Article in Status by Natalie Korach, 10/25/25
Headline: “Rattled at 30 Rock”
Subhead: “NBC News is reeling from its biggest round of cuts in years, cutting about 150 staffers as it divorces itself from MSNBC and CNBC.”
“On Wednesday morning, NBC News staffers saw a last-minute meeting added to their calendar for 10 a.m. Most immediately knew what the unspecified meeting would be about: layoffs. Staffers across the organization have been dreading cuts for months . . .”
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Article in Media Matters by Noah Howe & Pete Tsipis, 10/10/25
Headline: “Right-wing media say Portland is a war zone under siege. On-the-ground coverage paints a different picture.”
Subhead: “Local coverage has highlighted the peaceful nature of protests and the violent response of federal agents”
“Right-wing media claim that Portland’s protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement show a city ‘under siege’ or ‘conquered by antifa,’ but on-the-ground coverage, by both national media outlets and local media outlets, has revealed the opposite.”
“Multiple local broadcast outlets report that protests are relatively small and peaceful, with many demonstrators ‘in pajamas, sharing pastries, throwing a frisbee, and playing board games’. . .”
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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Editors 10/10/25
Headline: “Local TV News Does Good”
Subhead: “Forget about the mergers and buyouts and executive leadership for a while. The local grunts keep breaking news.”
“. . .firestorm ignited by Porter’s [California Governor Candidate] reaction to Watts’s calm, sensible questioning was just one example of what has been a banner couple of weeks for the often overlooked foot soldiers of local television news. At a time when the national conversation about TV news has been dominated by anxiety about mergers and corporate politics and hostile takeovers, it’s reassuring to see the reporters on the ground continuing to do the kind of work that makes them indispensable to the communities they serve.”
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https://www.cjr.org/laurels-and-darts/local-tv-news-does-good-porter-california-governor-fox.php
Article in Mediaite by Colby Hall, 10/9/25
Headline: “EXCLUSIVE: One-on-One With Mark Thompson — The Man Hired to Save CNN“
“. . .Like every legacy media institution, CNN faces pressures that go far beyond the traditional 24-hour news cycle. Linear television is steadily losing its grip on viewers, cord-cutting accelerates each year, social platforms like TikTok are siphoning attention, and AI threatens to redefine what it means to deliver trustworthy, fact-based news. . .”
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(Penguin Books)
Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Jem Bartholomew, 10/6/25
Headline: “Unbelievable Stupidities”
Subhead: “How the press can rise to the moment.”
“In April 1944, in one of his early Tribune columns, George Orwell described the feeling of coming across a newspaper from before the outbreak of World War II, which at the time had been raging for almost five years, and ‘marvelling at its almost unbelievable stupidity.’
“The stupidity that Orwell saw was a naive disregard—or in some cases a willful downplaying—of the danger signs of the coming global war. . .”
“. . .Ten years from now, or eighty years from now, what might future observers look back on as the media’s ‘unbelievable stupidities’? Will they think the press of today rose to the moment? . . .”
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https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/unbelievable-stupidities.php
Article in The Guardian by J. Oliver Conroy, 10/6/25
Headline: “Bari Weiss’s ascension to top of CBS News highlights the political winds”
Subhead: “US media giants have bowed before Maga after Trump’s many lawsuits and the Jimmy Kimmel firestorm”
“Paramount Skydance, the newly merged conglomerate which owns CBS News, has hired the journalist Bari Weiss as the network’s editor-in-chief – and acquired the Free Press, the publication Weiss co-founded in 2021 as a challenger to the establishment media, for a reported $150m.
“Weiss has made her career as a center-right critic of progressivism, and the Free Press is a contrarian, loosely conservative and ardently Zionist publication that views itself as a speaker of hard truths and protector of free discourse. . .”
(More articles below) – Read the full article at:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/oct/06/bari-weisss-cbs-news-analysis
Article in Huff Post by Corey Townsend, 10/3/25
Headline: “Maggie Haberman Says Why She Thinks Trump Has Avoided Cameras During The Shutdown”
“On Wednesday, the federal government shut down after Democrats and Republicans failed to reach a consensus on health care.line ”
“Maggie Haberman offered a theory on CNN Thursday as to why President Donald Trump has been relatively elusive during the government shutdown.
“During the segment, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked the New York Times journalist why she believed Trump “has not been in front of the cameras. . .”
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Article in Common Dreams by Stephen Prager, 10/3/25
Headline: “Media Faces Reckoning After Helping Trump Downplay Project 2025 on Campaign Trail”
Subhead: ” ‘A Trump denial is not a fact,’ said one media critic.”
“As President Donald Trump openly embraces Project 2025, mainstream media outlets are facing criticism for their role in helping him downplay his ties to the wildly unpopular far-right governing playbook in the lead-up to his reelection last year. . .”
“She [Kamala Harris] and other Democrats warned that if he retook power, he would swiftly enact many of its most extreme and unpopular proposals and dramatically expand executive power while doing it. . .”
“After nine months back in power, the website Project 2025 Tracker estimates that Trump has already implemented approximately 48% . . .”
“ ‘Nothing showed the difference between mainstream and independent media better than the response to Trump’s obvious lie about not knowing anything about Project 2025,’ said David Pepper, author of the book Saving Democracy: A User’s Manual.”
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/project-2025-media-backlash
Article in The Washington Post by Caroline O’Donovan and Will Oremus, 10/4/25
Headline: “This billionaire Trump ally and his son are building an unprecedented media empire”
Subhead: “Larry and David Ellison’s holdings span movies, TV networks, CBS and soon a stake in TikTok, in a paradigm-shifting portfolio with huge influence.”
“Journalists at CBS News reeled on Friday as they digested news reports that opinion journalist Bari Weiss, a fierce critic of the mainstream media, would become the editor in chief of the straitlaced legacy brand. . .”
Two months earlier, there had been cautious optimism in the Midtown Manhattan newsroom, according to two CBS News staffers who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private information. . .”
“But the newsroom hasn’t heard directly from Ellison since that day, leaving many apprehensive about plans for the network, the two staffers said. The anxiety has been reinforced in recent weeks . . .”
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/10/04/larry-david-ellison-media-trump/
Article in Media Matters by Matt Gertz, 10/3/25
Headline: “The masks slip as Fox propagandists reveal they want health care premiums to skyrocket”
“Fox News propagandists are overwhelmingly backing the GOP’s bogus shutdown message that congressional Democrats are refusing to fund the government because they want to give health care to illegal immigrants. But every once in a while their masks slip, and they reveal that they oppose extending the crucial Obamacare subsidies at the heart of Democrats’ actual position, which would trigger drastic premium price hikes for millions of Americans”
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Article in Daily Beast by Janna Brancolini, 10/1/25
Headline: “CNN Host Blows Up Republican’s Wild Trump Defense With President’s Own Words”
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“. . . CNN exchange began when Collins [from CNN] asked if Turner [rep from Ohio] ‘took issue’ with the president saying that American cities should be used as training grounds for the military for future wars.
“Turner sputtered and tried to put a more positive spin on Trump’s remarks.
“ ‘Well, you know, the president, you know, and the manner in which he talks in his own motivational conversations, you know, I think in application—I don’t think he’s actually meaning that that our cities are going to be training grounds,’ he told Collins. . .”
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