Earlier this week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis brought up the idea of legislation that would make it significantly easier for every citizen to sue media houses on account of defamation.
The matter was initially brought up for the roundtable discussion DeSantis organized for the day. After speaking with several lawyers that specialize in cases like this, he made it his goal to put pressure on fake news outlets.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis making it easier to sue media companies
Among those present, one could also find Michael Moynihan, a conservative journalist, and Nicholas Sandmann, an activist who’s already suffered at the hands of media outlets abusing their power.
Legacy media outlets have embraced the practice of laundering character attacks through the use of anonymous sources.
This allows these outlets to harm the reputations of the average citizen without affording the individual the ability to fight back. pic.twitter.com/Jx5D2qdNCk
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) February 7, 2023
While several policy options were discussed and presented, by the end of the discussion, not a single one of them had been accepted by DeSantis or the panel.
This was made evident by the fact that he’s yet to make any announcements regarding an upcoming bill or action he’ll be taking to combat this issue, with the only words of reassurance being to “stay tuned for more.”
However, his stance on traditional news outlets has been revealed from the moment he stepped into office, as he’d much preferred to attend interviews with conservative broadcasters instead.
Who can blame him, though? The left is doing everything in its power to defame him and his possible future presidential campaign, but with all the extra gas DeSantis has got, he’s bound to be an unstoppable force, come election season.
BREAKING: Ron DeSantis just called out the fake news media for the Russian collusion hoax and defended President Trump from the “anonymous sources” that attempted to “assassinate [his] character” without any factual information or legitimate evidence.
— Proud Elephant 🇺🇸🦅 (@ProudElephantUS) February 7, 2023
Smear campaigns against DeSantis
The same day he discussed the possibility of cracking down on abusive media outlets, DeSantis referenced an episode of 60 minutes from 2021, which was nothing short of an elaborate smear campaign against him.
DeSantis already tackled the claims that arose from the story, having to clarify that the clips were tampered with.
A deeper investigation into this case led to DeSantis holding an official speaking event at the Capitol just to fight off these claims.
the name of this event is Gov. DeSantis Fights Against Mainstream Media Defamation pic.twitter.com/x1qGgRS4DP
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 7, 2023
The Florida governor also clarified that the upcoming legislation won’t impact the private citizens as much, adding that they’re more often than not the real victims of inaccurate reporting from the area.
According to DeSantis, a lot of the left is doing everything in their power to undermine him, starting with slander all the way to death threats.
Of course, this isn’t the first time Ron DeSantis’ office was used to interpret the First Amendment originally.
Before this year’s session, the roundtable came to a bill that would allow citizens of Florida to truly express their disgust against all the bias in large media houses.
Unfortunately, the draft bill was never filed; although it may be for naught if the upcoming legislation deals with the issue as well.
This article appeared in The Record Daily and has been published here with permission.
