Trump allies are releasing damaging information about journalists working for news outlets that they consider unsympathetic to the Trump administration. The group is attempting to discredit reporters by investigating their posts on social media and other public statements. So far information about reporters for CNN, The Washington Post and the The New York Times has been published. Much of the information has been verified including anti-Semitic social media posts by a Times journalist. (The New York Times, August 26, 2019, by Kenneth P. Vogel and Jeremy W. Peters)
While the Times and other publications are describing the campaign as another attempt to keep the press from reporting the truth about the Trump administration, William A. Jacobson in Legal Insurrection, August 25, 2019, writes, “Why should the media be above scrutiny when others — politicians, cultural figures, and particularly anyone right-of-center — are subject to such scrutiny.”
In the meantime, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney threatened to sue NBC for defamation after Laurence O’Donnell reported on The Last Word with Laurence O’Donnell that Russian high rollers In Vladimir Putin’s pocket co-signed his loans from Deutsche Bank. O’Donnell apologized after the threat, saying that he erred in reporting unverified information from a single source. (The Hollywood Reporter, August 28, 2019, by Eriq Gardner)
For other FAC coverage on the issue, click here, here and here.