Some media outlets pay a price after spreading 2020 election misinformation

Right-wing media outlets that became purveyors of disinformation and amplified false claims as Donald Trump undermined the 2020 election results are finding themselves on the losing side of legal challenges — or facing new ones.

In just a few months, a handful of high-profile fringe media operations have been hit with losses in court.

The Gateway Pundit, an influential far-right news site, Filed bankruptcy in April following defamation lawsuits that claimed the company suggested election workers committed fraud during previous presidential elections. That same month, voting machine company Smartmatic reached a confidential settlement in its defamation lawsuit against One America News Network, which allowed false claims of election fraud to air, while its pending defamation litigation based on similar allegations of Voter fraud continues against Newsmax as well as Fox News, which is being sued for $2.7 billion. Both Newsmax and Fox News deny Smartmatic’s allegations.

Fox News last year paid another company, Dominion Voting Systems, $787.5 million to settle a defamation lawsuit. The network did not admit any specific complaints.

In May, “2000 Mules,” a book and film by right-wing political commentator Dinesh D’Souza, was released. pulled by the publisherSalem Media Group and the company issued a public apology to a Georgia man who is suing the author and publisher on defamation charges after being accused of vote stuffing. This case is still ongoing.

Other conservative media outlets that promoted right-wing disinformation in the 2020 election face financial problems unrelated to these developments. This week, conspiracy theorist and Infowars host Alex Jones agreed to sell his assets to satisfy $1.5 billion in defamation judgments related to the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012. Jones previously warned that his company could close.

Meanwhile, federal prosecutors allege top executive at The Epoch Times laundered millions of dollars.

The Justice Department said the charges against Weidong “Bill” Guan, the company’s chief financial officer, are not related to its newsgathering activities, and an Epoch Times spokesperson said it plans to “fully cooperate with any investigation that deal with the allegations.” Still, the accusation brings scrutiny to one of the most popular pro-Trump media outlets. Guan has pleaded not guilty and a request for comment to a public defender assigned to his case was not immediately returned.

“Right-wing media has finally faced the consequences of running disinformation campaigns,” said Yunkang Yang, assistant professor of communications at Texas A&M University. “Some of them are finally being held accountable for the lies they spread.”

Yotam Ophir, an associate professor of communications at the University at Buffalo who studies disinformation and extremism, said he is encouraged by the repercussions when “misinformation contaminates our information environment, causes real harm to people, and erodes trust in institutions and government.” .

“We hope that the recent lawsuits against those who have made a career out of spreading lies and falsehoods will help limit the spread and amplification of some of the misinformation we can expect in 2024,” he said.

But it remains to be seen whether this translates into a change in coverage of the November elections and post-election results, researchers say.

Trump, in recent interviews and rallies, has aired his grievances about the 2020 elections, saying it is necessary to contest election results when the process is not fair. At a campaign rally in Michigan last month, the former president falsely said, “The Democrats rigged the presidential election in 2020,” adding that “we will not allow them to rig the presidential election” in 2024.

But as for companies that would like to avoid further litigation, Yang said, “If Trump loses again and denies the election again, if that happens, I think they will be more careful.”

However, “right-wing media doesn’t need to say the election was stolen,” Yang added, “but can let readers say the silent part out loud.”

He said this is already happening on some right-wing websites, writing in one 2023 Report which “rely on a small group of highly active commentators to instigate online discussion, draw attention to conspiratorial comments, reinforce conspiratorial beliefs and drive the sharing of propaganda content on social media”.

Amid their legal issues, some sites are fighting back, suggesting to their audiences that they are being unfairly targeted because of their ideologies.

Jim Hoft, the founder of The Gateway Pundit, blamed “progressive liberal law attacks” for leading the media outlet to declare bankruptcy, and said it did not indicate “an admission of guilt or culpability” in the court proceedings.

One of the lawsuits involves two former Georgia election officials who were the target of voter fraud conspiracy theories that have since been debunked; the case is heading towards trial. Other lawsuit, filed in Colorado by a former Dominion Voting Systems executive against Gateway Pundit and other prominent defendants, remains ongoing.

A request for comment from Gateway Pundit about its financial situation before the bankruptcy filing was not immediately returned, although Hoft promised to continue publishing.

“Despite efforts by the radical left to silence The Gateway Pundit through censorship, deplatforming, debanking, cutting advertisers and other financial strategies, we will not be deterred from our mission to remain undaunted and be one of the most trusted independent media outlets in the world. America today,” Hoft said in a statement.

That rhetoric is in line with how Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has gone after his political enemies as he awaits sentencing on 34 criminal charges in his historic hush money trial, said AJ Bauer, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Alabama. which focuses on right-wing media.

Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that the prosecution led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was part of an effort by President Joe Biden’s administration to interfere with his electoral prospects.

Trump trial coverage and unprecedented verdict noticed a ratings hit to Fox News over your competitors.

Attorney General Merrick Garland forcefully pushed back Tuesday before a House panel led by Trump’s congressional allies, noting how some Republicans are echoing baseless conspiracy theories.

Claiming that a New York jury’s verdict was “in some way controlled by the Department of Justice” is “an attack on the judicial process itself,” Garland said.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, called Trump’s trial a “sham” and proclaimed a “weaponization” of the judicial system against Trump.

With Republican leadership continuing to support Trump ahead of the election, Bauer said, the former president doesn’t necessarily need media outlets that can be “soft on the facts” to reinforce his beliefs.

Bauer said social media users on platforms like X and live internet streams covering Trump events — a prominent YouTube channel, Right-side broadcast network, has more than 1.65 million subscribers – represents another form of broadcasting that has developed further since the last presidential election. Trump also started his own social media platform, Truth Social, after he was banned from Facebook and Twitter, now known as X, following the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. Truth Social reported a cumulative loss of tens of millions of dollars last fall.

Meanwhile, conservative and right-wing news sites have reportedly struggled with traffic amid greater financial difficulties throughout the digital and legacy news media industryas once-reliable traffic sources like Facebook and Instagram limit “political content” to users’ feeds.

On the other hand, progressive advocacy site Media Matters for America fired dozens of employees last month, with its president blaming a “multi-pronged legal attack,” including a lawsuit filed last fall by X owner Elon Musk for because of an investigative report into advertising on the social media platform.

“The terrain on which these elections are taking place is fundamentally and materially different from four years ago,” Bauer said.

Ophir, the University at Buffalo researcher, said that while the public’s right to free speech and the media’s ability to remain independent must be considered, social media companies can also remove “harmful content” and the media outlets that spread it. False propaganda can be held accountable, at least through the courts.

But “without systematic change,” he added, the public “will continue to suffer from the ravages of misinformation for years to come.”