(This is a reply to RickJWagner's reply to the above comment [1], which got killed while I was writing this)
> When Hunter Bidens damning laptop was discovered late in the election cycle, nearly all mainstream news sources ignored it [...] Today it is quietly acknowledged that the story was true
To be clear, it turned out to be true that it was Hunter Biden's laptop. It did not turn out to be true that it contained anything damning concerning Joe Biden.
> Earlier this year, ABCs anchor George Stephanopolous was sued by Trump after he repeatedly called Trump a rapist, a false charge. ABC settled, paying $16m.
To be clear, the problem wasn't that Stephanopolous said that Trump was a rapist. It was that he said that Trump had been found liable for the rape E Jean Carroll in her lawsuit against him. In fact Trump was found by the jury to be liable for sexually abusing her but not for raping her.
However, in Trump's counterclaim against Carroll for defamation because she repeatedly claimed he raped her the judge dismissed the claim saying that her words were "substantially true". He said "The only issue on which the jury did not find in Ms Carroll’s favor was whether she proved that Mr Trump ‘raped’ her within the narrow, technical meaning of that term in the New York penal law".
The jury had been instructed that it could only find the Trump "raped" her if he forcibly penetrated her vagina with his penis. Forcible penetration by fingers is not rape under the New York penal code.
The judge noted that in contexts outside of New York penal law that would commonly be called "rape". BTW, that's also the case in the law of most other US states.
> Likewise, Trump sued 60 Minutes for editing a Kamala Harris interview to improve her responses to a question. CBS settled by paying Trump.
The overwhelming majority of legal experts considered that to be a frivolous lawsuit. Paramount (CBS' parent company) settled because they needed government approval for a merger they were involved in. The government approved the merger 3 weeks after the settlement.
> The problem is exactly that Stephanapolous used the word rapist. His producer warned him several times. It is a lie. Words have meanings. You can’t call someone something they are not, hence the $16m paid by ABC.
The jury found that Trump committed acts that meet the common definition of rape and the definition of rape under the laws of most US states, but not the narrower definition of rape under New York's penal code, so it is not really a lie to say that Trump is a rapist as long as you are not saying that he was found liable in court for rape.
That's why E Jean Carroll can say Trump raped her and he has not been able to make her stop. She's speaking using the common usage of the word.
> You have to wonder why a ‘news’ source would make an edit like the Harris edit, don’t you?
Not really. As with most interviews they shot more material than would fit in the airtime available, so edited it down to fit. For one answer that they used in a preview clip during "Face the Nation" they used a longer version than they used for the interview segment on "60 Minutes".
Comparing both of these to the raw transcript of the full interview shows that the editing for neither the "60 Minutes" segment nor the "Face the Nation" preview changed the message or was deceitful or manipulative.
> The problem is exactly that Stephanapolous used the word rapist. His producer warned him several times. It is a lie. Words have meanings. You can’t call someone something they are not, hence the $16m paid by ABC
Trump lost the defamation case that actually went to trial making that exactly claim about E Jean Caroll's own use of the same language describing the result, the money he got from ABC wasn't because they were likely to lose at trial, it was because kowtowing to Trump was expected to have produce results for the corporate ownership when the Trump Administration considered licensing and other regulatory requests.
The equally obvious answer is because Trump doesn't like that word, and the producer knew that opening a crack for Trump to get his undersized mitts into is a bad idea
Smartmatic defamation suit (ongoing) — New York appeals court let Smartmatic’s multibillion-dollar case proceed against Fox Corp in 2025; Smartmatic says Fox spread false claims about rigging the 2020 election.
- https://www.reuters.com/legal/fox-must-face-smartmatic-27-bi...
Misleading edit of Biden’s Satchel Paige remark — “Fox & Friends” aired a clipped video that removed context and made Biden’s Veterans Day comments seem racially insensitive; AP flagged the edit.
- https://apnews.com/general-news-453bd99f1301f76b68368f0a5b2f...
In that laundry list, I see one similar issue, the Biden video edit.
It looks like Fox edited a video to make it seem as if Biden made a racially insensitive statement. Fox says they made the edit for time constraints.
Seems weak compared to forging documents ( Dan Rather ), telling outright lies ( Stephanopoulos ), and failing to report a salient election issue ( Biden laptop ). I will grant that it seems similar to what the BBC did today, though.
The rest seem like slimy news tricks, but are not attacks of the same nature.
> When Hunter Bidens damning laptop was discovered late in the election cycle, nearly all mainstream news sources ignored it [...] Today it is quietly acknowledged that the story was true
To be clear, it turned out to be true that it was Hunter Biden's laptop. It did not turn out to be true that it contained anything damning concerning Joe Biden.
> Earlier this year, ABCs anchor George Stephanopolous was sued by Trump after he repeatedly called Trump a rapist, a false charge. ABC settled, paying $16m.
To be clear, the problem wasn't that Stephanopolous said that Trump was a rapist. It was that he said that Trump had been found liable for the rape E Jean Carroll in her lawsuit against him. In fact Trump was found by the jury to be liable for sexually abusing her but not for raping her.
However, in Trump's counterclaim against Carroll for defamation because she repeatedly claimed he raped her the judge dismissed the claim saying that her words were "substantially true". He said "The only issue on which the jury did not find in Ms Carroll’s favor was whether she proved that Mr Trump ‘raped’ her within the narrow, technical meaning of that term in the New York penal law".
The jury had been instructed that it could only find the Trump "raped" her if he forcibly penetrated her vagina with his penis. Forcible penetration by fingers is not rape under the New York penal code.
The judge noted that in contexts outside of New York penal law that would commonly be called "rape". BTW, that's also the case in the law of most other US states.
> Likewise, Trump sued 60 Minutes for editing a Kamala Harris interview to improve her responses to a question. CBS settled by paying Trump.
The overwhelming majority of legal experts considered that to be a frivolous lawsuit. Paramount (CBS' parent company) settled because they needed government approval for a merger they were involved in. The government approved the merger 3 weeks after the settlement.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45875897