Grabbing All the Media?


Article in The Guardian by Laura Aratani, 10/21/25

Headline:  “Warner Bros Discovery considers sale as potential buyers show interest”

Subhead:  “Netflix, Comcast and Paramount Skydance are reportedly among possible bidders in sale that could shake up industry”

Warner Bros Discovery is considering putting the entire company up for sale, a move that could see huge restructuring in an industry that has seen ripples of changes since Donald Trump took office. . .”

Warner Bros Discovery is the parent company of several subsidiaries including CNN, HBO, DC Studios and the Harry Potter franchise. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oct/21/warner-bros-discovery-considers-sale

Burning Down Local Radio


Article in Al Jezeera by Andy Hirschfeld, 10/20/25

Headline:   “As US public media funds officially dry up, local radio stations struggle”

Subhead:  “Local stations like the Allegheny Mountain Radio serve as a key resource for locals during crises.”

“For Scott Smith, the cuts to the Corporation For Public Broadcasting are existential.

He is the general manager of Allegheny Mountain Radio, which he runs alongside programme manager Heather Nidly. The funds were slashed as part of United States President Donald Trump’s vast tax cut and spending bill that was signed into law in July. As a result, the station, which has been on air for more than four decades, lost 65 percent of its funding. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/10/20/as-public-media-funds-officially-dry-up-local-radio-stations-struggle

 

Media Ignore Bombing?


Article in FAIR by Belen Fernandez, 10/21/25

Headline:  “To Media, Gaza Ceasefire Holds Despite Repeated Israeli Strikes”

“. . .In the ten days following the implementation of the ostensible truce, the Israeli military reportedly killed at least 97 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 230, violating the ceasefire agreement no fewer than 80 times. One might have expected, then, to see a headline or two along the lines of, I dunno, “Israel violates ceasefire”—or maybe “So much for ‘peace’ in Gaza.”

“No such headlines turned up in the Western corporate media—not that there weren’t some pretty spectacular violations to choose from. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://fair.org/slider/to-media-gaza-ceasefire-holds-despite-repeated-israeli-strikes/

Fewer Local News Outlets


Article in Poynter by Angela Fu, 10/20/25

Headline: “An alarming number of independent publishers and small chains closed papers last year, new Medill study finds”

Subhead:  “The United States has lost nearly 3,500 newspapers and more than 270,000 newspaper jobs since 2005, the report found”

“For years, the U.S. has lost more than two newspapers per week on average, thanks, in part, to growing consolidation. But this past year, the majority of closures were papers belonging to smaller chains and independent owners, according to a new report from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

“Medill’s 2025 State of Local News report tracked 136 newspaper closures over the past year, up from 130 last year. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2025/medill-report-local-news-closures-independent-papers-news-deserts/

TV News Loses to Monopolies


Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Kyle Paoletta 10/20/25

Headline:  “Brendan Carr’s Deregulation Blitz Is a Disaster for TV News”

Subhead:  “The FCC chairman is clearing the way for Trump and corporate broadcasters to control the airwaves.”

“. . .Under his leadership, the FCC is in the midst of a historic deregulation spree he’s calling “Delete, Delete, Delete.” The campaign is currently reviewing the agency’s “multiple ownership” rules, which prohibit any one company from exerting outsize control over the local television market. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/brendan-carr-fcc-deregulation-blitz-is-a-disaster-for-tv-news.php

Fox in a Whitehouse

Article in Media Matters by Tyler Monroe, 10/20/25

Headline: “Star Fox host Laura Ingraham is now in business with the president’s son”

Fox News star Laura Ingraham spent years railing against the purported corruption caused by the business interests of President Joe Biden’s son. But now she’s going into business with Donald Trump Jr., federal records show, a wildly and obviously unethical conflict of interest that no credible news outlet would tolerate. . .

Read the full article at:

https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump-jr/star-fox-host-laura-ingraham-now-business-presidents-son

Media Moving Day


Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Ivan L. Nagy, 10/19/25

Headline:  “The Pentagon Press Corps Is Gone”

Subhead:  “As reporters for major news outlets turn in their government-issued press badges rather than accept new restrictions, some argue that the best military journalism is yet to come.”

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s demand that members of the Pentagon press corps sign on to restrictive reporting guidelines has prompted a mass exodus. Nearly all the journalists who had desks in the Pentagon pressroom have declined to sign, and left the building in a joint protest on Wednesday afternoon. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/news/the-pentagon-press-corps-is-gone.php

His Enemy, The Media


Article in Reporters Without Borders by Partager, 10/18/25

Headline:  “Elon Musk attacks the media nearly three times per day on X”

Subhead:  “As the third anniversary of Twitter’s takeover by Elon Musk approaches — the social media platform was purchased on 28 October 2022 and renamed X — Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is releasing the findings from its analysis of the tech billionaire’s X. .”

” ‘The New York Times is pure propaganda.’ ‘Legacy media lies.’ ‘You are the media now.’ These are just a few examples of the anti-press rhetoric found in the 1,017 posts from Elon Musk’s X account — which has over 227 million followers — that RSF analysed, which comes to an average of nearly three attacks on the media per day. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://rsf.org/en/elon-musk-attacks-media-nearly-three-times-day-x


Article in Common Dreams by Laura Flanders, 10/18/25

Headline: “Why Can’t the Corporate Media See the Trump-GOP Shutdown Plan Lying in Plain Sight?”

Subhead: “The power struggles that animate this shutdown are meant to outlast it, leveraging legal ambiguities, executive fiat, and congressional paralysis to redefine “essential” as that which survives unchallenged.”

“What is it about an insidious, long-term plan that causes commercial media to ignore what’s lying in plain sight?

“With Congress at a standstill, the Republican-led House refusing to return to session, and the Senate unable to pass any bill to reopen the government, reporters seem stuck in a loop. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/what-s-behind-the-government-shutdown


Article in FAIR by Janine Jackson, 10/17/25

Headline: ” ‘You Had US Media Carrying Out Incitement to Genocide, and Then Shifting to Genocide Denial’ “

Subhead: “CounterSpin interview with Gregory Shupak on how to deny genocide”

“. . .The Committee to Protect Journalists states that in the first 10 weeks after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, Israel had already killed more media workers in Gaza than had ever been killed in a year anywhere. Israel has systematically targeted journalists and their families for reporting the realities of genocide, famine and displacement, with the murders often followed by official PR efforts depicting the journalists as Hamas propagandists, or simply as ‘terrorists.’. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://fair.org/home/you-had-us-media-carrying-out-incitement-to-genocide-and-then-shifting-to-genocide-denial