Good day all. For the last few years, we have been seeing the Mostly Stupid Media getting sued for defamation over their stories and losing, in some cases, badly.
President Trump has also been going after several of the Legacy Media organizations over their pretty blatant manufacturing of stories. He smacked down ABC and George Stephanopoulos to the tune of $15+ million dollars, and just settled with CBS for somewhere between $15-30 million. Now he’s going after the British Broadcasting Corporation, (BBC) for falsifying what President Trump said during his rally on January 6th, 2021. Here are some of the details from Fox News:
President Donald Trump‘s 10-figure legal threat against the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is not mere bluster, if his recent spate of legal victories against media and big tech is any indication.
Trump said Friday he was planning to sue the BBC for up to $5 billion over a network documentary’s misleading edit of his remarks on Jan. 6, 2021. A similar edit was found on the network’s “Newsnight” program in 2022.
When I first heard about the edits, it was a single instance. Now it’s come out that there were at least two different edits that totally changed what was actually said by President Trump on the day in question. Already two senior people have resigned. (It was literally resign or be sacked)
While the amount is eye-popping, Trump has managed to score large settlements from CBS, ABC and Meta over the past 12 months. To Trump allies, it’s well-deserved for their malign behavior against Trump, while to his detractors, it’s no better than ransom money or bribes to the most powerful person on the planet.
There is a reason for President Trump’s wins. The defendants were guilty as sin, so to speak and were dealing with someone who had the financial resources to make their corporate lives a living hell. All the cases were settled out of court of course, and the CBS one was particularly nasty since Skydance was ready to walk away from a deal to buy Paramount if they didn’t clear up the situation. (Skydance is now cleaning up CBS News and the denizens there are even more unhappy)
Trump’s settlements with Paramount-owned CBS and Disney-owned ABC over his respective suits touched off a firestorm of liberal criticism that their parent companies were wilting to administration pressure and selling out their own journalists.
They’re just unhappy that they got caught and were being held accountable for the first time in their careers. Now he has the BBC in his gun sights.
Trump told reporters on Friday he will sue the BBC this week for somewhere between $1 billion and $5 billion, after a Panorama documentary from the network edited together remarks he made on Jan. 6, 2021. The network later apologized and admitted it “gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action,” although it contested the notion it had defamed Trump.
Making those edits, and I’m guessing the producers didn’t indicate that they had made the edits, changed what was said, when it was said and what the meaning was. Considering what President Trump and any number of people targeted by the Democrats over the January 6th protests went through, and what has since been learned about just how crooked the January 6th committee was, Yeah, they defamed him.
The edit made it seem like Trump uttered a single thought about supporters going down to the Capitol, “cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we fight, we fight like hell.”
In reality, those remarks came nearly an hour later in his lengthy address that day.
His full remarks were, “We’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
Near the end of his speech, which lasted for over an hour, he said, “And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
Yeah, that is a pretty significant edit there. It could be acceptable if the BBC had noted that they had edited the content for time reasons. However, they didn’t.
The controversy has already led to the resignations of BBC News CEO Deborah Turness and BBC director-general Tim Davie.
As I mentioned earlier, it was a “Resign or be fired” situation. However, I’ve been seeing other things that indicate that these two were made the scapegoats and the people who actually did these edits are still working at the BBC.
It’s also not the only legal action Trump has going on against a major media outlet. Trump refiled a $15 billion lawsuit against The New York Times last month, alleging defamation pertaining to The Times’ reporting on Trump’s stint as star of “The Apprentice” and allegations he engaged in suspect tax maneuvers. The suit named individual Times reporters and Penguin Random House, the publisher of the book, “Lucky Loser,” by reporters Susanne Craig, Russ Buettner.
I vaguely recall hearing about that one. I don’t know anything about it, but if President Trump proves his case, and is actually awarded the requested amount, it’s all over the for the New York Slimes.
Now as to the case itself. The libel, slander and defamation laws are very different in Britain then they are in the United States. Generally, thanks to our 1st Amendment, the truth is an absolute defense. You also have to prove malice if you are a public figure, which I find to be of questionable legality. In England, and please understand that I am no Rumpole of the Bailey and don’t know the law over there. Even if the report is true, the defense can still lose. Since there is no question that the BBC altered the speech to change it’s meaning, I’d say they’re probably screwed, blued and tattooed.
Now if the Beeb, as it’s called, does lose and ends up having to fork over $5 billion to President Trump, it won’t sink the network. They are a government service so it will be the British taxpayers who will have to cough up the money. I’m sure it would be yet another thing that the British people will be angry over.
Thatisall
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