Right-wing media that became purveyors of disinformation and amplified false claims as Donald Trump undermined the results of the 2020 election 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 court losses.
The Gateway Pundit, an influential far-right news site, filed for bankruptcy in April in the wake of defamation lawsuits suggesting election workers committed fraud during the previous presidential election. That same month, voting machine company Smartmatic reached a confidential settlement in its defamation suit against One America News Network, allowing false claims of election fraud to be broadcast on the air, while the ongoing defamation lawsuit, based on similar allegations of voter fraud, continues against both Newsmax and 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 has not admitted to any specific claims.
In May 2000, Mules, a book and film by right-wing political commentator Dinesh D’Souza, was withdrawn by its publisher, Salem Media Group, and the company publicly apologized to a Georgia man who is suing the author and publisher over defamation claims after he was accused of voter fraud. That case is still ongoing.
Other conservative media outlets that promoted right-wing disinformation in the 2020 election are facing financial problems unrelated to these events. 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 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. Jones previously warned that his company could close .
Meanwhile, federal prosecutors allege that a 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 a spokesperson for the Epoch Times said it plans to “fully cooperate with any investigation that goes to the accusations.” Still, the indictment puts one of the most popular pro-Trump outlets under scrutiny. 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 have finally faced the consequences of waging disinformation campaigns,” said Yunkang Yang, an 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 consequences when “disinformation contaminates our information environment, causes real harm to people, and erodes trust in institutions and government.”
“The recent cases against those who have made a career of spreading lies and untruths will hopefully help limit the spread and amplification of some of the disinformation we can expect in 2024,” he said.
But whether that translates into a change in coverage of the November election and post-election results remains to be seen, researchers say.
Trump has expressed grievances about the 2020 election in recent interviews and at rallies, saying it is necessary to challenge the election results if the process is not fair. At a campaign rally in Michigan last month, the former president falsely said, “The Democrats rigged the 2020 presidential election,” adding that “we will not allow them to rig the 2024 presidential election.”
But as for companies wanting to avoid further lawsuits, Yang said: “If Trump loses again and denies the election again, if that could happen, I think they will be more cautious.”
“However, right-wing media do not need to say that the election was stolen,” Yang added, “but they can let readers say the silent part out loud.”
He said this is already happening on certain right-wing sites, writing in a 2023 report that they “rely on a small group of very active commentators to spark online discussions, draw attention to conspiratorial comments, amplify conspiratorial beliefs and to encourage sharing of propaganda. content on social media.”
Amid their legal troubles, some sites are hitting 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 attacks on the practice of law” for the company’s filing for bankruptcy, saying it did not indicate “an admission of fault or culpability” in the lawsuits.
One of the lawsuits involves two former election workers in Georgia who were the subject of vote-rigging conspiracy theories that have been debunked; the lawsuit goes to court. Another lawsuit, filed in Colorado by a former Dominion Voting Systems executive against Gateway Pundit and other prominent defendants, is still ongoing.
A request for comment from Gateway Pundit about its financial situation prior to the bankruptcy filing was not immediately returned, although Hoft has promised to continue publishing.
“Despite the efforts of the radical left to silence The Gateway Pundit through censorship, de-platforming, de-banking, shutting down advertisers and other financial strategies, we will not be deterred from our mission to fearlessly to remain and be one of the most prominent. trusted independent media outlets in America today,” Hoft said in a statement.
Such rhetoric is consistent with how Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has gone after his political enemies as he awaits sentencing on 34 felony counts 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 disrupt his election prospects.
The coverage of the Trump trial and the unprecedented verdict gave Fox News a ratings boost over its competitors.
Attorney General Merrick Garland pushed back forcefully Tuesday before a House panel led by Trump’s allies in Congress, noting how some Republicans are repeating baseless conspiracy theories.
Claiming that a New York jury’s verdict was “somehow controlled by the Justice Department” is “an attack on the judicial process itself,” Garland said.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had called the Trump trial a “sham” and declared a “weaponization” of the justice system against Trump.
As Republican leaders continue to support Trump ahead of the election, Bauer said, the former president doesn’t necessarily need media outlets that are “detached from the facts” to push his beliefs.
Bauer said social media users on platforms like which has continued to develop since the last presidential elections. Trump also started his own social media platform, Truth Social, after being banned by Facebook and Twitter, now known as
In the meantime, conservative and right-wing news sites have reportedly struggled with traffic amid wider financial problems across the traditional and digital news media industries, as once-reliable traffic sources like Facebook and Instagram restrict “political content” to users’ feeds.
On the other hand, progressive advocacy website Media Matters for America laid off dozens of employees last month, with the president blaming a “legal attack on multiple fronts,” including a lawsuit filed last fall by X owner Elon Musk over a research report on advertising on social media platform.
“The terrain on which these elections are taking place is fundamentally and materially different than it was four years ago,” Bauer said.
Ophir, a researcher at the University at Buffalo, said that while the public’s right to freedom of expression and the media’s ability to remain independent must be considered, social media companies can also remove “harmful content” and that media outlets who spread false propaganda can be held responsible. in any case through the courts.
But “without systemic change,” he added, the public “will continue to suffer the devastation of disinformation for years to come.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
