With spate of lawsuits, Trump goes after US media

In his first post-election news conference, President-elect Donald Trump promised to "fix" what he called a "corrupt" U.S. press.

Even before taking office, he has been working to shape media coverage in his favor—appointing loyalists to publicly funded outlets and initiating lawsuits against newspapers and pollsters, which some view as signs of increasing intimidation and censorship.

On Monday, Trump filed a lawsuit against pollster Ann Selzer, the Des Moines Register, and its parent company Gannett over a pre-election poll that saw him trailing in Iowa—a prediction that proved incorrect on Election Day. This suit followed a $15 million settlement, plus legal fees, between broadcaster ABC and Trump, after the network aired defamatory remarks falsely linking him to "rape" in a past lawsuit.

Several legal scholars suggested that ABC might have won the case had it gone to trial. Meanwhile, ABC staff have expressed concern that the settlement could set a troubling precedent of yielding to Trump’s legal demands.

Trump’s legal team is also targeting veteran reporter Bob Woodward, who published audio recordings of interviews with the president, arguing that Woodward had authorization to record them but not to release the tapes. CBS faces similar scrutiny after Trump claimed that the network edited an interview with his election rival Kamala Harris in a misleading manner.

Charles Tobin, a free speech expert, described Trump’s legal actions as "dangerous and frivolous," while communications professor Melissa Camacho noted that even if Trump loses these cases, his willingness to sue could still create a chilling effect, leading media outlets to practice self-censorship.

Khadijah Costley White, an associate professor of journalism, suggested that these lawsuits could push media coverage to favor Trump more. By winning small concessions, like the ABC settlement, or intimidating the press into more favorable reporting, Trump could claim victories even without altering the law.

During his first term, Trump’s administration held few official media briefings, sometimes going more than 300 days without one. A new Trump White House might further restrict media access, making it a "first come, first served" basis for news conferences, eliminating guaranteed seats for mainstream outlets like NBC, CBS, CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

The situation could extend beyond U.S. borders as well. Trump has appointed hard-line loyalist Kari Lake as the new director of Voice of America, which broadcasts U.S. news globally in multiple languages. During his first term, Michael Pack, Trump’s appointee at the US Agency for Global Media, moved to dismantle a firewall meant to prevent political interference at VOA.

Trump’s goal with Lake’s appointment is to ensure that American values are broadcast internationally "fairly and accurately," in contrast to what he calls the "fake news media’s" spread of misinformation.