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Saluting the Media?

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Daily Pakistan Photo

Article in Common Dreams by Pete Tucker, 1/24/25

Headline:  “Why Won’t the US Corporate Media Call a Nazi Salute a Nazi Salute?”

Subhead:  “The mainstream press failed to accurately describe the hand gesture that Elon Musk made twice at Trump’s Inauguration Day rally, setting a troubling precedent for the second Trump era.”

“There’s something about the start of a Trump presidency that makes grown men do strange things, like heiling Hitler.

“Eight years ago, after President Donald Trump’s first election, white nationalist Richard Spencer couldn’t resist flashing a Nazi salute as he addressed a rally just blocks from the White House (PBS, 11/22)”

“This time around, a more prominent Trump supporter gave a Nazi salute in a bigger forum. “I never imagined we would see the day when what appears to be a Heil Hitler salute would be made behind the presidential seal,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) wrote on Twitter/X (1/20/25).”

“. . .The Times story was headlined, “Elon Musk Ignites Online Speculation Over the Meaning of a Hand Gesture.”

“But speculation wasn’t needed. ‘Whoever on a political stage, making a political speech in front of a partly far-right audience, elongates his arm diagonally in the air both forcefully and repeatedly, is making a Hitler salute,’ wrote journalist Lenz Jacobsen. His story for the German newspaper Die Zeit (1/21/25) is headlined ‘A Hitler Salute Is a Hitler Salute Is a Hitler Salute.‘ ”

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/media-musk-nazi-salute

 

Paranoid About Media?

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Article in VOX by Rebecca Jenninga, 1/24/25

Headline:  “It’s not conspiratorial to be worried about social media’s rightward swing”

Subhead:  “Meta denies any funny business on Instagram in the aftermath of Trump’s inauguration. Should we believe them?”

“Many Instagram users this week had their scrolling interrupted by the bearded visage of our newly elected Vice President JD Vance. Suddenly it seemed that on the week of their inauguration, everybody on the app was following or being suggested to follow the official accounts of President Donald Trump and Vance (@POTUS and @VP, respectively).

“Chaos ensued. In group chats, on Instagram Stories, on X, and Bluesky, people frantically wondered what was up. Some, like pop stars Gracie Abrams and Demi Lovato, said that when they tried to unfollow the VP and POTUS accounts, the app wouldn’t let them until they attempted multiple times.

Meta, meanwhile, has been busy assuring users that nothing new or weird is going on here. The accounts for the POTUS and VP, including their followers, were automatically handed over to the new administration as is customary during a presidential transition, while the accounts for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris previously under those usernames would be duplicated in an archive account. They’ve said it ‘may take some time for follow and unfollow requests to go through’ but did not provide details when asked by the New York Times why that might be. Hashtags like #democrat were hidden, Meta said, due to ‘an error’ that affected many hashtags, not just left-leaning ones (those hashtags are now visible).”

https://www.vox.com/culture/396686/facebook-instagram-tiktok-conservative-trump

Right-Wing Media All Wet

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Article in Media Matters by Alison Fisher, 1/24/25

Headline:  “Trump’s executive order on California water policy canonized right-wing media misinformation about the LA fires”

Subhead:  “CNN’s Daniel Dale fact-checks Trump’s claims that CA water policy exacerbated LA fires “

“On January 20, as part of his day one executive orders, President Donald Trump directed several U.S. agencies to restart a policy from his first term that reroutes water from Northern California to Southern California. The order ties Trump’s policy to the devastating fires in California that are so far responsible for 28 deaths and more than $250 billion in damages, effectively canonizing the false right-wing media claim that current California water policy impeded efforts to contain the LA fires.

“Right-wing media wildfire misinformation underpins Trump’s executive order on California water policy

“At the outset of the LA fires, the most costly in California history, Trump blamed “federal and state protections for California’s endangered delta smelt fish. He falsely claimed that those regulations led to inadequate water availability for firefighting efforts.”

https://www.mediamatters.org/wildfire/trumps-executive-order-california-water-policy-canonized-right-wing-media-misinformation

Press Secretary & Media

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Jon Alsop, 1/22/25

Headline:  “On Free Speech and Speaking Freely”

“Yesterday, Karoline Leavitt, the new White House press secretary, appeared on Fox & Friends. She was asked whether, at her first press briefing, she would have to painstakingly consult a binder before answering reporters’ questions—a snarky reference to her Biden-era predecessor Karine Jean-Pierre. Leavitt replied that she might bring in some notes, but that ‘my binder is in my brain, because I know President Trump’s policies, and we have truth on our side’—but she then revealed that there wouldn’t actually be a briefing later on; instead, the press would be hearing directly from Trump, who would be making a ‘big infrastructure announcement.’ Online, liberal pundits quipped that it must be ‘infrastructure week’ again.”

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

Saturday Media Event

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For Immediate Release                                                                                                                                                                                   Contact:  Spencer Graves  (408) 655-4567

PROTECTING OUR FREE-SPEECH RIGHTS

 Kansas City, 1/24/25 –  A townhall event to support defend free speech will be held at Simpson House, 4509 Walnut, KC MO, 6-8 pm (Central time), on Sat., Jan. 25.

The event is a response to the recent pronouncements of the Trump Administration concerning the media, censorship, and free speech.  It is both in-person and nationally available on a Zoom link from PeaceWorks at http://pwkc.org/dfs1.

The Saturday program features speakers which include: Professor Gerald Home, pre-eminent historian and host of Freedom Now! on KPFK FM; Elisa Mejia of Insurgencia Femenina; and the chair of the African People’s Socialist Party/Uhuru, Omali Yeshitela.

Cosponsors of this national and local gathering include Friends of Community Media, PeaceWorks KC, Pacifica Fightback, and the African People’s Socialist Party/Uhuru. A lead organizer of the gathering, Spencer Graves, is president of Friends of Community Media & secretary of PeaceWorks KC.

Friends of Community Media is a Kansas City group which promotes non-commercial, community-based media of all types; to educate citizens on the nature of the media; and to encourage all media to be responsive to the public in coverage.

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Ready to Eat the Press

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Article in Daily Kos by Alex Samuels, 1/23/25

Headline:  “New FCC chair eagerly carries out Trump’s war on the press”

“If President Donald Trump really “loves” the First Amendment as much as he claims to, he’s got an odd way of showing it.

“Trump and his cronies have been waging a war against the press for years now. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that members of his new administration want to help him destroy the Fourth Estate.

“On Wednesday, Brendan Carr, the new chair of the Federal Communications Commission, said it would again consider three complaints levied toward ABC News, CBS News, and NBC News after a conservative group alleged the networks were biased against Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign.”

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/1/23/2298677/-New-FCC-chair-eagerly-carries-out-Trump-s-war-on-the-press?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_2&pm_medium=web

 

Right Wing Media Questions

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Article in The Righting by Howard Polskin, 1/22/25

Headline:  “10 Questions About Right Wing Media in 2025”

“Right wing media backed the right pony in 2024. After many websites and pundits flirted with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in 2023, almost all outlets planted themselves behind Donald Trump and against the aging Joe Biden who became a right wing media punchline and punching bag. On the surface, all seems well in MAGA media world today. But there are questions large and small that could reshape the conservative landscape for years to come. Some questions may seem crazy, but in a world where Matt Gaetz was nominated as the country’s Attorney General, anything is possible.

https://therighting.com/original/10-questions-about-right-wing-media-in-2025/

News Needs Watering

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Article in Poynter by Mark Caro, 1/23/25

Headline:  “In America’s news deserts, Meta’s retreat from fact-checking severs a last link to fact-based news”

Subhead:  “Meta’s policy reversal and increase in political content could mean more misinformation for communities lacking local news”

“Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that Facebook is eliminating fact-checking may amount to a double whammy for people living in this country’s ever-expanding news deserts.

“Having lost their primary local news sources, these communities often turn to social media and other alternatives to try to stay informed. Now one of those key sources is removing safeguards against the spread of misinformation.

“It’s absolutely correct that it’s in areas that are underserved by professional journalism that this move will have the harshest impact,” said Lucas Graves, author of the 2016 book ‘Deciding What’s True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism.’ ”

https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2025/effect-facebook-fact-checking-partnership-news-deserts/

Who Gets to Censor News?

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Article in The Contrarian by Nina Jankowicz, 1/23/25

Headline:  “Making Censorship Real Again”

Subhead:  “The Trump administration is capitalizing on a false conspiracy of censorship to usher in the real kind”

“On Inauguration Day, amidst a flurry of executive orders adorned with loopy Sharpie signatures, Donald Trump restored free speech in America. Or so he claimed.

“If you hadn’t noticed free speech had been abolished, don’t beat yourself up. Like several other executive actions, the order that aspires to ‘end federal censorship’ is based on a conspiracy theory. Despite its flimsy pretext, it could usher in an era of real censorship the likes of which the United States has never seen.

Fox News mainstreamed the narrative that conservatives were being unfairly censored by social media companies in the wake of Trump’s 2020 election loss. The lies gained steam across right-wing media and on the same social media sites apparently doing all this censoring—and by 2022, with Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, the conspiracy-minded inmates were running the asylum.

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/making-censorship-real-again

Townhall on The Media Saturday

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Join us Saturday, 1/25


The event is at Simpson House, 4509 Walnut, KC MO and on-line over Zoom

Stop the Non-Profit Killer Bill & Protect Non-Commercial Community Media!

January 25, 2025, 4-6 PM Pacific / 6-8 Central / 7-9 Eastern

Co-sponsored by Friends of Community Media, Pacifica Fightback, PeaceWorks KC

Register now in person, or on Zoom at:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/VE-Hxs0kRw6qZrmBMs3TuA

After registering, you’ll receive a confirmation email with information on joining the meeting.

ACCESSIBILITY: A-I captioning in English or A-I translation of your choice is available.