The fake news media is out of control.
Conservatives want their leaders to fight back.
Ron DeSantis just hit the fake news media with this brutal choice.
The corporate press has always been biased towards Democrats.
But at one point in time members of the media at least pretended to try and uphold standards of objectivity and fairness.
However, once Donald Trump won the presidency Trump’s victory broke the brains of the press and the so-called “journalists” quickly showed their true colors as pro-Democrat Party propagandists.
Beginning with the Russian collusion hoax the fake news media would run lies and conspiracy theories masquerading as news based on anonymous sources.
One example was a 2017 New York Times story filled with lies and fake quotes about the intelligence community catching Trump campaign officials like Paul Manafort on intercepts communicating with Russian intelligence officials.
CNN ran a fake story about Donald Trump Jr. getting a heads-up on the WikiLeaks email dump.
Because the activists in the media filled their stories with quotes from anonymous sources Trump and his allies could not sue the news outlets running these false hit pieces.
That’s due to the 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan case that established a nearly impossible standard for public figures in defamation cases of having to prove a news outlet acted with malice of forethought by knowingly publishing a story it knew to be false.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis supported a bill that made the use of anonymous sources a presumption of malice on the part of a news outlet.
In a press conference DeSantis explained that the use of anonymous sources allowed fake news media outlets to publish false stories since they never had to publicly identify who was lying to them.
“Well, I think what the bill is doing now is basically saying that if somebody is defamed so someone publishes or says something, this is pretty much going to be written, they publish something that defames you. So it’s false, that if they’re using anonymous sources, then that can be a presumption that that was done with malice, because if not, then there’s no way you could ever have a defamation action,” DeSantis began.
The defamation rules are so one-sided against public figures that the fake news media gets away with using anonymous sources — which does not allow the public to judge the veracity of this person’s knowledge since they don’t know their identity or position — to defame people.
“I think what’s happened is particularly corporate media outlets have relied on anonymous sources to smear people. And I just think that that’s something that is fundamentally wrong. And so, again, these are false statements of fact that defame people,” DeSantis added.
DeSantis explained that if people had to attach their names to false quotes they would be far less likely to plant false stories in the press in the first place.
“The question is, if you bring a suit, how are you able to show that that was malicious? And I think the fact that it was anonymous could be a presumption that that’s the case. And so I think I don’t think it’s going to cause much of a difference in terms of free speech. I do think it may cause some people to not want to put out things that are false, that are that are smearing somebody’s reputation,” DeSantis concluded.
DeSantis added that the defamation laws are so one-sided that everyday Americans who get involved in low-level politics like school board meetings would now have recourse if the fake news media smeared them with false stories backed up by anonymous sources.
“And, you know, I think I think people can make a judgment about how they view that. But but I think to have a standard that’s impossible to meet for for people, particularly people who are considered public figures, who aren’t even in office or just maybe get involved in some, they are at a school board meeting or something. You know, I think that that that’ll be that will be good,” DeSantis declared.
DeSantis is not the only conservative looking at changing the libel laws.
Donald Trump often mentioned he would like to see that done during the 2016 presidential campaign.
And Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch expressed a willingness to re-examine the Sullivan standard.
Critics contend the fake news media is now a smear machine that pumps out pro-Democrat Party propaganda and hides behind the impossibly high Sullivan standard to get away with lying about conservatives.
Now there is momentum to do something about it.
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