OPINION:
Reince Priebus, Republican National Committee chairman turned White House chief of staff, said President Donald Trump has indeed considered changes to libel law that would make it easier to sue. But he’s not sure where those discussions currently stand, or would lead.
Hopefully, Trump’s seen the folly of the notion and moved on — to Twitter, for instance, where he’s quite free to put out a counter-message to the media whenever he wants.
“I think it’s something that we’ve looked at,” Priebus said, during a televised interview on Sunday. “How that gets executed or whether that goes anywhere is a different story.”
Priebus also said the media ought to be “more responsible with how they report the news.”
Yes. But then again — it’s the press, not the White House, that has a First Amendment protection. And as Founding Fathers believed, politicians don’t really get to dictate how something’s reported.
Trump’s often right about the bias of the press. He’s often correct in judging the media as anti-conservative, anti-Republican, anti-all-things-not-Democrat.
But for redress, he’s got a mouth — and a massive podium from which to use it. He’s also got a lively Twitter following, which he used with great success on the campaign trail, to counter a hateful press — and which he continues to use with similarly great success from the White House, again, to counter a vicious press.
Going after the media in court is beneath the presidency.
It may score points during campaign season.
“When they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money,” Trump said at a rally in February 2016, while expressing upset with the coverage from The New York Times and The Washington Post, Fox News reported. “We ought to open up the libel laws, and I’m going to do that.”
But in real life — in real-time from the White House?
Petty. And folly. As Trump himself has noted, news organizations with obvious biases are losing readers — and having to eat public crow by penning memos from publishers to issue quasi-mea culpas about highly flawed coverage.
So why not let the free market take care of the matter?
Trump, a businessman at heart, ought to recognize the superior power of the free market over government-driven regulatory control. Besides, his message of mainstream media bias is already one that’s widely accepted by the American people — witness, his White House win in the face of an ever-hating press that drooled for Hillary Clinton.
Fighting to diminish the First Amendment is a short-term solution — a slippery slope filled with unintended consequences, rampant court suits, all leading to an ultimate chilling of the press. Better to let the bias be exposed. Remember, it’s shining light on cockroaches that makes them scurry.
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