Events

Article in The New York Times by Kate Conger, 8/15/25

Headline:  “Judge Blocks F.T.C. Investigation of Media Matters“

Subhead:  “The agency began looking into the liberal watchdog group’s research critical of Elon Musk and his social media platform, X, in May.”

“A federal judge granted an injunction on Friday blocking the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation of Media Matters, saying the inquiry violated the free speech rights of the liberal watchdog group, which had published research critical of Elon Musk and his social media platform, X. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/15/technology/media-matters-ftc-musk-injunction.html

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Article in Washington Post by Scott Nover, 8/15/25

Headline: “Judge blocks FTC probe into liberal media watchdog:

Media Matters won a preliminary injunction on First Amendment grounds after a judge found the agency was retaliating against its reporting on Elon Musk’s X.”

Read the full article at:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/08/15/media-matters-ftc-injunction/

Article in Poynter by Angela Fu, 6/24/25

Headline:  “News outlets don’t usually publish the f-word. Then came Trump’s Israel-Iran ceasefire rant.”

Subhead:  “Some censored the word in text, but not in video. Others published it in full.”

“Mainstream outlets generally don’t include profanity in their news reports. But when President Donald Trump condemned Israel and Iran for breaking their ceasefire Tuesday, some outlets broke from tradition.

“ ‘We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f— they’re doing,’ Trump told a group of reporters Tuesday morning just outside the White House. He was railing against Israel and Iran for launching attacks against each other just hours after he had announced a ceasefire agreement. . .”

Read the full story at:

https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2025/trump-censored-bleeped-f-bomb-media-coverage/

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Article in Raw Story by Daniel Hampton, 6/24/25

Headline: ” ‘Getting slammed!’ Trump rages at CNN and NYT for trying to ‘demean’ Iran strike”

“President Donald Trump unloaded a late-night tirade Tuesday against multiple top media outlets whom he accused of trying to ‘demean’ what he called one of the ‘most successful military strikes in history,’ referring to the U.S. bombing of three Iranian nuclear facilities.

“After Trump’s Middle East envoy melted down on Fox News over the leaking of an intelligence report to CNN, Trump himself blasted CNN, along with The New York Times, which also received the top secret report. The initial U.S. intelligence assessment undercut Trump’s boast that Iran’s nuclear program had been ‘obliterated.’ . . .”

Read the full story at:

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-iran-2672428007/

Article in the Daily Beast by Catherine Bouris, 6/17/25

Headline:  “Mike Lee Flees Questions About Deranged Assassin Tweet”

Subhead:  “The Utah senator was captured running from NBC journalists asking about his claim that Vance Boelter was a ‘Marxist.’ “

“Republican Sen. Mike Lee was caught fleeing from media questions about his inflammatory posts on the senseless murder of Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman.

“Over the weekend, the Utah senator posted a photo of Boelter in a latex mask, adding the caption, ‘This is what happens… When Marxists don’t get their way.’ The backlash was swift, with many pointing at the copious amount of evidence that suggests Boelter was a conservative.

“Now, a journalist for NBC News has shared a video of Lee running from questions about his post, including whether or not he regrets the tweet. Instead of answering, Lee and his staffers quickly walk away from the cameras, with one staffer attempting to cover the camera with his iPad. . .”

Read teh full article at:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/mike-lee-flees-from-media-questions-about-his-marxist-assassin-tweet/

Friends of Community Media presented an award to the Mississippi community radio station which was the only radio station in the area that stayed on the air during Hurricane Katrina and provided vital information.

Article in Poynter by Paul Farhi, 6/2/25

Headline: “This radio station was a lifeline during a hurricane. Now it’s fighting to survive.”

Subhead:  “In rural towns and emergency zones, public radio is often the only source of critical information. Without federal funding, they could vanish.”

“As Hurricane Helene ravaged the mountain communities of western North Carolina last fall, Blue Ridge Public Radio remained a beacon in the storm.

“With power knocked out throughout the region, the organization turned to portable generators to keep its two stations on the air. For days during and after the deluge, BPR was the only source of lifesaving news: weather updates, road closures, potable water locations.

“BPR now confronts a different kind of calamity. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2025/president-trump-public-broadcasting-funding-cuts-effects/

Article in Poynter by Mark Caro, 5/12/25

Headline:   “Tech entrepreneur Jeremy Gulban is betting on small-town newspapers to challenge Big Tech’s media dominance”

Subhead:  “Gulban’s CherryRoad Media is racing to prove that small-town newspapers can survive — while the industry battles Big Tech’s growing control”

“With the 2020 purchase of the Cook County News Herald in Northeast Minnesota, Jeremy Gulban launched the fast-growing CherryRoad Media chain of community newspapers. The company’s portfolio has ballooned to 94 newspapers — all but one print, most weekly — as CEO Gulban tries on the fly to make his business model sustainable for CherryRoad and a greater local news industry working in the shadows of Big Tech. . . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2025/cherryroad-media-jeremy-gulban-local-newspapers-mail-print/

Article in The Guardian by Norman Soloman, 4/30/25

Headline:  “The US left Vietnam 50 years ago today. The media hasn’t learned its lesson”

Subhead:  “The myth that news coverage turned Americans against the war persists. In fact, it was largely complicit in perpetuating the conflict”

“The last helicopter liftoff from the roof of the American embassy in Saigon on 30 April 1975 marked the end of the Vietnam war. Fifty years later, mythology about US media coverage of the war is locked into the faulty premise that news outlets were pivotal in causing Americans to turn against it. Some say that mainstream media undermined a noble war effort, while others say that coverage alerted the public to realities of an unjust war. Both assertions are wrong.

“Scapegoating the media fits neatly into ‘stab in the back’ theories of Americans who can’t stand the fact that their country lost a war to impoverished Vietnamese fighters. And praising the media as catalysts for the nation’s roused conscience gives undue credit while fostering illusions about mainstream news coverage of America’s wars . . .”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/01/us-vietnam-war-media