A Perhaps Too Charitable Reading Of Frivolous Lawsuit Settlements

So I feel some clarification is needed following the announcement that we will no longer be carrying Paramount content in a world where multiple other organizations have taken similar actions, namely ABC and Disney. Both Disney an Paramount have been targeted by this administration (and the president in a personal capacity) for lawsuits over unfavorable reporting and both have settled by paying large sums of money to his Presidential Library. Maybe I'm being too charitable, but I do feel there is a legitimate reason why news organizations should settle these unfounded lawsuits. Let's break it down.

So the First Amendment to the Constitution enshrines a lot of our key rights that impact our daily lives. Our rights to free speech, free expression, freedom of religion, freedom to peaceably assemble, and the freedom of the press are all part of this amendment. In the original text, these freedoms are intentionally vague and were designed with the intent to curtail government infringement on rights as much as humanly possible. The strength of this and the other amendments comes from court interpretation and the consistent application of these interpretations.

In 1964, the case New York Times v. Sullivan was brought before the Supreme Court and the decision led to the modern interpretation of how the first amendment rights to freedom of speech and freedom of the press intersect. The case was born out of the civil rights movement in 1960 in which groups aligned with Martin Luther King Jr. bought ad space in the New York Times that contained factual errors that the Montgomery Police Department claimed made them look bad. The commissioner filed a lawsuit saying that the errors amounted to defamation of character.

When the case made it to the Supreme Court, the New York Times won a unanimous ruling in their favor. The ruling stated that for a public official to successfully sue a news organization for defamation of character, they need to prove that the news organization acted with actual malice in reporting the incorrect information. This means they had to know it was false and, with the intent to cause harm to the target, publish the information.

So after reading that, you're probably wondering why these organizations keep settling out of court, especially since the bar is so high to actually win if the case went to trial. What this comes down to is a calculation by the defendant (CBS, Disney, Meta, whoever) that the appeals will go in their favor. Sure, they can go to the court and almost certainly get the case thrown out, but on appeal it's far less certain. With the current makeup of the Supreme Court, and their lack of respect for court precedent, there is a sizable chance that the court ends up overturning Sullivan.

Without that protection, these lawsuits would have to be litigated in the courts. The collateral consequence of this is that it would dissuade organizations from providing anonymity to sources if an unflattering story leads to a lawsuit. If the long-term impact of actually litigating one of these cases is that it weakens the power of the press to hold those in power accountable, it makes more sense to pay out and move on.

Where that line gets crossed is when these organizations start doing other things in favor of the administration beyond settling the lawsuit. The steps made by Skydance and Paramount over the last few months transcend the traditional settlement terms in ways that it appears Disney and ABC have not crossed yet. We haven't seen reporting that ABC, ESPN, or any Disney subsidiary is taking steps to promote content supported by this administration, nor are they allowing this to impact their newsroom. We've actually seen reporting to the contrary that Iger is getting involved in the opposite direction (not that long-term it's necessarily better that a different billionaire is influencing the news reporting), directing local newsrooms to draw a direct line between conservatism and the impact in communities.

Again, maybe this is too charitable a reading but I'd prefer to give the benefit of the doubt until we get confirmation of some other nefarious thing explicitly happening before we take action. As our post Monday said, Paramount is explicitly taking steps contrary to the well-being of the public at large so it is obvious they are crossing a line. We will see if Disney starts making similar moves in the future.