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      Trump pleads with Meta to restore Facebook account

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      Trump pleads with Meta to restore Facebook accountFormer president’s lawyers petition company to allow access following ban from platform in wake of 2021 Capitol attack Donald Trump has petitioned Meta to restore his access to Facebook, as he reportedly looks to shift his 2024 presidential campaign into a higher gear.The former president was banned from Facebook more than two years ago, after his followers attacked the US Capitol in an unsuccessful attempt to stop certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.In a letter to Meta obtained by NBC News on Wednesday, Trump advisers argued that the ban “dramatically distorted and inhibited the public discourse” and should be rescinded.Meta said it would “announce a decision in the coming weeks”.Free the nipple: Facebook and Instagram told to overhaul ban on bare breastsRead moreFacebook and Twitter banned Trump a day after the January 6 attack, which has been linked to nine deaths including suicides among law enforcement.Trump used his Twitter account to encourage supporters to gather near the Capitol. In a speech before the attack, he urged supporters to “fight like hell”. He then used Twitter to criticize his vice-president, Mike Pence, for not stopping certification while the attack was in progress.A congressional committee recommended that Trump be criminally charged in connection with the attack, the fate of hundreds of his supporters.Twitter lifted its ban on Trump after Elon Musk bought the platform last year. But Trump has not tweeted since, choosing to remain on his own rival social media service, Truth Social.NBC quoted an anonymous Republican who said Trump had been bragging about eventually returning to Twitter and predicted the ex-president would do so.Trump’s accounts on Facebook and Twitter have 34 million and nearly 88 million followers respectively. On Truth Social, he has fewer than 5 million followers.Trump used Twitter and Facebook extensively when he ran for the presidency in 2016 and throughout his time in office.Impeached over the Capitol attack but acquitted, Trump announced his 2024 run in mid-November. In doing so he sought to take credit for Republicans winning back the US House in the midterm elections, though their majority was much narrower than expected and many candidates Trump endorsed suffered high-profile defeats.TopicsDonald TrumpMetaFacebookUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Will the January 6 report bring a second Christmas for US publishers?

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      Will the January 6 report bring a second Christmas for US publishers? Major imprints are racing to sell the committee’s work to the reading public, with help from reporters, panel members, David Remnick and even a former speechwriter to TrumpThe release of the final report of the House January 6 committee has sparked a deluge of publishing activity: seven editions of the 200,000 word document from six imprints, featuring contributions from the New Yorker editor, David Remnick, the House intelligence chair, Adam Schiff, plus six other journalists, another committee member, a former congresswoman and a former speechwriter to Donald Trump.January 6 report review: 845 pages, countless crimes, one simple truth – Trump did itRead moreThere are two reasons for this hyperactivity: the belief that the completion of the report is a significant historical event, and the conviction that here is a big chance to do well by doing good.The Mueller report sold 475,000 copies in various editions, according to NPD BookScan, so the book business is hoping it can do at least that well with the latest copy provided for free by the federal government.Harper Perennial says it is printing 250,000 copies of its version, which features a powerful introduction by Ari Melber, an MSNBC host, that reads like a smart prosecutor’s multi-part indictment. It helps that Melber’s marketing power is at least as great as his brain power. Pushing it on his nightly show, he has already gotten the book to the top of one Amazon bestseller list, long before it has reached any store.The lawyer turned TV personality does the best job of delineating the eight plots Trump and his allies pursued to try to overthrow the election, seven of which were clearly illegal or unconstitutional.“They attempted a coup,” Melber declares. “That is the most important fact about what happened.”Remnick and Jamie Raskin, like Schiff a committee member, teamed up to write an introduction and an afterword for the version being published by an imprint of Macmillan.Remnick gets straight to the heart of the matter: “Trump does little to conceal his most distinctive characteristics: his racism, misogyny, dishonesty, narcissism, incompetence, cruelty, instability, and corruption. And yet what has kept Trump afloat for so long, what has helped him evade ruin and prosecution, is perhaps his most salient quality: he is shameless.”Because so many of us have nearly lost our “ability to experience outrage”, Remnick concedes that “the prospect of engaging with this congressional inquiry … is sometimes a challenge to the spirit … And yet a citizenry that can no longer bring itself to pay attention to such an investigation or to absorb its astonishing findings risks moving even farther toward a disturbing ‘new normal’: a post-truth, post-democratic America.”Raskin sees the assault on the Capitol as the latest in a series of “systematic threats” to US democracy, including “massive voter suppression, gerrymandering of state and federal legislative districts, the use of the filibuster to block protection of voting rights, and right-wing judicial activism to undermine the Voting Rights Act”.His biggest goal is the elimination of electoral college, without any amendment to the constitution. That can be done through “the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement among participating states that gives electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the nationwide popular vote, and which has already been adopted by 15 states and the District of Columbia with 195 electoral votes, or 72% of the 270 votes needed” to put it into effect.Writing for Random House, Schiff excoriates Republicans for trying so hard to block certification of Biden’s victory even after the Capitol invasion – 147 Republicans including eight senators lodged objections early on the morning of January 7. But he is also careful to give credit to Republican witnesses who did so much to burnish the committee’s credibility.“These officials, Republicans all, not only held fast against enormous pressure from a president of their party but were willing to stand before the country and testify under oath,” Schiff writes.Schiff argues that the report is an undeniable brief for prosecution of Trump: “Bringing to justice a former president who, even now, advocates the suspension of our constitution is a perilous endeavor. Not doing so is far more dangerous.”For Skyhorse, the former congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, the only contributor old enough to have voted to impeach Richard Nixon, echoes Schiff on this point.“Having had to vote to impeach a president when I was in Congress, I am certain that [the January 6 committee] did not make its criminal referrals to the justice department lightly. In the same vein, the DoJ should not treat it lightly – and I hope and believe the American people will not let that happen.”The Hachette book has the largest amount of additional material, including a first-person account of the Capitol attack by a New York Times reporter, Luke Broadwater. After making it to a secure area, Broadwater found he was “much more angry” than “afraid”. So were other more conservative reporters, disgusted by senators who encouraged the myth of election theft. Broadwater recalls “one shouting to a Republican as he passed by, ‘Are you proud of yourself, Senator?’”All of these books are serious efforts to put the committee’s exhaustive findings in a larger political and historical context, including the one published by Skyhorse with an introduction by Holtzman. But Skyhorse also maintains its maverick reputation as a publisher famous for picking up books others have spurned (Woody Allen’s memoir, for example) by publishing two versions of the new report, one with Holtzman’s foreword and another featuring Darren Beattie, a former speechwriter for Trump and Steven Miller.Tony Lyons, the US publisher who picks up books ‘cancelled’ by other pressesRead moreBeattie was fired by the Trump White House after it was reported that he attended a conference with Peter Brimelow, founder of the anti-immigrant website VDare, a “white nationalist” who “regularly publishes works by white supremacists, antisemites, and others on the radical right”, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.Beattie is horrified that the January 6 committee describes the assault on the Capitol as an outgrowth of white supremacy.“Far from serving as an objective fact-finding body, the January 6 committee functioned as such an egregiously performative, partisan kangaroo display as to make propagandists in North Korea blush,” he writes – with characteristic understatement.Beattie provides more comic relief with his approach to the alleged election fraud which is one of the main subjects of the report.“It would take us too far afield to consider the election fraud allegations in detail on the merits,” Beattie writes.Then he gives a long explanation of why no one should think Trump really believed he lost the election, just because that’s what his attorney general and so many others told him.“For all of the committee’s fixation on the term ‘Big Lie’, the committee presents precious little if any evidence that Donald Trump didn’t genuinely believe that election fraud ultimately tipped the balance against him.“… The committee’s first televised hearing repeated ad nauseam a video clip of Trump’s former attorney general Bill Barr referring to Trump’s election fraud theories as ‘bullshit’.“Apart from Barr, the committee referenced numerous Trump associates who claim to have told the former president his election fraud theories were wrong. The simple fact that some of Trump’s senior staffers may have disagreed with Trump on the election issue is hardly proof that Trump was persuaded by them, and that therefore Trump’s efforts to ‘stop the steal’ amounted to a deliberate lie and malicious attempt to prevent the legitimate and peaceful transition of power.Republican senator called Giuliani ‘walking malpractice’, January 6 report saysRead more“Barr’s additional remark that Trump was ‘completely detached from reality’ when it came to the 2020 election unwittingly undermines the committee’s suggestion that Trump was lying about the matter.”Primetime hearings sometimes reached as many 18 million viewers, a number Remnick notes was “comparable to Sunday Night Football on NBC”. In the midterm elections, many exit polls found that the preservation of democracy was a key factor in the decision of many swing voters to vote against Republicans. It seems clear the investigation bolstered American democracy in more ways than one.While a hearty minority obviously remain as far down a rabbit hole as Trump’s former speechwriter, the results of the recent election bolster my conviction that sane Americans still constitute a small majority of American voters.So, like most of the contributors to these volumes, I think there is much to be grateful for in the work of the most successful congressional investigators since the Senate Watergate committee of 50 years ago. Or, as Remnick puts it, “If you are reaching for optimism – and despair is not an option – the existence and the depth of the committee’s project represents a kind of hope. It represents an insistence on truth and democratic principle.”TopicsBooksJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesPolitics booksfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Revisited – Jon Ronson on Alex Jones: Politics Weekly America podcast

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      Politics Weekly America is taking a break. So this week, Jonathan Freedland revisits the conversation he had in April with the journalist and film-maker Jon Ronson about the far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      The Guardian and Observer charity appeal for 2022 is about the cost of living crisis, and you can donate here. Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com. Help support the Guardian by going to theguardian.com/supportpodcasts. More

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      Is Dominion’s $1.6bn defamation lawsuit a death blow for Murdoch and Fox News?

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      Is Dominion’s $1.6bn defamation lawsuit a death blow for Murdoch and Fox News?The media mogul and Fox Corp are being sued for allegedly broadcasting ‘lies’ about the voting machine company Rupert Murdoch rarely has to answer for the alternative realities presented by his hugely profitable US cable network, Fox News.Its conspiratorial claims of a parade of cover ups from the 2012 Benghazi attack to the climate crisis and Covid-19 have been lapped up by Fox viewers and scorned by much of the rest of America, and then the world moved on. But on Tuesday, the 91-year-old billionaire media mogul will be obliged to answer difficult questions under oath about the inner workings of Fox.Rupert Murdoch to testify in Dominion voting machine defamation caseRead moreDominion Voting Systems is suing the cable news station and its Murdoch-owned parent company, Fox Corp, for $1.6bn (£1.3bn) over repeated claims that it rigged its voting machines as part of a conspiracy to steal the 2020 presidential election from Donald Trump.The suit shines a spotlight on Fox News’ part in promoting Trump’s “stop the steal” campaign and its hand in driving the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. But legal experts say that Dominion, which supplied voting machines to 28 states, appears to be building a wider case that Fox News has a long history of misinformation and steamrolling facts that do not fit its editorial line.Over the past few months, Dominion’s lawyers have been working their way up the tree of Fox News producers, executives and presenters with interrogations under oath about the network’s work culture and its weeks of conspiratorial, and at times outlandish, claims about Trump’s defeat. On Monday, lawyers deposed Murdoch’s eldest son, presumed successor and Fox Corp CEO, Lachlan.Now, Dominion has reached the top of the tree. Months of accumulated testimony are expected to put Murdoch, the chair of Fox Corp, in the difficult position of either having to deny he has control over what happens at his most influential US news operation or defend its campaign to promote the biggest lie in US electoral history.Fox Corp CEO Lachlan Murdoch to testify in $1.6bn Dominion lawsuitRead moreMurdoch is already grappling with the costly legacy of phone hacking by British newspapers the News of the World and the Sun. His UK company has paid more than £1bn ($1.2bn) over the past decade to keep the gruesome details from being heard in open court with no end in sight after a high court judge earlier this year refused to prevent the filing of new claims.When Murdoch was called to give evidence to a UK parliamentary hearing in 2011 about News of the World hacking the phones of a murdered schoolgirl as well as hundreds of politicians, celebrities and other public figures, he said that it was the most humble day of his life. He also claimed to have known nothing about the wrongdoing and said that he had been misled.“I feel that people I trusted … I’m not saying who … let me down and I think they behaved disgracefully,” he told parliament. “And it’s time for them to pay.”But he can make no such claim about Fox News, where its misrepresentations were on full display. So far, the only people to pay at the network are the ones who got it right.The trouble started on election night after Fox called the key swing state of Arizona for Joe Biden. The call drew Trump’s ire and unleashed a backlash against the network from his supporters.At that point, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott warned against bowing to pressure to embrace an alternate reality and reverse the Arizona call.“We can’t give the crazies an inch,” she said, according to court records.As it turned out, “the crazies” took a mile, as Fox News put a parade of Trump lawyers, advisers and apologists front and centre over the following weeks to promote a myriad of conspiracy theories about how the election was stolen from Trump, including by rigging the voting machines.Alongside them, some of Fox’s biggest names took up the cry of fraud. NPR revealed that during the discovery process, Dominion acquired an email written by a Fox News producer begging colleagues not to allow one of those presenters, Jeanine Pirro, on the air because she was spreading conspiracy theories about the vote. Pirro, a former district attorney and judge who is close to Trump, continued broadcasting.Lawyers have also obtained rafts of internal messages that are “evidence that Fox knew the lies it was broadcasting about Dominion were false” and part of a culture of politically loaded reporting and broadcasts far from the network’s claim to be “fair and balanced”.Dominion claims that without Fox, “these fictions” about electoral fraud would never have gained the same traction among large number of Americans.“Fox took a small flame and turned it into a forest fire,” the company claims in its lawsuit.In August, lawyers questioned another presenter, Sean Hannity, who has been described as “part of Trump’s campaign apparatus”. He was grilled for more than seven hours including about a broadcast two weeks after the presidential election in which Trump lawyer and conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell was a guest.Powell claimed that Dominion “ran an algorithm that shaved off votes from Trump and awarded them to Biden”. She said the company “used the machines to inject and add massive quantities of votes for Mr Biden”. Powell has also claimed that Dominion used software developed to help the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez steal elections.Dominion has said that it warned Fox News that such claims were false but that it continued to air them in an attempt to assuage Trump supporters out of concern they would move to other right-wing broadcasters.Top US conservatives pushing Russia’s spin on Ukraine war, experts sayRead more“It’s an orchestrated effort,” Dominion’s lawyer told a court hearing. “It’s not just on the part of each host individually, but it’s across Fox News as a company.”So far the only Fox employees to pay a price for the debacle are those who got it right. Weeks after the election, the network fired its political director, Chris Stirewalt, who had infuriated Trump and other Republicans by refusing to back down from calling Arizona for Biden. The Washington managing editor, Bill Sammon, who supported Stirewalt’s decision, took retirement.Fox argues that Hannity and the other presenters are protected by journalistic privilege but that position has been complicated by the Fox host’s own description of his role.In defending his overt bias in favour of Trump and Republicans, Hannity has more than once said he is not a journalist but a talk show host, and so does not have to adhere to the profession’s ethical standards. He took the same position earlier this year after the January 6 congressional committee exposed dozens of his messages to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, offering advice and seeking direction as the White House challenged the presidential election result.TopicsRupert MurdochFox NewsUS politicsUS television industryfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Top US conservatives pushing Russia’s spin on Ukraine war, experts say

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      Top US conservatives pushing Russia’s spin on Ukraine war, experts saySome of the Kremlin’s most blatant falsehoods aimed at undercutting US aid are promoted by major figures on the right Ever since Russia launched its brutal war in Ukraine the Kremlin has banked on American conservative political and media allies to weaken US support for Ukraine and deployed disinformation operations to falsify the horrors of the war for both US and Russian audiences, say disinformation experts.Some of the Kremlin’s most blatant falsehoods about the war aimed at undercutting US aid for Ukraine have been promoted by major figures on the American right, from Holocaust denier and white supremacist Nick Fuentes to ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon and Fox News star Tucker Carlson, whose audience of millions is deemed especially helpful to Russian objectives.On a more political track, House Republican Freedom Caucus members such as Paul Gosar, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Scott Perry – who in May voted with 54 other Republican members against a $40bn aid package for Ukraine, and have raised other concerns about the war – have proved useful, though perhaps unwitting, Kremlin allies at times.Pro-Moscow video materials from the network RT (formerly Russia Today), which early this year shuttered its US operations, have been featured on Rumble, a video sharing platform popular with conservatives that last year received major financing from a venture capital firm co-founded by recently elected Republican Ohio senator JD Vance and backed by billionaire Peter Thiel.As Republicans will control the House in 2023, the influence of these Ukraine aid critics in Congress and Moscow-friendly media on the right led by Carlson is expected to increase. But analysts say they’re unlikely to block a Biden administration request to Congress in mid-November for over $37bn in emergency aid for Ukraine, although they may try to pare it back.Republican House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, who looks poised to become speaker in January, threatened pre-election that if the GOP won the majority, it wouldn’t back a “blank check” for Ukraine.There are signs that the conservative wing of the Republican party and its media allies are already ratcheting up their criticism of US backing for Ukraine. For instance, Perry, the chair of the rightwing Freedom Caucus, in October floated the idea of Republicans using their anticipated control of the House to investigate the Biden administration’s efforts and policies involving Ukraine-Russia peace talks.Moscow’s political friends on the far right have also become more vocal in pushing falsehoods and have hosted some Freedom Caucus members to showcase their influence.Fuentes infamously dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago last month despite his long record of cozying up to Putin and his antisemitic and white supremacist remarks. Back in March, Fuentes said on his podcast: “We continue to support czar Putin in the war effort.” Fuentes also falsely claimed the Russian war in Ukraine was “not aggression” and its goals were “not unreasonable”, repeating the Kremlin line that Moscow is trying to denazify Ukraine.In a similar, albeit somewhat less inflammatory vein, Carlson’s pro-Moscow spin and distortions about the war have been palpable since the start and seem to have increased in recent months. Russian media often rebroadcasts the Fox News host’s comments and praises Carlson. “We’ve entered a new phase, one in which the United States is directly at war with the largest nuclear power in the world,” Carlson with considerable hyperbolic license warned his audience in late September.Disinformation experts note that in the run-up to the US midterm elections, conservative media stars such as Carlson, as well as Greene and other far-right members of Congress, became more vocal about blocking Ukraine assistance, and calling for audits of American assistance.“Marjorie Taylor Green’s introduction of a resolution to audit aid to Ukraine is entirely unsurprising given the pervasively negative messaging about Ukraine coming from the right flank of the GOP over the past three months,” Bret Schafer, a senior fellow with the Alliance for Securing Democracy, said.Prior to the 8 November elections, he noted that “of the 100 most retweeted tweets about Ukraine posted by GOP candidates for the House since August, roughly 90% opposed continued support for Ukraine. Though much of that messaging plays to simple pocketbook concerns – essentially saying, ‘Why are we supporting Ukraine when Americans are struggling to pay their bills?’ – there is also a strain of anti-Ukrainian disinformation that colors some of their commentary.”Schafer added that “although most members of Congress support Ukraine, the loudest members do not, and their voices are dominating online spaces”.John Sipher, who served in the CIA’s national clandestine services for 28 years with a stint leading its Russia operations, said that Putin is using a playbook that he honed during his long career with the KGB to influence policy and Russian opinion.“I think Putin’s weakness is that he is not a strategic thinker but reverts to what he knows – using covert means to influence and undermine others,” Sipher said. “He cannot win on the battlefield so he uses threats and intimidations to influence and scare western leaders into backing down or pushing Ukraine to the negotiating table.”Sipher noted that historically Putin “has weaponized energy, information, refugees, food and nuclear threats to get his way. I think his nuclear threats are just a means to sow unease and dissension among supporters of Ukraine, and suspect that the discussion of a ‘dirty bomb’ is meant to signal to his domestic audience that Ukraine is a real threat, and the population should support Putin’s tough measures.”In the US the audiences receiving pro-Putin messages have been boosted by Rumble, the video sharing platform, which has featured RT content including an interview with two Americans captured in Ukraine who were badly beaten by Russians and later released, as the New York Times last month reported.One of the two American men in the video clip told his interviewer while he was in custody that he had been deceived to fight in Ukraine by “propaganda from the west” that reported that Russians soldiers were “indiscriminately killing civilians”.Megan Squire, a deputy director for data analytics with the Southern Poverty Law Center, noted that Rumble has also been busy recycling pro-Putin and anti-Ukraine material from multiple figures on the right.“Alt-tech platforms such as Rumble are actively peddling the anti-Ukraine talking points of their heavy users, many of whom have been deplatformed elsewhere,” Squire said. “A simple search for ‘Ukraine’ in Rumble today shows that the top search results are for a Steve Bannon video where he promotes Marjorie Taylor Greene’s demands for an audit of Ukrainian relief funds, and junk news site Post Millennial, which is using Rumble to promote clips from a similar story from Tucker Carlson.”But for overall influence with American audiences, veteran Russia experts say Carlson’s big Fox megaphone still dwarfs other propaganda tools favorable to Moscow.“The audience for Fox News commentators like Tucker Carlson, who frequently spreads pro-Russian narratives, is obviously orders of magnitude bigger than that of new niche players like Rumble that often carry Russian disinformation,” said Andrew Weiss, a vice-president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Such platforms are far more impactful than the more sneaky techniques that the Russian propaganda apparatus employs these days.”TopicsThe far rightRepublicansFox NewsUS politicsRussiaUkrainenewsReuse this content More

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      ‘Don’t let him use the press’: Guardian readers on how the media should cover Trump’s 2024 run

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      ‘Don’t let him use the press’: Guardian readers on how the media should cover Trump’s 2024 runMore than 3,000 readers responded to our callout, and urged a ‘less is more’ approach when reporting on the former president Donald Trump’s announcement of a third run for the presidency has renewed a discussion in newsrooms on how best to cover the former president. That conversation is happening inside the Guardian, too.Beginning with his 2016 campaign, much of the US media took to Trump like a moth to a flame, covering him like a celebrity – one whose propensity to espouse lies and conspiracy theories riveted audiences. But Trump proved an expert at manipulating that coverage, which often unwittingly amplified those same lies.Trump’s 2024 campaign is undoubtedly news – he is, after all, a former president with a large following, who has left an indelible mark on American politics and is arguably the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024. But that doesn’t mean we need to cover every utterance.We asked Guardian readers for their views on how the press can strike a better balance between delivering newsworthy information while refraining from platforming Trump’s more damaging rhetoric.We received more than 3,000 responses. Many readers argue, essentially, for a “less is more” approach to reporting on the former president. Not every tweet (should he resume tweeting), no matter how outlandish, is news, they say. Others called for caution when reporting his lies about election fraud in 2020. Many asked us to go easy on printing his photograph and to give equal time to other candidates.Nine responses from readers are below.‘Fewer stories with more substance, please’“The media should cover Trump’s candidacy without photographs and tweets and the like – and without catchphrases. All of those things cause kneejerk reactions. I know we have shorter attention spans, but honestly, I am hungry for quietness, nuance, content, a little thoughtfulness in my day. If you feel like imagery is required, then be creative and let the graphic artists illustrate an idea.“I think that should be the case for all candidates at this stage: fewer, more substantive stories about them all.” Nancy Aten, 63, progressive and Democratic, from Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin‘Focus on fresh candidates that deserve more oxygen’“Trump should be treated as a person running in an election, not a foregone conclusion nor a fascinating spectacle and certainly not a celebrity. The American media has so breathlessly covered each of Trump’s successive small and large leaps further into the absurd that it culminated in thousands of people genuinely believing they had a right to violently overthrow our most important seat of government with him as their king.“I’m concerned about the air of this election being completely sucked up by Biden and Trump again when voters across the spectrum are ready for a new generation. Ron DeSantis is an interesting candidate, and I’m also interested in hearing about who the potential successors to Biden could be on the left. Who are the new compelling candidates that deserve platforming?” Shawn Martin, 31, architect, independent/Democratic, will always consider a split ticket, from San Diego, California‘Don’t platform election 2020 fraud claims’“The press should cover Trump minimally. Only if he is in a debate. No rallies, no social media posts or rambling/ranting spiels. Do not report anything he says about 2020 or fraudulent elections. No matter how ‘out there’ he goes, rein in the impulse to bleat about his latest nonsense.“Cover actual policy statements, debates and so on. Stick with strictly bare minimum reporting. There is no need to feed him.” Pam M, in her late 50s, nurse, moderate Republican, from Las Vegas, Nevada‘Complete coverage of the Trump campaign’“I’d like to see accurate, complete coverage of the Trump campaign with the same volume as competitors receive. More investigative journalism using every tool in the toolbox. When Trump or his campaign make assertions which are false this should be covered, but the truth must also be reported.“The coverage should highlight the ongoing criminal and civil investigations and legal cases against Trump and his business. Simply put, maximize resources uncovering Trump’s past and present misbehaviors while eliminating uncritical reporting of Trump’s false assertions or hateful rhetoric. Democracy works best as a true competition of ideas and policies.” Joel Block, 74, retired, Democratic, from Orange county, California‘A politicized press has polarized the public even more’“The right balance would be equal balance on all relevant candidates. Don’t get into the perpetual habit of always displaying Mr Trump’s negatives. Those are already glaringly obvious. And it allows Trump to counter-attack the media as being biased and prejudiced against him. To his diehard minority base it merely enforces their belief that the media is the enemy of the people.“In today’s world of course all media either leans towards one political spectrum or another, which has polarized the public even more. Try to return to a more balanced and fair reporting, less politicized viewpoints. Try to negate the sensational. Try to regain the public’s trust.” Ronald Wallis, retired postal carrier, leans Democratic, from Oregon City, Oregon‘Less speculation, less sensationalism, better dialogue’“Everyone I know is sick of the media giving voice to bullshit – on both sides. Think about it. Has sensationalizing and [constantly] putting Trump on the front page for the past six years, helped or harmed civil society and its issues? I believe press coverage during these years has helped normalize hate, lying, divisiveness and authoritarianism, delayed accountability and eroded morality. Doing more of this type of Trump coverage will be devastating. Don’t speculate ad nauseam. Unless you provide hard facts, and put pressure on both sides to find truth, you are playing into Trump’s hand. He loves all the attention, it enables him to manipulate the conversation.“Personally, if I had to hear more about him, I’d like to know: what destruction has Trump caused in all his failed business dealings around the world? What destruction and sabotage have Trump policies caused, for instance, in South American partnerships, in immigration policies, human rights, our military, the national parks, postal service, infrastructure, and so on?“The people that support Trump in our community – the majority – need to understand what they are supposedly fighting for. These are fundamentally good people who need to know that ‘liberals’ are not their enemy.” April, retired retail sector worker and environmental educator, Democratic, from Prescott, Arizona‘The right balance on Trump is no balance at all’“What is the right balance in covering Trump? Trump and Trumpism are a grave threat to democracy. The right balance is no balance whatsoever. His candidacy, let alone a re-election, will do further damage to our society, it can accomplish no good.“The media have been bullied and manipulated by the political class into maintaining some sense of ‘balance’ in exchange for access, but the very notion of ‘balance’ is a loophole for power-obsessed demagogues to turn the media into their stenographers and personal publishers.” Aaron Barclay, 42, accountant, democratic socialist, from Chicago, Illinois‘No soundbites, no pithy opinions, less drama’“The media should cover Trump matter-of-factly. Pertinent information only that’s actually substantive. No soundbites. No pithy opinions. Just bare-bones. No dramatic reactions. Just keep it parked in neutral.“If it isn’t newsworthy, leave it. If it is, just keep it simple. We don’t need commentary from a panel of journalists on their interpretation of every detail. Think Cronkite. My concern is that the media likes the titular drama of Trump.” Susan Goldsmith, 54, legal specialist, Republican, from Charleston, South Carolina‘Don’t let Trump use the press’“The press is in a hard spot with people like Trump who only seem concerned with manipulation the media to their advantage. Not every tweet or complaint is a headline. The war in Ukraine is a headline.“Don’t let Trump or his allies use the press to hurt our country. Don’t give him free press for sensationalism. Cover where he’s campaigning and his policy platform – if he had one. Don’t give oxygen to lies or incitement that could trigger any dangerous responses. Cover him like you cover Marco Rubio, not like you cover [fill in Hollywood A-lister]. If he gets in trouble write it like he’s a no-name hack. If he has something positive to say, give him credit.” Brent Heckerman, 54, business innovator, Democratic, from Cincinnati, Ohio‘Draw a clearer line between fact and opinion, return to civil debate’“I like to think I am moderate in my views. The former president has not earned the right to broadcast his opinions in the media unless the information has been fact checked first. Lies and misinformation are terribly misleading and destructive. The enormous attention Trump has received, whether negative or positive, has helped him build momentum.“Report factually, avoid sensational news when it has no merit. Stick to the job of reporting and clearly call out when what is stated is mere opinion and nothing more. Too many news stations are biased and very demeaning of the political party they dislike. Sarcasm, using slurs, lack of civility and disrespect have run rampant. Time to change course and set an example of what civil disagreement looks like.” Linda Pittman, 72, retired, Democratic, previously independent, from Incline Village, NevadaTopicsUS newsDonald TrumpUS politicsThe GuardianfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Lachlan Murdoch alleges Crikey hired marketing firm to turn legal threat into subscription drive

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      Lachlan Murdoch alleges Crikey hired marketing firm to turn legal threat into subscription driveNews Corp co-chair’s lawyer tells federal court she intends to show Crikey did not republish article for public interest reasons

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      Crikey hired a marketing company to capitalise on a legal threat from Lachlan Murdoch in order to drive subscriptions, the co-chair of News Corporation has alleged in the federal court.Murdoch launched defamation proceedings in August against the independent news site over an article published in June that named the Murdoch family as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the US Capitol attack. The trial has been set down for March 2023 but the parties are in dispute over pretrial matters.One of the matters heard by justice Michael Wigney in a brief hearing was an allegation by the Murdoch team that a marketing campaign, run by brand strategists Populares, undermines the public interest defence on which Crikey publisher Private Media was relying.Lachlan Murdoch’s legal team loses bid to have parts of Crikey’s defamation defence dismissedRead moreIn response to a concerns letter from Murdoch in June, Crikey initially agreed to take down the article but after failing to reach agreement it was reinstated on 15 August.Sue Chrysanthou SC, for Murdoch, said she intends to show that republication of the article was not for public interest reasons but for a marketing campaign.She said Populares produced a “significant report” titled “Lachlan Murdoch Campaign” about how “a dispute with my client could be marketed for the purposes of attracting new readers and gaining subscriptions”.“The purpose of the re-posting was not for the public interest, it was for the media campaign,” she said.
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      In his statement of claim in August Murdoch alleged that the placement of a New York Times advertisement inviting him to sue Crikey over the alleged defamation was “seeking to humiliate” the executive chair and chief executive of Fox Corporation.Chrysanthou said social media was “the modern-day grapevine” and alleged Crikey had paid for some posts about her client “to be promoted and advertised”.She sought orders for Crikey to provide further information in response to questions because the submitted outlines of information did not address anything after the 29 June publication of the article by Crikey’s politics editor, Bernard Keane. Wigney said the request for written answers to about 180 questions, including sub-questions, could delay proceedings and he repeatedly asked Chrysanthou: “Do you want this to go to trial in March?”“I would withdraw those interrogatories you can cross-examine them,” he said.‘Lachlan gets fired the day Rupert dies’: Murdoch biography stokes succession rumorsRead morePrivate Media’s lawyer, Clarissa Amato, said Chrysanthou’s request would result in a “a catastrophic waste of time and money”.“Some of those may be things simply left out of the discovery list by accident … there are other requests that are effectively new categories of documents,” Amato said.Chrysanthou said the social media posts about her client had spread “like a virus”, and she would call a social media expert to give evidence explaining the reach.“We want the expert to address that issue, and the effect of promoting particular posts and how that then causes those posts to appear in different people’s feeds,” Chrysanthou said.She said the expert would be asked to explain a few essential posts, relevant to claims of serious harm from the publication.Murdoch is seeking damages because through the publication and republication of the article he alleges he “has been gravely injured in his character, his personal reputation and his professional reputation as a business person and company director, and has suffered and will continue to suffer substantial hurt, distress and embarrassment”.The parties will return to court on Thursday.TopicsLachlan MurdochAustralian mediaLaw (Australia)Defamation lawMedia businessNews CorporationMedia lawnewsReuse this content More

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      Here are some crucial issues we’re covering in 2023 – with your help | Betsy Reed

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      Here are some crucial issues we’re covering in 2023 – with your helpBetsy ReedThe new Guardian US editor sets out some of our key priorities for 2023, including abortion rights, the climate crisis and investigations into the powers shaping American life

      This Giving Tuesday, please consider a year-end gift to the Guardian to support our journalism in the coming year
      On election night this November, the Guardian’s reporters fanned out across the country, keeping close watch on key races targeted by the election-denial movement instigated by Donald Trump. Candidates who embraced Trump’s “big lie” about the 2020 election sought control over pivotal offices that would allow them to tip the balance toward Trump when he tries to reclaim the presidency in 2024.To the relief of our readers, as well as millions of Americans, their efforts failed spectacularly.Across the country, many Americans rejected campaigns based on lies and racist demagoguery. Voters flocked to the polls to protest the supreme court’s attack on abortion rights in its reversal of Roe v Wade earlier this year. Reproductive freedom and democracy proved more resilient than many dour pundits had predicted.But if we pause to celebrate this outcome, we should also reflect on how we arrived at such a dangerous moment – and how much danger remains. Authoritarian forces, emboldened by Trump but long predating him, still possess cultural influence and institutional power. As the legendary activist and scholar Frances Fox Piven recently told the Guardian’s Ed Pilkington, the fight over elemental democracy is far from over. “The fascist mob doesn’t have to be the majority to set in motion the kinds of policies that crush democracy,” she said.As the new editor of Guardian US, I’m determined to dedicate our journalistic resources to the scrutiny of those dangerous forces in 2023 – with your help. This Giving Tuesday, please consider a year-end gift to the Guardian to support our journalism in the coming year.Here are three of my priorities for the Guardian US newsroom in 2023:
      Abortion rights. There are few areas where Trump’s damaging legacy is more evident than reproductive rights. His appointments to the supreme court, made with the intention of ending the constitutional right to abortion, will profoundly affect the health and freedom of people in this country for years to come. We’ll be reporting on the human impact of abortion bans – and the inspiring movement that is fighting back.
      The climate crisis. Despite the Biden administration’s landmark law to decarbonize the US economy, fossil fuel emissions continue to rise, and Republican control of the House of Representatives will bring with it aggressive attempts to roll back progress. We’ll be closely tracking the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, including efforts by the fossil fuel industry and the right wing to stymie change. We will also double down on our groundbreaking environmental justice coverage, exposing how communities that lack racial and economic privilege bear the brunt of government and corporate negligence.
      Investigations. In 2023, we’ll be digging deeper into the powers secretly shaping the contours of American life. We know a lot, for example, about the toxins tainting our food and water – but it takes a different kind of reporting to pin down the corporate actors responsible for spreading them, and the government regulators who have failed to protect the public. From police unions to gun manufacturers to crypto titans to rightwing pressure groups, we will reveal the influential networks whose machinations lie at the root of the crises we report on every day, whether it’s racism in the criminal justice system or soaring economic inequality.
      I’m thrilled to work at the Guardian because I know it’s a special place with a unique role in the global media ecosystem. At this moment of jeopardy for democratic values, we don’t settle for milquetoast, down-the-middle journalism that engages in false equivalence in the name of neutrality. We know there is a right and a wrong side in the fight against racism and climate destruction and for democracy and reproductive justice. Our newsroom is passionately dedicated to delivering timely, fair, accurate reporting to readers who care about the issues we cover as much as we do.Our business model reflects our values, too. Rather than relying on billionaire owners or pursuing profits to appease shareholders, we depend on support from readers. Your donations are the reason we are able to carry on with our work. If you can, please consider a gift to fund our reporting in 2023. We are very grateful.TopicsUS newsAbortionClimate crisisInvestigative journalismUS politicsThe GuardiancommentReuse this content More