Censorship

Attacking Media as the Enemy?

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Article in Common Dreams by Scott Griffen, 5/21/26

Headline:  “When Trump Targets the Media, the World’s Autocrats Are Taking Notes”

Subhead: “Trump’s words and actions against the news media at home are inspiring copycat behavior by authoritarians and dictators around the world, fueling a growing global crisis of press freedom.“

“. . .Trump first tweeted the now-ubiquitous phrase ‘fake news’ and infamously labelled the news media the ‘enemies of the American people,’ such insults just don’t land like they used to.

“Yet Trump’s words do in fact matter. While many of Trump’s rhetorical attacks against the press during his first term were dismissed as bluster from a president known for his flair for the dramatic, they laid the groundwork for the broad attack on the media that we’re seeing under Trump 2.0. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-targets-media

Techno-Kings Controlling the Media?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Emily Bell & Heather Chaplin, 5/4/26

Headline:  “Journalism in the Age of Techno-Kings”

Subhead:  “How Elon Musk is colonizing the future.”

“Before Elon Musk, there was Henry Ford: an attention-seeking car manufacturer, newspaper owner, and media celebrity who pushed reactionary views on the public and transformed society around his business interests. . .”

“In a new book, Muskism, Ben Tarnoff, a technology writer, and Quinn Slobodian, a historian at Boston University, analyze Musk in similar terms, as a maverick businessman who stands for a new type of society and a new social contract. They find that “Muskism” provides a far more dystopian package than Fordism’s offering. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/kicker/journalism-in-the-age-of-techno-kings-muskism-elon-ben-tarnoff-quinn-slobodian.php

 

“60 Minutes” Censorship?

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Article in The Guardian by Jeremy Barr, 4/30/26

“The veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi expressed concern about “the spread of corporate meddling and editorial fear” at CBS News and her uncertainty about whether she will keep her job after she pushed back on a directive to change her December segment on Venezuelans who were sent to the Cecot prison in El Salvador.

Alfonsi spoke about the incident for the first time on Thursday evening after receiving the Ridenhour prize for courage at the National Press Club in Washington. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/apr/30/60-minutes-sharyn-alfonsi-cbs-news

Censoring Past Media Too?

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Article in FAIR by Janine Jackson 4/22/26

Headline:  “The Wayback Machine Has Been the Best Archive for Preserving Our Digital Lives”

Subhead:  “CounterSpin interview with Lia Holland on the Internet Archive”

“Janine Jackson: A recent report by Wired‘s Kate Knibbs leads with the contradiction: USA Today published a story recently on how ICE is misinforming about its detainment policies, a case that the paper built on data from the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, a nonprofit digital library that preserves webpages.

“At the same time, USA Today bars the Wayback Machine from archiving its work. Along with outlets like the New York Times, the paper is trying to block the Internet Archive project from doing their job of preserving reporting. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://fair.org/home/the-wayback-machine-has-been-the-best-archive-for-preserving-our-digital-lives/

Censorship at WaPo

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Article in The Nation by Nathan Robinson, 4/21/26

Headline:  “The Bezos Post Editorial Page Has Become a Mouthpiece for Pro-Billionaire Propaganda”

Subhead:  “Jeff Bezos said The Washington Post would no longer publish opinion pieces critical of free markets. Recent editorials show just how seriously the paper has taken this mandate.”

“During his first 10 years as the owner of The Washington Post, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos reportedly took a fairly hands-off approach to managing the paper, with the Columbia Journalism Review observing that he was ‘not inclined to spend his time on the phone haranguing Post editors about coverage decisions.’ But that was then. Last year, Bezos publicly announced that there would be ‘a change coming to our opinion pages,’ and that henceforth ‘we are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.’ Viewpoints critical of these ‘pillars,’ he said, would no longer be appearing in the Post. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/washington-post-editorial-shift-bezos-pro-billionaire-propaganda/

Throw the Book at Pentagon Media?

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Article in The Guardian by Jefemy Barr, 4/9/26

Headline:  “US judge rules Pentagon has violated his order in press access case”

Subhead:  “Paul Friedman grants New York Times’s motion to force implementation of earlier ruling that gutted restrictive new policy”

“A federal judge on Thursday ruled that the Pentagon has not complied with an order last month that undid much of a restrictive new press pass policy implemented by the Department of Defense, and ordered the return of credentials to seven New York Times reporters.

The newspaper, which sued the Trump administration in December, had urged the judge to compel implementation of his 20 March ruling after the Pentagon responded to the judge’s determination by creating a new press access policy, which the newspaper called an ‘end-run’ around the judge’s ruling. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/apr/09/pentagon-judge-press-access-case

Voice of Who?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Riddhi Setty, 4/6/25

Headline:  “VOA’s Legal Fight for Independence”

Subhead:  “Journalists at Voice of America have been to court in the hope of getting back to their jobs. Now they are suing to protect against censorship.”

“For the embattled journalists of Voice of America (VOA), first came the fight to return to the newsroom they’d been unceremoniously booted from by the Trump administration. Now comes another daunting challenge: clawing back their editorial independence.

Late last month, four employees joined with Pen America and Reporters Without Borders to sue the administration over allegations that President Trump and his political appointees at the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees VOA, had censored their coverage, transforming the newsroom into a “partisan mouthpiece of the administration” and breaching a congressionally created editorial firewall. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/voas-legal-fight-for-independence.php

Celebrating Killing the Free Press?

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Article in Poynter by Tom Jones, 3/30/26

Headline:  “Opinion | The FCC chair is openly cheering the weakening of the press”

Subhead:  “In a speech, he ticked through defunded outlets, ousted journalists and looming ownership changes — then said the president is ‘winning’ “

“President Donald Trump has made no secret of the fact that he detests the press, and for the past 10 years has waged a full-scale assault on it.

“He has used fascist tactics, such as calling the media ‘fake news’ and the ‘enemy of the people.’ His attacks include lawsuits, bans and threats. My colleague, Angela Fu, continues to document that assault in Poynter’s Press Freedom Watch — a list that is growing alarmingly longer by the day. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2026/brendan-carr-mission-accomplished-press-war/

Fool the Judge on Press Access?

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Article in The Guardian by Jeremy Barr, 3/30/26

Headline: ” ‘What’s going on?’: US judge calls aspects of new Pentagon press policy ‘weird’ “

Subhead: “Judge seems skeptical of Pentagon’s restrictive protocol but did not rule on forcing compliance with an earlier order”

“Federal judge Paul Friedman seemed skeptical of the new press policy implemented by the Pentagon last week, calling aspects of it “weird” and Kafkaesque.

“Friedman struck down key aspects of the previously implemented Pentagon media policy on 20 March, but at the latest hearing on Monday stopped short of ruling on a motion filed by the New York Times to force compliance of his decision.

“Friedman was particularly skeptical about the ways in which press space was being provided to the seven New York Times reporters, whom he previously ruled should have their press access badges returned. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/30/judge-pentagon-press-policy-weird

Pyrrhic Victory over Evil Media?

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Article in Status by John Passantino. 3/28/26

Headline:  “Carr Blares the Horn”

Subhead:  “The FCC chairman’s comments at CPAC laid bare the Administration’s views controlling the media and sidelining critics as a political victory”

“On Friday afternoon, Brendan Carr took the stage at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Grapevine, Texas, where thousands of MAGA faithful gathered to cheer on the movement’s right-wing agenda. The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission sat on a comfortable white chair in front of the crowd and bragged about Donald Trump’s dismantling of media outlets and the journalists who have lost their legacy platforms. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.status.news/p/brendan-carr-media-cpac-trump-fcc