A federal judge ruled this week that Elon Musk's lawsuit against Media Matters can go forward, a potentially significant case not just for liberal media but for the entire media industry.
The ruling came at the same time as victories in a lawsuit filed by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (Republican) against the New York Times and a lawsuit filed by a Navy veteran against CNN.
For many years, media organizations and journalism schools have explicitly abandoned objectivity in favor of advocacy journalism. This abandonment of neutrality has, unsurprisingly,Public trust in the media is at an all-time low.
Nikole Hannah-Jones, a former New York Times reporter (now a Howard University journalism professor), has been praised for declaring that “all journalism is activism,” and Emilio Garcia Ruiz, editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, similarly announced that “objectivity must be abandoned.”
J-schools have long taught students to abandon the old-fashioned notion of simply reporting the facts and, as the University of Texas at Austin puts it, “abandon neutrality.”
A series ofInterviewThis new journalism vision was reaffirmed in a joint statement by former Washington Post editor-in-chief Leonard Downey Jr. and former CBS News president Andrew Hayward, who joined more than 75 media leaders in 2017. Downey explained that objectivity is seen as a trap, with reporters “feeling that objectivity denies much of their identities, life experiences and cultural backgrounds, and prevents them from pursuing the truth in their work.”
As the public abandons mainstream media for alternative news sources, news organizations face additional costs of bias in the form of libel and slander lawsuits. While media lawyers cite the protections secured by the “old media,” their clients openly claim intent on fabricating news to advance political and social agendas.
CNN, for example, is currently facing a lawsuit brought by Navy veteran Zachary Young, who is allegedly the subject of smear stories about his work rescuing endangered Afghans from the country after the Taliban took over. In a November 11, 2021 segment on CNN's “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” the host ominously recounted to viewers how CNN correspondent Alex Marquard discovered that “Afghans attempting to flee the country face a black market full of promises, exorbitant fees and no guarantee of safety or success.”
Malquart named Young and his company, claiming that “desperate Afghans are being exploited” and that they must pay “exorbitant, often impossible amounts of money” to leave the country.
Discovery revealed that Marquardt said, “I want to get this son of a bitch named Zachary Young.” After promising to “get” Young, CNN editor Matthew Phillips responded, “I'm gonna strap you to that cowboy!” This sentiment was echoed by other CNN staffers. The judge who granted the case found evidence of actual malice on the part of CNN, as well as grounds for punitive damages.
Similarly, Ms. Palin recently won a major appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which ruled that she did not receive a fair trial in her lawsuit against The New York Times.
In 2017, he was a liberal activist and supporter of Bernie Sanders (I-VT). James T. Hodgkinson After Palin attempted to massacre Republicans at a baseball stadium and nearly killed Rep. Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana), The New York Times, in an effort to change the tone, ran an editorial suggesting that Palin inspired or instigated the 2011 shooting of then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona) by Jared Loughner.
The Times' editors noted that Ms. Palin's political action committee, Sara PAC, had published a graphic of crosshairs on a U.S. map showing Ms. Giffords' district before she was shot, suggesting that this was a direct incitement to violence. In fact, the Palin graphic, which “targeted” about 20 vulnerable Democratic congresswomen around the country, is typical of graphics that have been used in political campaigns by both parties for decades. No evidence has been presented that Giffords' Crazy Shooter I saw it.
But Musk's lawsuit may be most emblematic of the era of advocacy journalism. He is the man Time magazine called “the first man to write a book about the tech giant.”“One of the most influential activists in the Democratic Party”
Block, who has since left the site, has long been accused of being a weapon of the left, and after Musk removed Twitter's censorship system, he became something of an obsession for Media Matters, and his revenue stream became a target.
The outlet ran a story suggesting that advertisements from major companies were running next to pro-Nazi posts and other hateful content on the platform.New BooksThe effort was similar to similar efforts by the anti-free speech movement to force Musk to reinstate censorship.
Companies including Apple, IBM, Comcast and Lionsgate Entertainment quickly joined in what was effectively a boycott to squeeze Musk.
The problem is that it's hard to financially strangle the world's richest man, so Mr Musk has told the companies to stay quiet and instructed his lawyers to sue.
The allegations in the lawsuit read like a textbook example of advocacy journalism: Media Matters is accused of manipulating algorithms to produce the combinations alleged in its articles, and of knowingly misrepresenting actual user experiences.
The complaint accuses Media Matters of rigging the mix to create highly unlikely pairings, so that the harmful combination was “viewed by just one audience (out of over 500 million) across X: Media Matters.” In other words, the organization wanted to write a smear article linking X to pro-Nazi material, so it artificially paired that material with corporate advertising — and then ran the article as news.
Indeed, the two Media Matters employee defendants did not deny that they were aware of the alleged manipulation and that they sought to undermine advertisers in order to drain X's advertising revenues.
The mediaCoveredThere has been relatively little coverage of the green light for the Texas lawsuit, although another judge blocked state officials' attempt to sue Media Matters over anti-mask protests.
U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor of the Northern District of Texas denied a motion to dismiss the case on jurisdictional and other grounds. Musk can continue to sue for tortious interference with existing contracts, defamation of business and tortious interference with future economic advantages.
Musk also Calling for a Global Alliance for Responsible Mediawas also targeting advertisers to shut out target sites.
Not surprisingly, the media has been reporting on Dominion Voting Systems' lawsuit against Fox News (Large settlements), they have been overwhelmingly hostile to Musk's lawsuit.
It's easy to see why: the Media Matters lawsuit directly challenges the media's ability to manufacture false narratives to advance a political agenda. Like the CNN and New York Times lawsuits, this case has the potential to expose how the media first decides on a conclusion and then falsifies or fabricates facts to support it.
These outlets cite examples and defenses secured by now outdated media organizations while rejecting long-standing principles of journalism such as objectivity. They want to be advocates, but they also want to be protected as journalists.
These cases still face tough challenges, including challenges to jury votes in places like New York, but they expose the bias that now characterizes much of American journalism.
In the age of advocacy journalism, the price is looming, which is why Musk's lawsuit against Media Matters is so significant.
Jonathan Turley is a Fox News Media contributor and the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He writes:An Essential Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon & Schuster, June 18, 2024).
