Sydney Ember

When Donald Trump said in February that he would “open up our libel laws” if he became president to make it easier to sue news organizations for unfavorable coverage, the declaration sent shock waves through the media world. But could he actually do it? The simple answer is yes, but it would be complicated. And assuming the established procedures to change laws hold, it would also be extremely difficult. Libel is a matter of state law limited by the principles of the First Amendment. Presidents cannot directly change state laws, so President-elect Trump would effectively have to seek to change the First Amendment principles that constrain the country’s libel laws. There are two potential ways he could do this, according to legal experts. One route is through the Supreme Court. The other is through the Constitution itself.

Gawker Media, which filed for bankruptcy after losing a lawsuit brought by the former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, has settled the case, bringing to a close a multiyear saga that led to the demise of the company as an independent news organization. The settlement, which court documents indicate is for $31 million, comes less than eight months after a jury awarded Hogan, whose real name is Terry G. Bollea, $140 million in damages in an invasion of privacy case lawsuit over Gawker.com’s publication of a video that showed Bollea having sex with a friend’s wife. Gawker will forgo its appeal of that judgment.

The significant financial pressure from the judgment — and the revelation that Peter Thiel, the billionaire Silicon Valley entrepreneur, was financing the lawsuit and others against the company — forced Gawker to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and sell itself through an auction, which Univision won in August with a bid of $135 million.

After six months of pursuit, the Gannett Company said that it was withdrawing its offer to acquire the owner of The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune, a deal that would have extended Gannett’s national footprint and furthered consolidation in the newspaper industry.

Gannett, the publisher of USA Today, had made several efforts to acquire the former Tribune Publishing Company, now known as Tronc. The first two were rejected during the spring. Gannett said that the acquisition was an attractive opportunity but “in the end the terms were not acceptable.” Tronc shares plunged nearly 20 percent on the morning of Nov 1 on the news. Gannett shares were up 1.3 percent in early morning trading.

Late on July 7, when sniper fire rang out across downtown Dallas (TX), a bystander, Michael Kevin Bautista, used his smartphone to stream the events in real time on Facebook Live. Within the hour, CNN was rebroadcasting the footage. The day before, Diamond Reynolds streamed on Facebook Live after local police in Falcon Heights (MN) shot her boyfriend, Philando Castile, ratcheting up a controversy surrounding how police officers treat African-Americans. The two real-time videos catapulted Facebook, in the span of 48 hours, into a spot as the prime forum for live events and breaking news. It is a position that the company has long jockeyed to be in as it seeks to keep its 1.65 billion members ever more engaged. Yet the brutal nature of the events that appeared on Facebook Live also put the company in a tricky situation.

Facebook is confronting complexities with live videos that it may not have anticipated just a few months ago, when the streaming service was dominated by lighter fare such as a Buzzfeed video of an exploding watermelon. Now Facebook must navigate when, if at all, to draw the line if a live video is too graphic, and weigh whether pulling such content is in the company’s best interests if the video is newsworthy.

Traditional media companies have struggled for years to adapt to a digital world, but the pressure on black-owned media has been even more acute. Many are smaller and lack the financial resources to compete in an increasingly consolidated media landscape. Advertisers have turned away from black-oriented media, owners say, under the belief that they can now reach minorities in other ways. Since well before the Civil War, publications and, more recently, radio and television stations owned and operated by African-Americans have provided an important counterweight to mass market media, simultaneously celebrating and shaping black culture — from politics and government to fashion and music. But as financial resources dwindle, black-owned media companies are struggling to maintain their presence.