Corporate Media

Urgent Reporting Can Wait

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Article in FAIR by Janine Jackson, 8/19/25

Headline: “Media in Hiding From the Most Urgent Questions of the Day”

“. . . Corporate media are calling this kind of thing reporting, but reporting would keep at least one foot in the facts. So when White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller (X, 8/12/25) tweets that ‘crime stats in big blue cities are fake,’ would a press corps worth its salt say ‘some advocates dispute that,’ or would they show all the actual real-world data?

“Ideally, the blathering of a man who thinks that ‘the real rates of crime, chaos and dysfunction are orders of magnitude higher’ than that might be met with questions about, for one thing, whether he knows what ‘orders of magnitude’ means, but also, where is he looking for these official rates of ‘chaos and dysfunction’?

“But the press corps we have are engaged, like the New York Times, in hiding from the most urgent questions of the day. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://fair.org/home/media-in-hiding-from-the-most-urgent-questions-of-the-day/

Saving Empire With a Deal

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Article in Poynter by Tom Jones, 8/20/25

Headline:  “Opinion | Why did CBS settle with Trump? Media mogul Shari Redstone speaks”

Subhead: “Paramount’s controlling shareholder says settling with Trump was in the company’s best interest”

“Trump’s case stood little to no chance in court, but the general narrative was that Paramount settled with Trump to get the required approval from his administration for the merger.

At the center of all this was Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of Paramount.

Now, The New York Times’ James B. Stewart has a new major story out — “Why Did Shari Redstone Do It?” — which details the 13 months of negotiations between Paramount and Skydance, as well as the reasoning behind settling the lawsuit with Trump. . .”

Read the full article at:

ttps://www.poynter.org/commentary/2025/why-did-cbs-settle-with-trump-media-mogul-shari-redstone-speaks/

News Channel Clucked Too Much?

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Update below:

Article in Status by Jon Passantino, 8/18/25

Headline:  “Plucking MSNBC’s Feathers”

Subhead: “After nearly 30 years, MSNBC is dropping its name to become MS NOW a rebrand that sparked tension with NBCU and weeks of behind-the-scenes debate”

“On Monday morning, a little after 9 a.m. ET, Joe Scarborough delivered an unexpected jolt to MSNBC’s viewers. “We have breaking news as it pertains to our network: This morning, a new name of the network, the ‘Morning Joe’ host announced. ‘By the end of the year, we will become MS NOW, which stands for my source for news, opinion, and the world.’ The surprise decision unsurprisingly drew instant cheers from Scarborough, who hailed the network’s bold new logo as ‘very sporty,’ and cheered the name change as proof that ‘we’re independent.’ . . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.status.news/p/msnbc-new-name-rebrand-ms-now

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Article in Daily Dot by Jamie Jirak, 8/19/25

Headline:  “MSNBC is officially changing its name to MS Now, and the internet reacted as you’d expect: with memes and conspiracy theories”

Subhead:  “ ‘It’s not shocking, but it is noteworthy.’ “

“. . .Why is MSNBC changing its name?

“According to the announcement, the name change is happening due to a move to a new media company called VERSANT. MS NOW will no longer be a part of NBCUniversal and NBCNews. Instead, they will be under the same umbrella as CNBC, Golf Channel, GolfNow, and SportsEngine. . .”

“Unsurprisingly, people have a wide range of thoughts about this news. People have taken to social media to share their feelings and make some clever jokes about MS NOW. With name changes becoming increasingly common, some people just aren’t having it. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.dailydot.com/viral-politics/msnbc-changing-name-to-ms-now/

D.C. & Media

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Article in FAIR by Pete Tucker, 8/14/25

Headline:  “Trump Occupying DC: WaPo Used to Be Disgusted”

“. . .With DC’s self-governance under threat, the city’s paper of record is positioned to play a critical role. Right off the bat, Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher sounded the alarm about Trump’s actions, telling the New Yorker (8/11/25), ‘This is troops-in-the-streets, shades-of-authoritarian-rule bad.’

“The next day, however, Fisher sounded like a different person in Post column (8/12/25). Trump was transformed from authoritarian to ‘astute-but-flawed leader’. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://fair.org/home/trump-occupying-dc-wapo-used-to-be-disgusted/

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Article in Media Matters by Gideon Taaffee & Chloe Simon, 8/14/25

Headline:  “Right-wing media cheer for Trump to deploy National Guard to other American cities after DC”

Subhead:  “TPUSA’s Charlie Kirk: ‘We got a big military. We should be willing to use it.’ “

“After President Donald Trump announced on August 11 that he is deploying the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and suggested he would do it in other major U.S. cities too, many in right-wing media celebrated the announcement, claiming D.C. should be a ‘test case’ and arguing that ‘we need full military occupation’ of other ‘problematic cities’ like New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles. . .”

Red the full article at:

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/right-wing-media-cheer-trump-deploy-national-guard-other-american-cities-after-dc

Colbert and Liberty

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Article in The Contrarian by Josh Levs. 8/12/25

Headline:  “Two big things the legacy media missed about Colbert”

Subhead:  “In the fight for democracy, there’s something we must dismantle.”

“Among the many problems with the legacy media is the so-called ‘news cycle.’ These days, it often seems that we’re supposed to talk about an issue for only half a day before moving on to the next disaster. As a result, we can easily stay distracted and fail to learn important lessons from the latest developments.”

“. . .I stopped to look at two big things the media missed about CBS’ decision to cancel ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.’ . . .”

“He’ll very likely be better off, and even freer to say whatever he wants. That’s what happens when you get out from under a huge corporation. It’s also why some journalists have left newspapers that are now run by billionaires. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/two-big-things-the-legacy-media-missed

Who Monitors the Monitor?

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Article in The Guardian by Margaret Sullivan. 8/9/25

Headline: “A ‘bias monitor’ for CBS News is a bad idea. Here’s why”

Subhead: “I was a public editor at the New York Times, handling complaints from the public. That is a better path than CBS’s one”

“For years before I became the public editor at the New York Times, I admired the work of journalists doing the job of holding their own newsrooms accountable to high standards.

“And when I heard that CBS News would get a position something like that, I thought – briefly – that this could be a positive development. After all, the network’s credibility and independence has come under fire after its parent company settled a frivolous lawsuit brought by Donald Trump. . .”

“I quickly changed my mind once I learned the details. This is not a traditional ombudsman but what some have dubbed a ‘bias monitor’ who will receive and evaluate claims of bias in the network’s journalism and report on them to the corporation’s president. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/09/bias-monitor-cbs-news

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Article in Poynter by Rick Edmonds, et al., 8/8/25

Headline:  “Opinion | Skydance and Paramount complete their merger – whither CBS News?”

Subhead: “New chairman talks about ‘empowered’ journalists; critic assails trading principles for profit”

“The headline-chewing Skydance Media takeover of Paramount Global was formally concluded Thursday. . .

Red the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2025/skydance-and-paramount-complete-their-merger-whither-cbs-news/

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Article in Status by Oliver Darcy, 8/7/25

Headline: “The Skydance Sidestep”

Subhead: “David Ellison admirably showed up to take tough, unscreened questions from a room full of reporters – but he danced around the biggest ones about Donald Trump. ’60 Minutes’, and more”

“Naturally, the assembled group of journalists didn’t ignore the elephant in the room, and the first was about Donald Trump. Specifically, whether Ellison, the Silicon Valley tech scion, had cut a secret side deal to air upwards of $20 million worth of public service announcements for causes Trump supports. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.status.news/p/david-ellison-paramount-trump-side-deal-60-minutes

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Article in Reuters by Deborah May and David Shepardson, 8/7/25

Headline:  “Paramount closes $8 billion merger with Skydance after settling ’60 Minutes’ lawsuit”

“. . .The merger was approved after Skydance agreed to ensure CBS news and entertainment programming would be free of bias, hire an ombudsman for at least two years to review complaints, and end diversity programs. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/paramount-closes-8-billion-merger-with-skydance-after-settling-60-minutes-2025-08-07/

Legacy Media Missing the Story?

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Article in The New Republic by Perry Bacon, 8/7/25

Headline:  “The Media Keeps Ignoring the Truth About American Politics”

Subhead:  “As the Republican Party further radicalizes, mainstream news organizations are still trying to cover politics as they always have. But alternative news sources are emerging.”

“Republicans in Texas are trying to gerrymander congressional districts to give the GOP a greater advantage in the U.S. House of Representatives, potentially even preserving the party’s control of the lower chamber in next year’s midterm elections. And yet, the mainstream media keeps missing the radicalism of the Republican Party—in part because too few reporters and editors follow news at the state level. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://newrepublic.com/article/198873/republican-extremism-media-ignoring-truth-politics

Hands up, Media!

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Article in Daily Kos by TheBradBlog, 8/6/25

Headline:  ” ‘Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens’: Media Giants Continue Trump Capitulation: ‘BradCast’ 8/6/2025″

“. . .The corporate capitulation is worse than you think. And it strikes right at the heart of what this nation’s founders saw as perhaps the most important protection for freedom from monarchs and tyrants. Ya know, like the one we ended up with anyway. . .”

“Following Donald Trump’s gutting of the 80-year old Voice of America earlier this year, his and the Republican Congress’ ending of federal funding for NPR and PBS a week or so ago, and the absurd $16 million dollar settlements of ridiculous defamation lawsuits filed by Trump against the corporate owners of Disney/ABC and Paramount/CBS, the largest media conglomerates in the nation continue to rollover in fear, in hopes of placating and/or currying favor with our press-freedom hating, tyrannical man-baby President. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/8/6/2337193/-Ain-t-Nobody-Here-But-Us-Chickens-Media-Giants-Continue-Trump-Capitulation-BradCast-8-6-2025?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

Unbalanced Fairness

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Update

Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Lisa Armstrong, 8/6/25

Headline:   “When Neutrality Is a Constraint”

Subhead:  “Journalism in the 1930s failed to communicate the danger of Hitler’s rise. Are we repeating the same mistake now?”

“I do not know what Brandenburg was like in 1940, when the smoke and smell of the first burning bodies drifted across the town. But on a blue-skied day in May 2019, as I sat outside what was once the Brandenburg State Hospital, I was struck by the sounds coming in—the shrieks and laughter of children from a nearby playground washing over the remains of a place where Nazis killed at least nine thousand people.

It was the proximity that disturbed me, the fact that ordinary people had lived so close to such evil. The question that I would continue to ask myself over the two-week trip through Germany and Poland was: Why didn’t journalists do a better job of warning people, by giving them the information they could have used to act? . . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/when-neutrality-is-a-constraint.php

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Article in The New Republic by Michael Tomasky, 8/4/25

Headline:  “The Media’s Urge to Be “Fair” to Trump Is Killing the Republic”

Subhead:  “Seventy percent of Republicans understand that Trump’s tariffs will raise prices. Why is the press acting like they’re a huge success?”

“The New York Times remains, by any measure, our greatest newspaper. As much as liberals complain about the way it covers Donald Trump—which I did pretty aggressively during last year’s campaign—it still behooves us to remember that a lot of what we know about bad stuff Trump has done, we know from the Times. . .”

“However, it’s in the way the paper chooses to explain and interpret our nation’s politics that it so often falters. The excess of caution, the relentless urge to be ‘fair,’ the no-doubt painstaking search for the perfect headline word that will appear objective.… Oy, those headlines. ‘Trump, Claiming Weak Jobs Numbers Were ‘Rigged,’ Fires Labor Official.’ Really? ‘Claiming’? Without mentioning that Trump offered no evidence to support this ‘claim’?. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://newrepublic.com/article/198756/media-fair-trump-killing-republic-tariffs-economy

Media Consolidation Threat

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News Release from Free Press by Staff, 8/5/25

Headline:  “Press Freedom Groups Tell FCC: Media Consolidation Poses Grave Threat to Independent News and Information in the United States”

Subhead:  ” ‘Allowing for even more media consolidation poses too great a risk to our democracy, and to the free press on which it depends.’ “

“WASHINGTON — On Monday, 16 leading press freedom groups, civil liberties organizations and labor unions urged the Federal Communications Commission not to move forward with plans to loosen media ownership limits before it fully assesses the negative impacts media consolidation has had and will have on local news and information in the United States.

Earlier this summer, the FCC asked for public comments on changing or eliminating a longstanding rule that limits the size and national reach of giant broadcasters — like Sinclair, Nexstar and Fox Corporation — which already own hundreds of local stations across the country.

“Our chief concern regards the impact further consolidation of media ownership will have on the independence of the nation’s press and the vitality of its local journalism,” wrote the groups, including the NewsGuild CWA, Free Press, Open Markets Institute, Reporters Without Borders-USA, the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Coalition Against Censorship, Project Censored, Writers Guild of America East and Writers Guild of America West, among others. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.freepress.net/news/press-freedom-groups-tell-fcc-media-consolidation-poses-grave-threat-independent-news-and

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Article in Common Dreams by Jessica Corbett, 8/5/25

Headline:  “Press Freedom Coalition to FCC: Don’t Ditch Checks on Corporate Media Consolidation”

Subhead:  “The 16 groups urge the agency “to uphold its obligation to promote competition, localism, and diversity in the U.S. media.”

“A coalition of 16 civil liberties, press freedom, and labor groups this week urged U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to abandon any plans to loosen media ownership restrictions and warned against opening the floodgates to further corporate consolidation.

“Public comments on the National Television Multiple Ownership Rule were due to the Federal Communications Commission by Monday—which is when the coalition wrote to the FCC about the 39% national audience reach cap for U.S. broadcast media conglomerates, and how more mergers could negatively impact “the independence of the nation’s press and the vitality of its local journalism. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-fcc