Chart from Reporters Without Borders
International Media
Reporting More Than a Game
Article in Reporters Without Borders by Staff, 5/28/26
Headline: “Covering the 2026 World Cup? Prepare for more than football”
“The 2026 FIFA World Cup, taking place from June 11 to July 19, is expected to draw thousands of journalists to the United States, Mexico, and Canada to cover the world’s biggest sporting event of the year. Beyond the stadiums, fan zones, and celebrations, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urges media professionals to prepare for a more complex reporting environment marked by heightened surveillance, border scrutiny, and mounting concerns about press freedom in Mexico and the US. . .”
Read the full article at:
https://rsf.org/en/covering-2026-world-cup-prepare-more-football
Foreigners in U.S. Media?
Article in Free Press by Staff, 5/27/26
Headline: “Free Press Urges FCC to Reject Paramount Skydance’s Request for Massive Foreign Investment from Governments Hostile to Press Freedom”
“. . . Free Press urged the FCC to reject Paramount Skydance’s petition to waive the Communications Act’s prohibition against the significant foreign investment that’s part of the massive media company’s proposal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.
If Paramount’s $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery survives state antitrust review, at least half (or 49.5 percent) the ownership of the resulting colossus will end up in the hands of foreign investors, including the sovereign wealth funds of three Middle Eastern governments. . .”
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World Burning? No News Here.
Article in Media Matters by Evlondo Cooper, 5/27/26
Headline: “How broadcast TV news covered environmental justice in 2025”
“Environmental justice coverage — reporting that connects the harmful effects of pollution, environmental hazards, or policy decisions to socially marginalized communities — remained nearly absent from corporate broadcast TV news last year, even as environmental risks and pollution exposure affected communities across the country. . .”
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Attacking Media as the Enemy?
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. . .”
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Trump’s Fox Fellow-Travelers Urge War?
Article in Media Matters by Matt Gertz, 5/18/26
Headline: “Trump’s Fox Cabinet urges escalation as he ponders a return to war in Iran”
“. . .Influential pundits on the MAGA propaganda channel are telling the president that he currently holds ‘the cards’ and are urging him to use U.S. military might to seize Iran’s uranium stockpile, force open the Strait of Hormuz, assassinate the country’s leaders, and overturn its regime. . .”
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Treasonous Journalists?
Article in Media Matters by Matt Gertz, 5/13/26
Headline: “As Trump accuses news outlets of “TREASON,” Fox models MAGA Iran coverage”
“While President Donald Trump accuses news outlets of committing “virtual TREASON” by producing reporting that suggests the United States is losing his war against Iran, the president’s loyal Fox News propagandists keep telling him that he’s doing a great job, saying he’s on the verge of victory, and suggesting he can fail only by backing down. . .”
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State Media Propaganda Gone?
Article in Reuters by Krisztina Than, 4/13/26
Headline: “Hungary’s election winner Magyar says to suspend state media news broadcast”
” Hungary’s election winner Peter Magyar said on Monday that his government will suspend the news broadcast of public state media until unbiased news coverage can be ensured.
“Magyar’s Tisza party scored a landslide victory in Sunday’s elections. . .”
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Surrender or Victory?
Article in Media Matters by Giddeon Taaffe, tri Lonergan, Noah Towe, 4/8/26
Headline: “How fractured right-wing media are spinning Trump’s Iran capitulation”
Subhead: “Right-wing media have been split over the war. As a ceasefire is agreed to, some figures claim Trump ‘negotiated the deal of his life,’ others argue he ‘chickened out again’ and warn the deal ‘could be an amazing victory for Iran.’ “
“Right-wing media are split on the temporary two-week ceasefire between Iran and the United States, with some calling it ‘victory’ and crediting Trump’s ‘hyperbolic rhetoric,’ while others remain skeptical, going as far as to call it ‘total U.S. defeat’ and arguing the deal is ‘very difficult to accept.’ Both critics and supporters of the war have criticized the terms of the ceasefire, saying it is a ‘defeat’ and that ‘Iran practically got everything that they wanted.’ ”
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Doppelganger Reporting
Article in The Intercept by Katherine Krueger, 4/7/26
Headline: “The Media Just Can’t Help Turning Iran Fighter Jet Rescue Into ‘Black Hawk Down’ “
Subhead: “Everyone reported the exact same story at the exact same time — and they all relied on the same liars who got us into this mess.”
“Neither Josh Hartnett nor Ewan McGregor were there, but the way the mainstream media is telling it, they might as well have been. The Sunday morning rescue of a U.S. airman shot down over Iran launched a thousand breathless tick-tock retellings from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, CBS News, and many, many more — helpful water-carrying for an administration prosecuting a deeply unpopular war without a clear end in sight. . .”
Read the full article at:
https://theintercept.com/2026/04/06/iran-fighter-jet-rescue-media-coverage/