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Media Roped?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Jon Alsop, 3/31/25

Headline:   “The Tug-of-War Between Trump and the Press”

Subhead:  “The media is vulnerable to Trump’s attacks. But that doesn’t mean it’s powerless.”

“Eight days ago, David Bauder, a media reporter at the Associated Press, published a story listing the by now familiar ways in which Trump and his administration have put journalists “on their heels” after only two months back in power, checking off a barrage of lawsuits and rhetorical attacks, the “newly aggressive” posture of the Federal Communications Commission, the gutting of the US-funded overseas broadcaster Voice of America, and the White House banning Bauder’s own shop, the AP, from events after it refused to start referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” in the stenographic way Trump would like. . .”

” On an episode of the New York Times’ influential podcast The Daily, Jim Rutenberg outlined how Trump is not only undermining the press, but circumventing it, as alternative right-wing outlets and podcast bros furnish him with unprecedented levels of “media cheerleading and support.” (The episode’s title: “Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.”) In Vanity Fair, Joel Simon situated Trump’s efforts to bend the media to his will in the wider context of growing authoritarianism in the US, and argued that “anticipatory obedience is rife” on the part of outlets from the Washington Post to ABC News. . . .”

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/trump_media_threats_power_ap_voa_npr.php

Buy the Media, Buy an Election

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Article in The Hill by Sarah Fortinsky, 3/30/25

Headline:  “Musk says he is giving out two $1 million checks to ‘get attention’ from ‘legacy media’ “

“Tech billionaire Elon Musk handed out oversized $1 million checks to two attendees of his town hall in Wisconsin on Sunday evening, saying the stunt is cheaper and more effective than paying for the same amount of media coverage.

“ ‘The reason for the checks is that it’s really just to get attention. It’s like, we need to get attention. And it’s somewhat inevitably, when I do this, these things. . . it causes the legacy media to, like, kind of lose their minds, and then they’ll run it on every news channel,’ Musk said on stage at the town hall, before giving out the large checks.”

“ ‘And I’m like, I couldn’t pay them to, it would cost, like, 10 times more… to get the kind of coverage that we get’  without distributing the checks, Musk said.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5222859-musk-says-he-is-giving-out-two-1-million-checks-to-get-attention-from-legacy-media/

Media Swirling Around The Anger

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Article in The Guardian by Adam Gabbatt, 3/30/25

Headline:  “Revenge is his number one motivation’: how Trump is waging war on the media”

Subhead:  “The president – who believes he has been treated unfairly by the press – is squeezing the media in different ways than his first term”

“On Tuesday 4 March, Donald Trump stood in the House of Representatives to issue a speech to a joint session of Congress, the first of his second term.

“Near the beginning of what was to be a marathon address, the president declared: ‘I have stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in America. It’s back.’

What Trump did not mention was that less than three weeks earlier he had barred Associated Press journalists from the Oval Office, because the news agency refused to use his preferred nomenclature for the Gulf of Mexico. He did not mention that he was waging lawsuits against ABC and CBS, nor that the man he appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission had ordered a flurry of investigations into NBC News, NPR and PBS.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/30/trump-media-attacks

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Article in Poynter by Anela Fu, 3/31/25

Headline: “As Trump attacks the press, many Americans aren’t hearing about it”

Subhead:  “Just 36% of Americans say they’ve heard ‘a lot’ about the Trump administration’s relationship with the media, down from 72% in 2017”

“From suing outlets to banning The Associated Press, President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has brought an unprecedented flurry of attacks on the media. But news about these events doesn’t appear to be reaching many Americans, according to a Pew Research Center study released Monday.

“The study, based on a survey of 5,123 adults between Feb. 24 and March 2, found that just 36% of Americans reported hearing “a lot” about the Trump administration’s relationship with the news media. Nearly a fifth said they’ve heard “nothing at all,” and 44% said they’ve heard “a little” about it.

Though national news consumption has generally been on the decline, those changes are slight and wouldn’t explain the dramatic decrease that Pew found, Shearer said.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans described the relationship between the Trump administration and the press as “very” or “somewhat bad.” Just 11% described it as “very” or “somewhat good,” and 22% said it is “neutral.”

https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2025/president-donald-trump-relationship-attacks-journalists/

Pods of Media-Fun

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Article in The Verge by Tina Nguyen, 3/27/25

Headline:  “Trump White House invites a bloc of conservative podcasters as a jab at legacy media”

Subhead:  ” ‘Podcast Row’ is going to be a recurring event.”

On Thursday, several conservative podcasters were invited to the White House to participate in Podcast Row, an event meant to engage alternative media by granting them hours of unprecedented access to senior Trump Administration officials. The White House intends to make this a recurring event.

“Bringing in new media outlets has obviously been a priority of this administration and we will explore all options that allow us to reach as many Americans as possible,” Kaelan Dorr, White House Deputy Communications Director, told The Verge.

According to NewsNation correspondent Libbey Dean, administration attendees included Cabinet and Cabinet-level officials . . .  Online figures streaming from the room included Natalie Winters from Bannon’s War Room, Canadian YouTuber David Freiheit, and podcaster Breanna Morello.

https://www.theverge.com/policy/637890/trump-white-house-podcast-row

Spreading Media Greatness South

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Article in The Guardian by Rachel Savage, 3/26/25

Headline:  “Trump names pro-Israel media activist as US ambassador to South Africa”

Subhead:  “Leo Brent Bozell III, founder of a conservative media group, is president’s nomination amid rising diplomatic tensions”

“Donald Trump has nominated a conservative, pro-Israel media activist as US ambassador to South Africa, at a time when the relationship between the two countries is at a nadir.

“Leo Brent Bozell III founded the Media Research Center – whose website states it is ‘a blog site designed to broadcast conservative values, culture, and politics [and] to expose liberal media bias’ – in 1987.

“His son Leo Brent Bozell IV was sentenced to 45 months in prison in May 2024 for assaulting police and smashing windows in the 6 January 2021 Capitol riots. He was released in January as part of Trump’s mass pardon.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/26/trump-names-pro-israel-media-activist-as-us-ambassador-to-south-africa

Journalists in Danger

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Article in Bellingcat by Staff. 3/27/25

Headline:  “Shot From Above: The Dangerous Work of Drone Journalists in Gaza”

“According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 165 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023. In fact, according to CPJ, last year was the deadliest year for journalists worldwide since they began documenting deaths in 1992.

Gathering aerial footage of Gaza is a dangerous task, and Bellingcat along with our partners at Forbidden Stories, Le Monde, Die Zeit, Der Standard, Paper Trail Media, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) and RFI identified several cases where drone journalists were killed or injured shortly after capturing aerial images.

The Gaza Project is a collaborative investigation coordinated by Forbidden Stories, involving more than 40 journalists representing 12 media outlets (Forbidden Stories, Paper Trail Media, RFI, Bellingcat, Die Zeit, Le Monde, France 24, ARIJ, The Seventh Eye/Shakuf +972 Magazine, ZDF and Der Standard) who continued the work of Gazan journalists and investigated about the threats and difficulties they are facing.

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2025/03/27/gaza-israel-palestine-shot-killed-injured-destroyed-dangerous-drone-journalists-in-gaza/

Progressive Media Activist Dies

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Article in Free Press by Timothy Karr, 3/27/25

Headline:  “Free Press Mourns the Death of Co-Founder and Scholar Robert W. McChesney”

“McChesney was the author or editor of 27 books, including Rich Media, Poor Democracy; The Problem of the Media; and Digital Disconnect. He co-authored several books with his frequent co-author and close friend John Nichols, including The Death and Life of American Journalism and Dollarocracy. McChesney was the president of Free Press in its early years and served on its board of directors afterward. . .”

“While McChesney spent much of his career charting the problems of the media and the critical junctures that created our current crises, he believed fundamentally in the public’s ability to solve those problems and build a media system that serves people’s needs and sustains democracy. . .”

https://www.freepress.net/news/press-releases/free-press-mourns-death-co-founder-and-scholar-robert-w-mcchesney

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Article in The Nation by John Nichols, 3/27/25

Headline:  “Robert McChesney, the Great Champion of Journalism and Democracy, Has Died”

“The academic and activist inspired generations of people to challenge corporate power and support a media reform movement that lives on.

“Bob McChesney, who died on Tuesday at the age of 72, first introduced himself to me almost 30 years ago, on the set of a public television news program in Madison, Wisconsin. Bob was a distinguished University of Wisconsin professor who was gaining an international reputation for his groundbreaking analysis of the threat to democracy posed by corporate control of media. Raising his arguments in books, speeches, and frequent C-Span appearances, he was well on his way to becoming one of the great public intellectuals of his time. . .”

“The program was framed as a debate about the future of journalism. Bob was positioned as the doomsayer, warning about how media consolidation was killing journalism. . .”

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/robert-mcchesney-obituary/

Texting the Media

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Article in Media Matters by Matt Gertz, 3/27/25

Headline: “Fox defense for negligent texting of war plans: Top Trump national security officials are incompetent”

“Fox News personalities’ new argument in support of their former colleagues who discussed pending military strikes on an unsecured text chain is that those former colleagues — now America’s top military, national security, and intelligence officials — are easy to deceive. . .”

“But on Tuesday, they came up with a new excuse — one which amounts to arguing that the nation’s top national security officials are morons.

“When Fox host Laura Ingraham asked Waltz to explain Goldberg’s presence on the Signal chat, Waltz dissembled.

“ ‘I’m not a conspiracy theorist,’ Waltz began, before offering a conspiracy theory in which ‘somehow’ Goldberg ‘gets on somebody’s contact and then gets sucked into the group.’

The national security adviser added that Goldberg may have somehow ‘deliberately’ ensured that his contact information was attached to a Trump official’s contact name, adding that the administration has ‘the best technical minds’ trying to ascertain how such a thing happened. . .”

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-defense-negligent-texting-war-plans-top-trump-national-security-officials-are

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Article in Daily Kos by Oliver Willis, 3/26/25

Headline:  “Media downplays Trump team’s massive leak fiasco as mere ‘blunder'”

“Many mainstream media outlets are minimizing or trivializing the Trump administration’s leak of highly sensitive war plans, and in doing so, they are echoing President Donald Trump’s spin on the scandal.

“After The Atlantic reported on Monday that top Trump officials had mistakenly included the outlet’s top editor in an unsecured group chat, Trump told reporters that the breach was merely a ‘glitch.’ And Trump’s allies struck the same tone in appearances in right-wing media.

On Tuesday, USA Today described the incident as a ‘relatable fail.’ In the story, reporters Jessica Guynn and Bailey Schulz likened the leak of war plans to ill-timed responses in family group texts.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/3/26/2312682/-Media-downplays-Trump-team-s-massive-leak-fiasco-as-mere-blunder?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_1&pm_medium=web

Checkmate, Media!

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Article in The Bukwark by Andrew Egger, 3/27/25

Headline:  “The Only Strategy They Know”

“When the Signalgate story broke, we thought to ourselves: Okay, that’s the most politically self-destructive thing the White House will do for a while. But we were wrong. Somehow, the White House’s political response to the story has been even dumber.

“Yesterday, JVL (Joanathan V. Last) took stock of the administration’s clown car of flailing responses: the inexplicable attempt to paint the release of authentic internal screenshots as a ‘hoax,’ the bizarre assertions that the information in the chat wouldn’t have been classified, the attempts to turn the whole thing into a ‘Jeffrey Goldberg sucks and can’t be trusted’ media story.

“Since then, things have gotten sillier still. On Wednesday, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt scolded the White House press corps for prioritizing the story over news of U.S. business investment or Trump’s latest ‘election integrity’ executive order. JD Vance jeered at Goldberg for declining to publish the name of a CIA officer involved—an action Goldberg took at the request of Trump’s CIA. Donald Trump himself complained that the story was a ‘witch hunt’ and suggested that ‘I think Signal could be defective, to be honest with you.’ (All the more reason not to share attack plans on it, then!) . . .”

https://www.thebulwark.com/