasket highlighting people and entities showing an alarming level of fecklessness in the face of clear and present threats to democracy. Have a nomination for a Fecker? Email [email protected]

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At this point the Trump Presidential Library is nothing more than a website. But that didn’t stop ABC News from agreeing over the weekend—in a truly breathtaking display of fecklessness—to give the library $15 million.

The news organization settled a defamation lawsuit brought by President-elect Donald Trump who was upset that anchor George Stephanopolous said on air earlier this year that Trump had been “found liable for rape” in the E. Jean Carroll case. Although the jury technically found Trump liable for “sexual abuse,” the judge in the case clarified the jury had found Trump “‘raped’ her in the sense of that term broader than the New York Penal Law definition.”

It’s understandable that Stephanopoulos, in his question to Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace, used that phrasing. But Trump saw an opening and exploited it, as journalist and author Anne Applebaum pointed out he’s done his entire life. 

“He does it as a form of intimidation, just to make people think twice and make them spend money and make them waste time,” Applebaum told writer Greg Sargent on The Daily Blast podcast. “Really the best thing for news organizations to do would be to resist it. Because if you resist it, if you make him spend the money on lawyers and he wastes time, then you win.”

But ABC News declined to take that approach, even though the facts of the case suggest they had a chance to defeat the lawsuit. In a moment when Americans are searching for any signs of bravery, too many institutions have chosen to run from it. 

Corporate capitulation to Trump shouldn’t come as any shock. After all, business titans will ingratiate themselves with any administration to make sure they receive as much government welfare as possible. Still, there was something particularly galling about seeing billionaire Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos pledge $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. On the heels of him exerting his influence to kill his newspaper’s planned endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris while in talks with Trump about government contracts for his space company, assuming good intentions would be foolish. Same goes for Mark Zuckerberg who also plans to toss Trump a cool million.

With corporate news at the intersection of capitalism and the First Amendment we’ve been presented with a real test of which part will eclipse the other. Sure, the ABC bosses are in the news business, but first and foremost they’re in the business of business. And if the news part interferes with the business part, the business part wins every time. 

As Applebaum put it, ABC’s decision to cave to Trump, “looks less like prudence on the part of a news organization and more like, ‘Let’s not be in any fight with a president who we know might have used other tools against us.’ And that’s ugly. That’s not the way we’re used to seeing brave news organizations behaving.”

But if early indications are any sign, we just might have to get used to it. (See: MSNBC’s Morning Joe.)

At the New York Stock Exchange a couple of days before the ABC News settlement, Trump was already feeling his oats. “The media is tamed down a little bit,” he said. “They like us much better now, I think. If they don’t then we’ll just have to take them on again, and we don’t want to do that.”

And with the acquiescence of ABC News, that’s one less news organization in Trump’s media-hating crosshairs.

At this point it’s not a matter of if but when and how the Trump administration and all their party admirers will come after journalists who they perceive as enemies. Just recently 404 Media, an independent news outlet covering technology, got roped into a legal tussle with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The notoriously wretched Republican issued a subpoena demanding 404 turn over reporting materials and documents as part of a state lawsuit against Google in which the outlet has zero involvement.

But inconvenient details be damned: 404 Media has been threatened with contempt of court if they don’t comply. The site is pressing forward despite the specter of financial ruin by litigious nutbags looking to show Trump just how seriously they’re willing to punish a free press.

To put a finer point on it, frivolous lawsuits against journalists have an audience of one. And right now some in the media are making it seem like he’s the only audience that matters. We just expected the ones with money to put up a fight before putting on a show.

Honorable mention

Others in journalism have signaled willingness to cede ground to conservative bad actors. Ben Smith, the co-founder of political site Semafor who recently said it was okay for reporters to sleep with their sources, decided to use his considerable platform on Sunday to condone the hostile use of a social media platform. 

It was in response to a firestorm on Bluesky of late because of the continued presence of a journalist known for engaging in fights with trans people on a platform that has become a safe haven for trans journalists–and trans people at large. Smith’s argument was that this journalist’s views “are well within the mainstream of US and UK politics,” and therefore should be tolerated.

“Journalism is a naturally unlikable profession, at its best telling people things they don’t want to hear and exposing them to other people’s points of view,” Smith wrote. “So it seems appropriate, and maybe even for the best, that at least some of us will be unwelcome on basically any social platform.”

Yes, many people are predisposed to disliking journalists, but that doesn’t mean we have to aid in that perception. We aren’t news robots publishing the news without any sense of the human impact. Twitter culture has taught us that everyone is entitled to a seat at the table, but the social norms of Bluesky are flipping that idea on its head. 

As a journalist, being unwelcome in an online space shouldn’t be a time for celebration, but rather one for introspection. Being a professional asshole is no badge of honor.