'Fake News Awards' Have a Sinister Subtext

[struggle4progress]

By Albert R. Hunt
January 17, 2018, 8:00 AM EST

... Trump has been making a case for changing U.S. libel laws to make it easier to punish publishers of news he considers "fake."

What he doesn't seem to realize is that actual fake news is already outside the protection of current laws.

That's the opinion of one of the foremost experts on U.S. libel law, Robert D. Sack, a senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. Sack has focused on these issues for decades; before becoming a federal judge in 1998 he was a libel lawyer representing notable media clients like the Wall Street Journal ...

... if Trump were correct that mainstream news outlets deliberately published false information with the intent of making him look bad, he could successfully sue them without any changes to existing law ...

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-01-17/trump-s-fake-news-awards-have-a-sinister-subtext

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. And that's why he never does sue them, despite his threats.

He knows they didn't deliberately publish false information, and since truth is an absolute defense to a defamation claim, he wouldn't want to take the chance that a court or jury might decide that the "fake media" told the truth about him.