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NPR Tuning Out Trump?

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Article in Status News by Oliver Darch, 5/27/25

Headline: “NPR Flips the Dial on Trump”

Subhead: “When Trump signed an order to defund NPR, the network faced a choice over how it would respond—but CEO Katherine Maher made one thing clear from the start: there would be no backroom negotiations.

“In the days following Donald Trump’s May 1 executive order to strip NPR of all federal funding, leaders at the public broadcaster began deliberating their options. But even before the network’s legal team got to work on the litigation, one decision had already been made. NPR chief executive Katherine Maher made clear that the outlet would not quietly negotiate with the White House—an approach other media companies have recently taken under immense political pressure.

“As an independent media organization,” Maher told me by phone Tuesday, “we wouldn’t go ahead and have that conversation because that would be negotiating on editorial principle.” . . .”

Read the full story here:

https://www.status.news/p/npr-sues-trump-funding-katherine-maher-interview

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Article in AP by David Bauder, 5/27/25

Headline:  “NPR sues Trump administration over executive order to cut federal funding to public media”

“National Public Radio and three of its local stations sued President Donald Trump on Tuesday, arguing that his executive order cutting funding to the 246-station network violates their free speech and relies on an authority that he does not have.

Earlier this month, Trump instructed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and federal agencies to cease funding for NPR and PBS, either directly or indirectly. The president and his supporters argue their news reporting promotes liberal bias and shouldn’t be supported by taxpayers.

Retaliation is Trump’s plain purpose, the lawsuit argues. It was filed in federal court in Washington by NPR and three Colorado entities — Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio and KUTE, Inc., chosen to show the system’s diversity in urban and rural areas.

“By basing its directives on the substance of NPR’s programming, the executive order seeks to force NPR to adapt its journalistic standards and editorial choices to the preferences of the government if it is to continue to receive federal funding,” Katherine Maher, NPR’s CEO, said Tuesday.

Read the full story here:

https://apnews.com/article/npr-trump-lawsuit-public-radio-f320314b30df6934238a5b6af47c5067

Broadcaster Over the Volcano

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Article in MSN by Meg James, 5/27/25

Headline:  “Trump, ’60 Minutes’ and corruption allegations put Paramount on edge with sale less certain”

“One fateful October decision to trim two convoluted sentences from a ’60 Minutes‘ interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris has snowballed into a full-blown corporate crisis for CBS’ parent company, Paramount Global, and its controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone.

“President Trump’s $20-billion lawsuit — claiming ’60 Minutes’ producers deceptively manipulated the Harris interview to make her look smarter — has festered, clouding the future of Paramount and the company’s hoped-for $8-billion sale to David Ellison’s Skydance Media.

“The dispute over the edits has sparked massive unrest within the company, prompted high-level departures and triggered a Federal Communications Commission examination of alleged news bias. The FCC’s review of the Skydance deal has become bogged down, according to people familiar with the matter who weren’t authorized to comment.. .”

Read the full article here:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/ar-AA1FyJMu

Media Ignore Charges

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Article in The Intercept by Natasha Lennard, 5/20/25

Headline: “Trump is Prosecuting a Congressional Democrat for Doing Her Job. The Media’s Response: No Big Deal”

Subhead:  “You’d never know reading the New York Times that charges against Rep. LaMonica McIver are nothing but an authoritarian attack.”

“You may have come across a common thought experiment that asks how the establishment U.S. media might cover a given domestic news event were it to occur in a maligned foreign country. The latest disturbing news from Donald Trump’s Justice Department, for example, might be framed as something like: ‘Trumpist regime targets opposition politician with fabricated charges for carrying out oversight.’

“Instead, the typical mainstream reports were muted on the Justice Department’s obscene decision Monday night to charge New Jersey Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver with ‘assaulting’ a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer when the member of Congress attempted to conduct an oversight visit earlier this month at a massive, new ICE detention facility in her hometown of Newark . . .”

Read the full article at: 

https://theintercept.com/2025/05/20/trump-prosecuting-democrat-mciver-ice-media/

Law Should Support Journalists

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Article in Poynter by Amaris Castillo, 5/15/25

Headline: “Legal support for journalists is evolving to meet rising threats to press freedom”

Subhead: “Legal organizations are adapting to a growing climate of hostility, offering new programs and resources to help journalists navigate emerging risks”

“At a time when attacks on press freedom are heightening, including from the White House and President Donald Trump himself, legal support for journalists is shifting to meet new challenges.

“Over the five years of its existence, Lawyers for Reporters has provided pro bono legal assistance to local and mission-driven journalism organizations throughout the country. In that time, the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice initiative has had about 300 clients. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2025/legal-help-journalists-press-threats-trump-administration/

Don’t Like What the Media Say?

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Article in Washington Post by Scott Hover, et al, 5/2/25

Headline:  “Public media ready to fight ‘unlawful’ Trump order defunding PBS, NPR”

Subhead:  “Legal scholars say the executive order may exceed presidential authority and violate First Amendment, while local stations fear impact on communities.”

“President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to end federal funding for NPR and PBS — because of news coverage he called “biased and partisan” — triggered a fierce backlash from public broadcasters that appears poised to expand the White House’s larger legal battleground with the media industry.

“Issued Thursday night, the order instructs the congressionally chartered Corporation for Public Broadcasting to cut off direct funding to the venerable public media giants — producers of long-running news shows such as “All Things Considered” and “PBS NewsHour” — as well as any grants to local stations that might underwrite the national broadcasters’ programming. . .”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2025/05/02/trump-npr-pbs-executive-order-funding-cut/

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Article in The Nation by John Nichols, 5/2/25

Headline: “Trump’s Assault on PBS and NPR Chooses Oligarchy Over Press Freedom and Democracy”

“As the supporters of speaking truth to power celebrate World Press Freedom Day, Trump seeks to defund public media in the United States. . .”

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-npr-pbs-threat/

Media Missing Something?

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Article in The New Republic bu Michael Tomasky, 4/25/25

Headline:  “Trump Just Did the Most Corrupt Thing Any President Has Ever Done”

Subhead:  “He’s using the White House to get rich from anonymous investors—and it’s hardly even a news story.”

“Imagine that Joe Biden, just as he was assuming office, had started a new company with Hunter Biden and used his main social media account to recruit financial backers, then promised that the most generous among them would earn an invitation to a private dinner with him. . . .”

“Take a minute, close your eyes. Let yourself see Jim Jordan’s face go purple in apoplexy, hear the moral thunder spewing out of Jesse Watters’s mouth, feel the shock (which would be wholly justified) of the New York Times editorial board as it expressed disbelief that the man representing the purported values and standards of the United States of America before the world would begin to think it was remotely OK to do such a thing. The media would be able to speak of nothing else for days. Maybe weeks. . .”

https://newrepublic.com/post/194420/trump-memecoin-dinner-corrupt-president

 

NYT – A Dubious Win?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Jon Alson, 4/23/25

Headline: “Q&A: Bill Grueskin on the New York Times Beating Sarah Palin (Again)”

Subhead: ” ‘Two things can be true: you can publish something about a public figure that is clearly false, and you can avoid being held financially liable for having done so.’ ”

“. . .the gods of the media beat soon handed down another big story. Compared with the 60 Minutes and USAGM imbroglios, which are relatively recent, this one concerned a much longer-running drama and a central character—Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and vice presidential candidate—who can perhaps be seen as an ur-Trump. Back in 2017, after a gunman opened fire on a congressional baseball practice, Palin sued the Times for defamation over an editorial that wrongly suggested she had helped incite the shooting of a different member of Congress, Gabby Giffords, six years earlier. (Palin’s PAC had published a map with crosshairs drawn over Giffords’s district. . .”

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

Robber-Baron Media?

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Article in The New York Times by CeciliaKing, Mike Isaac, and David McCabe, 4/14/25

Headline:  “U.S. Argues Meta Built a Social Media Monopoly”

Subhead:  “The tech giant went to court on Monday in an antitrust trial focused on its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. The case could reshape its business.”

“The Federal Trade Commission on Monday accused Meta of creating a monopoly that squelched competition by buying start-ups that stood in its way, kicking off a landmark antitrust trial that could dismantle a social media empire that has transformed how the world connects online.

“In a packed courtroom in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia, the F.T.C. opened its first antitrust trial under the Trump administration by arguing that Meta illegally cemented a monopoly in social networking by acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp when they were tiny start-ups. Those actions were part of a ‘buy-or-bury strategy,’ the F.T.C. said.”

https://archive.is/OKi9X#selection-751.0-767.46

Protect Your Sources

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Article in Poynter by Angela Fu, 4/8/25

Headline:  “Legal experts advise journalists to strengthen reporting security in the face of rising press restrictions”

Subhead:  “Journalists can protect their sources by maintaining good digital hygiene and being aware of security vulnerabilities, experts say”

“At a time when President Donald Trump’s administration has accelerated attacks on the press, accessing information and protecting sources might become more difficult for journalists, experts say.

” ‘Concerns about libel law and the protections from landmark Supreme Court case New York Times Co. v Sullivan have been exaggerated’, said New York Times deputy general counsel David McCraw and Center for Investigative Reporting general counsel Victoria Baranetsky. Instead, they advised journalists to take measures to secure their reporting material and be cognizant of the pressures they face in the current political climate. Their remarks came Monday during a Poynter webinar called ‘Safeguarding your journalism against legal threats. . .’

“Trump has already taken measures to curtail press access. His administration has laid off communications staff, reallocated dedicated office space in the Pentagon to conservative outlets, taken over the White House press pool and defunded global radio stations. Most notably, his administration has banned The Associated Press from accessing key White House spaces like the Oval Office. Members of his administration have also threatened to investigate leaks.

“Newsrooms may see more subpoenas seeking their communications and reporting material, McCraw warned. To that end, journalists should be cognizant of the documentation that they generate and keep. An unflattering private message to a colleague, for example, could be unearthed in court — as was the case earlier this year when a jury found CNN guilty of defaming a security contractor. . .”

https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2025/trump-legal-threats-journalists-source-protection/

 

Can’t Ban the Free Press

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Article in The Guardian by Leonie Chao-Feng, 4/8/24

Headline:  “Judge orders Trump White House to lift access restrictions on Associated Press”

Subhead:  “Order restores journalists access to White House spaces while the news agency’s lawsuit moves forward”

“A US judge on Tuesday ordered the White House to restore full access to the Associated Press to presidential events, after the news agency was punished for its decision to continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico in its coverage.

“The order from the US district judge Trevor McFadden, an appointee of Donald Trump, requires the White House to allow the AP’s journalists to access the Oval Office, Air Force One and events held at the White House.

“The White House “sharply curtailed” the AP’s access to media events with the US president after he renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and the news agency did not follow suit, McFadden wrote in a 41-page decision. . .”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/08/judge-orders-white-house-restore-associated-press-access