It would appear as though President Trump has officially declared war on the mainstream media.
On Friday, Fox News reported the Trump campaign has filed yet another lawsuit against a major media outlet, this time being CNN.
Not Lying Down
Since the inception of Trump’s candidacy, the mainstream media has focused only on the negative.
Now, if the stories are true, there are no problems, but Trump has been hit with far too many fake news stories.
There is also very little coverage among networks other than Fox News when he does something right, so the reporting is hardly fair and balanced throughout these outlets.
This being an election year, though, negative fake news story could literally cost him the election.
As such, the campaign is not taking any chances and ripping off lawsuits and breakneck speed.
On this latest lawsuit, the campaign stated, “The complaint alleges CNN was aware of the falsity at the time it published them but did so for the intentional purpose of hurting the campaign while misleading its own readers in the process… the campaign filed this lawsuit against CNN and the preceding suits against The New York Times and The Washington Post to hold the publishers accountable for their reckless false reporting and also to establish the truth.”
According to the campaign, CNN was aware, or should have been aware, false statements were being made “because there was an extensive record of statements from the Campaign and the administration expressly disavowing any intention to seek Russian assistance.”
Yet, the network still decided to report the story.
President Trump’s legal team reportedly reached out to CNN to have the story retracted, and the network refused, hence the lawsuit.
The complaint stated, “The Campaign therefore was left with no alternative but to file this lawsuit to: publicly establish the truth, properly inform CNN’s readers and audience (and the rest of the world) of the true facts, and seek appropriate remedies for the harm caused by CNN’s false reporting and failure to retract and apologize for it.”
To be honest, it would be rather surprising if anything actually came of this, but there is some precedent in terms of news agencies being held accountable for false statements.
Because Trump is a public figure, though, this is going to be challenging.
Regardless, at the very least, the campaign has managed to bring attention to all these fake news reports, which will serve two purposes.
First, the public is now much more aware of this.
Secondly, perhaps it will force news outlets to have better vetting processes in place before printing a story.