International Media

VOA Angst

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Article in Poynter by Liam Scott, 4/23/25

Headline: ” ‘I am angry most of the time’: Inside a small VOA cohort’s return to work”

Subhead: “The bare-bones return has been marked by low morale, confusion and uncertainty, VOA sources say”

“Several weeks after the Trump administration began gutting Voice of America in March, the news agency is back — except, not really.

“A small cohort of Voice of America staffers quietly returned to the Washington office in early May, where they have been tasked with covering the news at a tiny fraction of the agency’s previous capacity.

“Instead of 49 languages, the congressionally funded but editorially independent news network is barely publishing in four. And instead of some 1,300 staffers, only about 30 are working. . .”

read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2025/voice-of-america-staff-back-office-skeleton-crew/

RFE Back – for a while. . .

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Article in Al Jazeera by Staff, 5/20/25

Headline:  “EU to sustain Radio Free Europe with emergency funding after Trump cuts”

Subhead:  “Outlet is one of several media services whose funding was cut by the Trump administration amid an aggressive downsizing effort.”

“The European Union plans to step in to help save longtime media outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) after United States President Donald Trump’s administration abruptly stopped funding it.

“The bloc’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, told reporters after a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Tuesday that 5.5 million euros ($6.2m) will be provided to “support the vital work of Radio Free Europe’. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/20/eu-to-sustain-radio-free-europe-with-emergency-funding-after-trump-cuts

Short Right Wave

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Article in NPR On the Media by Staff, 5/21/25

Headline:  “S2 THE DIVIDED DIAL EPISODE 3: World’s Last Chance Radio”

“. . .The Divided Dial is the untold story of shortwave radio: the way-less-listened to but way-farther-reaching cousin of AM and FM radio. The medium was once heralded as a utopian, international, and instantaneous mass communication tool — a sort of internet-before-the-internet. But like the internet, it also took a turn for the chaotic. And like AM and FM talk radio, it also went hard to the right, with extremists and cults still finding a home on the shortwaves. . .

Read or listen to the full article at:

https://www.npr.org/podcasts/452538775/on-the-media

Calling for Kinder Media

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Article in UPI by Paul Godfrey, 4/112/25

Headline: “Pope Leo XIV tells media to help promote global peace by ‘disarming’ words”

“Pope Leo XIV on Monday called for a kinder, gentler media, one that speaks up for those with no voice and in defense of free speech, and expressed solidarity with reporters imprisoned around the world for doing their job.

“In his first meeting with the more than 1,000 journalists who make up the Vatican press corps, Leo thanked them their work covering the papal transition and urged them to use their platform to foster peace by taking care over ‘how people and events are presented’. . .”

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2025/05/12/Vatican-Pope-says-media-must-promote-peace/4361747052191/

Media – Acid or Base?

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Article in Mediaite by Alex Griffing, 4/17/25

Headline:  “The Abrego Garcia Saga Is a Litmus Test For Media Figures”

“As President Donald Trump flirts with defying a Supreme Court order to help return a migrant that his administration admitted it deported and indefinitely imprisoned in El Salvador by ‘error,’ the media is faced with one of its easiest litmus tests in years: does due process and the rule of law matter in America?

“Many are failing. . .”

https://www.mediaite.com/opinion/the-abrego-garcia-saga-is-a-litmus-test-for-media-figures/

 

 

Only Tovarisch-Media Allowed!

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Article in Democracy Now by Staff, 4/16/25

Headline:  “Russian Journalists Sentenced to 5+ Years in Prison for “Extremism”

“A Russian court in Moscow has sentenced four journalists to five-and-a-half years in prison each, after convicting them of “extremism.” Two of the four worked for Sota Vision, which documents Russian protests and court proceedings; the others contributed to international news outlets including Reuters and the Associated Press. Prosecutors alleged the journalists were involved with a banned anti-corruption organization founded by Alexei Navalny, the opposition politician who died in a Russian penal colony last year following repeated assassination attempts.”

https://www.democracynow.org/2025/4/16/headlines/russian_journalists_sentenced_to_5_years_in_prison_for_extremism

First Amendment and Media?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Sarah Grecy Gotfredsen, 4/10/25

Headline:  “Entry: Denied”

Subhead:  “The “intolerable risk to press freedom” posed by device searches at the border.”

“. . .In 2019, The Intercept documented how journalists covering the so-called migrant caravan faced ‘coordinated harassment’ from US and Mexican authorities. Through a series of interviews, the journalist Ryan Devereaux tells how members of the press were forced to turn over their notes, cameras, and phones while border officers interrogated them for information about activists working with members of the caravan. . .”

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/entry-denied-us-border-customs-device-unlock-search-journalists-detain.php

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Article in Fair by Janine Jackson, 4/10/25

Headline:  ” ‘This Is an All-Out War on the First Amendment’ “

Subhead:  “CounterSpin interview with Jessica González on Trump’s FCC”

“Janine Jackson:  ‘There are reasons that the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, is an opaque entity for many people. The fact that there is a federal agency setting the terms for media companies’ operations conflicts with many Americans’ understanding of the press corps as a group of brave, independent individuals looking to tell the truth, and let the chips fall where they may.’

“There are, in fact, many community-supported, differently structured news outlets doing just that. . .”

https://fair.org/home/this-is-an-all-out-war-on-the-first-amendment/

Protest Coverage and Lack-of

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Sacha Biazzo, 4/9/25

Headline:  “Why Protests Against Trump Got More Play Overseas Than Here”

Subhead:  “European editors on how the news out of America drives coverage at home”

“If you were flipping through an American newspaper earlier this week, looking for news about the “Hands Off!” anti-Trump street protests that consumed much of the country over the weekend, you might have had a hard time finding it. Despite more than a thousand rallies at sites across all fifty states—including substantial turnout in Washington, New York, and Los Angeles—a number of major newspapers deemed the actions not quite front-page news, as several keen-eyed observers have noted recently, burying it on page eleven (the Boston Globe) or eighteen (the New York Times) or in a second section entirely (the LA Times). . .”

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/trump-hand-off-protests-coverage-europe.php

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Article in Fair by Julie Hollar and Jim Naureckas, 4/8/25

Headline:  “Corporate Media Minimize Massive Hands Off! Protests”

“After the biggest anti-Trump protests since the 2017 Women’s March, many major media outlets seemed intent on downplaying the size and significance of the massive demonstration of opposition. . . ”

“The Hands Off! protests took place on April 5 in 1,400 locations across the country, with solidarity rallies in Europe and Canada.  Burying the news . . .”

“The Washington Post (4/6/25) relegated protesters “across the US” to the Metro section.

“Despite the scale and significance of the protests, neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post had stories about them on their front pages the next day.

“The Washington Post (4/6/25) had a thumbnail at the bottom of the front page with the blurb “Metro: Thousands gather in DC as protesters rally across the US against Trump. . .”

“A Times blurb promoting the story in a roundup of stories about “The Trump Administration’s First Hundred Days” minimized the scale and seriousness of the event . . .”

https://fair.org/home/corporate-media-minimize-massive-hands-off-protests/

 

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

Spreading Media Greatness South

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Article in The Guardian by Rachel Savage, 3/26/25

Headline:  “Trump names pro-Israel media activist as US ambassador to South Africa”

Subhead:  “Leo Brent Bozell III, founder of a conservative media group, is president’s nomination amid rising diplomatic tensions”

“Donald Trump has nominated a conservative, pro-Israel media activist as US ambassador to South Africa, at a time when the relationship between the two countries is at a nadir.

“Leo Brent Bozell III founded the Media Research Center – whose website states it is ‘a blog site designed to broadcast conservative values, culture, and politics [and] to expose liberal media bias’ – in 1987.

“His son Leo Brent Bozell IV was sentenced to 45 months in prison in May 2024 for assaulting police and smashing windows in the 6 January 2021 Capitol riots. He was released in January as part of Trump’s mass pardon.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/26/trump-names-pro-israel-media-activist-as-us-ambassador-to-south-africa