Disney’s $16 million ABC News defamation settlement with President-elect Donald Trump has put the entire media on edge, prompting previously friendly outlets to criticize the Bob Iger-led company.
The incoming president filed a defamation lawsuit against Disney over false statements made by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. Under the settlement, Disney will pay $15 million toward the Trump Presidential Library, and Stephanopoulos will pay an additional $1 million himself.
The media is not taking this Trump ABC settlement well.
Bradley Cooper and Bob Iger attend the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Premiere at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood CA on Thursday, April 27, 2023.
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This decision sets a precedent that mainstream media members could face legal accountability for their statements about public figures. In Trump’s case, Stephanopoulos stated as fact that he had been found liable for a horrific crime concerning writer E. Jean Carroll.
However, this claim was false.
Despite this straightforward instance of defamation, the media is outraged by the outcome.
“We are concerned that even the perception that media organizations must offer large payouts to settle legal challenges from public officials will have a chilling effect on the kind of independent and fearless reporting that our nation needs to hold the powerful to account,” said Caroline Hendrie, executive director of the Society of Professional Journalists in a statement to The Hill.
Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention 2024 via New York Post YouTube
Hollywood scooper WDW Pro addressed this issue on a recent livestream episode of The Pro Show, noting that this could cause severe repercussions for Iger and Disney among their media allies.
“What is striking fear in the news organizations who are owned largely by the entertainment corporations, and you really can’t make too much of a distinction between them anymore,” Pro said. “What’s striking fear in them is they could be next. Bob has opened Pandora’s Box.”
President-elect Trump settled a defamation lawsuit with ABC News for $15 million.
The suit followed a segment in which George Stephanopoulos inaccurately said Trump had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. A New York jury found him liable for sexual… pic.twitter.com/ygRBxe84QN
— PBS News (@NewsHour) December 17, 2024
“The reality in this case is that, according to everyone I’ve spoken to, Trump’s case against ABC News seemed not great,” New York Times author David Enrich said in an interview with PBS News. “And there are very strong protections built into the First Amendment and how it’s interpreted by the Supreme Court that give the media and others a lot of leeway when they are scrutinizing powerful individuals.”
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“He’s saying that he’s talked to everybody,” Pro said, reacting to Enrich’s interview. “Everybody who’s who’s important, this guy has talked to them. And they all say… Disney should not have settled it. That’s that’s the implication here. Disney has betrayed the news organizations by doing this and this is absolute insanity. But folks, listen, they’re losing their minds over this.”
Puck expressed similar outrage directed right at Iger himself.
“The two dominant theories are that either the Trump litigation has unearthed potentially damaging information or correspondence at ABC News that Disney doesn’t want revealed, or that this is indeed Iger’s gesture of sorts to Trump to avoid his vengeance and the lightning-rod spectacle of a public trial against a sitting president,” Puck’s Matthew Belloni said. “I’m in the latter camp. Iger, since he returned to Disney, has been willing to placate the right to keep the company out of its crosshairs—withdrawing, for instance, the Florida litigation against Ron DeSantis and his allies. Bob knows he can’t actually give $1 million to Trump’s inauguration without causing an internal firestorm, and at least so far, he hasn’t made his own tail-between-legs pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago. But he knows this settlement is a way to give Trump a victory and hopefully buy some insurance for the next four years.”
Bob Iger | 2019 Disney Legends Awards Ceremony | D23 EXPO 2019. Photo Credit: nagi usano from Tokyo, Japan, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
His anger was instantly echoed by Puck’s newest author Kim Masters.
“The problem is that this is a big effing deal,” Masters said. “Iger has undercut his news organization and positioned Stephanopoulos directly under the bus. I know from experience how little it takes to create a chilling environment in newsrooms—and this goes beyond just ABC News. Anne Applebaum, an expert on descents into authoritarianism, said, ‘many people assumed in the past that the news media in the United States was too big, too diverse, and too complex to be intimidated.’ Welp, so much for that cornerstone of democracy.”
Yes, you read that correctly. The access media seems to suggest here that Robert A. Iger—Bob to those in the know—settled a clear-cut defamation suit against an incoming U.S. president as part of some shady backroom payoff.
Is the legacy media’s honeymoon with Iger and Disney over after this Trump ABC settlement? Will public figures start bringing more defamation cases against powerful news organizations and their entertainment conglomerate owners? Sound off in the comments and let us know your thoughts!
