International Media

End of Radio on Freedom?

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Article in The Guardian by Edward Helmore, 3/15/25

Headline:  “Trump sharpens attacks on US media as Voice of America employees put on administrative leave”

Subhead:  “President denounced CNN and MSNBC as ‘illegal’ and instructed VoA’s parent agency to be eliminated”

“Donald Trump expanded on his threats to the media on Friday, suggesting actions of the press should be deemed illegal and subject to investigation. . .”

“On Saturday, government-employed journalists at Voice of America (VoA) were put on administrative leave, a day after Trump signed an order eliminating the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), VoA’s parent company, along with six other federal agencies.

“Reporters at VoA, which broadcasts news, information and cultural programming in nearly 50 languages to a global audience, were placed on ‘administrative leave with full pay and benefits until otherwise notified’ . . .”

The decision to place VoA employees on administrative leave came a day after its parent moved to terminate contracts with the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse, and told its journalists on Friday to stop using material from the wire services. . .

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/15/trump-media-attacks

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Article in Time Magazine by Nicholas Riccardi / AP, 3/15/25

Headline:  “Trump Signs Order to Cut Staff at Voice of America and Other U.S.-Funded Media Organizations”

“On Friday night, shortly after Congress passed its latest funding bill, Trump directed his administration to reduce the functions of several agencies to the minimum required by law. That included the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which houses Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Asia and Radio Marti, which beams Spanish-language news into Cuba. . . ”

“. . . The agency also sent notices terminating grants to Radio Free Asia and other programming run by the agency. Voice of America transmits United States domestic news into other countries, often translated into local languages. Radio Free Asia, Europe and Marti beam news into countries with authoritarian regimes in those regions like China, North Korea and Russia.

“Combined, the networks reach an estimated 427 million people. They date back to the Cold War and are part of a network of government-funded organizations trying to extend U.S. power and combat authoritarianism that includes USAID, another agency targeted by Trump.”

https://time.com/7268630/trump-executive-order-staff-cuts-seven-government-entities-agencies/

Awarding Good Journalism

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by John Darnton, 3/14/25

Headline:  “A Little Light amid the Gloom”

Subhead:  “At a time of flagging faith in journalism—and among journalists—the Polk Awards spotlight the vital role the press still plays.”

“. . .The George Polk Awards are deluged with entries for outstanding work across all media platforms, and as curator I go through all of them. This year there were four hundred and ninety-three. . .”

“Now, I know that many newsrooms are gloomy and anxious places these days.

“But not all is dark. I can vouch that the year’s publications and broadcasts, when seen in their entirety, are wide in scope and deep in substance. The rambunctious spirit of street reporting and savvy editing is still very much alive.

“Among our winners this year are a foreign correspondent who risked his life to cover Sudan’s civil war, a health reporter who uncovered hidden commercial factors for the government’s lagging response to the outbreak of bird flu, and a national TV team that exposed the practice of a Texas medical school selling the body parts of unclaimed corpses without bothering to beat the bushes to inform next of kin. . .”

https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/little-light-amid-gloom-george-polk-awards.php

Social Media Tweeting – Treason?

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Article in Raw Story by Cark Gibson, 2/29/25

Headline:  ” ‘Treasonous’: Trump investigates public media reporters for criticizing his administration”

“Several journalists employed by an outlet funded by the U.S. government have found themselves in President Donald Trump’s crosshairs, according to a new report.

“In a Friday article, the New York Times reported that one longtime journalist at Voice of America (VOA) — which is funded by Congress through the U.S. Agency for Global Media (AGM) — had been put on an extended ‘excused absence’ pending a human resources investigation following a tweet flagged by Trump advisor Richard Grenell. VOA chief national correspondent Steve Herman said the investigation was meant to determine whether his ‘social media activity has undermined VOA’s audiences’ perceptions of the objectivity and/or credibility of VOA and its news operations.”

“In the tweet, Herman quoted a nonprofit leader who criticized Trump’s cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development as making Americans ‘less safe at home and abroad.’ Grenell called Herman’s tweet ‘treasonous.’ ”

https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-2671243816/

Russian Media Waltzing

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Article in The New Republic by Edith Olmsted, 2/28/25

Headline:  “Russian State Media Almost Waltzed Into Trump’s Zelenskiy Meeting”

Subhead:  “How the heck did a Russian state media reporter get access to the Oval Office?”

“As the White House cracks down on which news outlets are allowed to have access to President Donald Trump, it seems that a member of Russian state media was somehow able to make their way into the Oval Office Friday.

“While mainstream outlets the Associated Press and Reuters were kept out of a tense discussion between Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a member of Tass, a Russian news agency that pushes propaganda about Russia’s ‘liberation’ of Ukraine, was briefly in the room with the two world leaders.

“A White House official told Politico that Tass was ‘not on the approved list of media’ for the day’s press pool.

“ ‘As soon as it came to the attention of press office staff that he was in the Oval, he was escorted out by the Press Secretary,’ the official said, adding that the reporter wasn’t on the list of the now-canceled press conference after, either.

“The White House did not explain how the reporter was able to gain access to the Oval Office, despite not being on the list for entry.”

https://newrepublic.com/post/192183/donald-trump-volodymyr-zelenskiy-meeting-russian-state-media

US Media Control Expands to Namibia

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Article in The Guardian by Rachel Savage, 2/27/25

Headline:  “Namibian media outlets have reacted with anger and dismay after they were asked by the US embassy whether they were affiliated with western publications whose subscriptions have been cancelled by the US state department.”

“On 11 February, the state department ordered its outposts to cancel “non-mission critical” media subscriptions as part of the Trump administration’s drive to cut government costs.

“A 14 February directive then instructed prioritising the cancellation of subscriptions to the Economist, the New York Times, Politico, Bloomberg News, the Associated Press and Reuters, according to the Washington Post.

“Donald Trump’s second presidential term has started with a wave of initiatives to reduce the size of government and purge it of anything deemed to be liberal.”

The Namibian, an independent newspaper, was asked by a US embassy staff member on 18 February via email: “Are you or any of your services associated/affiliated with the following companies: The Economist, the New York Times, Politico, Bloomberg News Feed, Associated Press, or Reuters? If so, could you please explain how? ie Do you re-run their stories or are you a subsidiary of the publication?”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/27/namibia-media-outlets-angered-us-scrutiny-western-news-subscriptions

Media Missing Numbers?

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Article in Common Dreams by Ralph Nader, 2/24/25

Headline:  “An Indifferent Media Is Failing to Report the 400,000 Dead in Gaza”

Subhead:  “Only the Palestinians, who are not allowed to live, don’t get the respect of having their deaths accurately estimated”

“Enough already of the media’s lazy indifference to the vast undercount of the Palestinian death toll from Netanyahu’s genocidal daily bombing and shelling of Gaza’s defenseless civilian population. I’m referring to all the media – the corporate media, the public media, and the independent media. They all stick with the Hamas Ministry of Health’s (MOH) count of named victims whose corpses have been identified by hospitals and mortuaries. For months there have been no operating hospitals and mortuaries to send their grisly data to the Health Ministry.

“The official Hamas count that all sides like to cite is now over 48,000 deaths. As American doctors back from Gaza before the Rafah closing last year said—just about everybody surviving in Gaza is sick, injured, or dying. They put the death estimate almost a year ago at a minimum of 95,000, not counting tens of thousands of families buried under the rubble when Israeli F-16s blew up entire apartment buildings. . . ”

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/real-death-toll-gaza

Media Music to His Ears

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Article in Media Matters by Staff, 2/20/25

Headline:  “Right-wing media are divided after Trump pushed Russian propaganda to attack Ukraine”

“On February 18, President Donald Trump pushed multiple false claims about the war in Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky’s involvement in it, falsely suggesting that Ukraine started the war and that Zelensky is a “dictator without elections.” Both claims echo Russian propaganda about the war.

“Many right-wing media figures praised Trump’s comments, with some commentators even following in his footsteps to target Zelensky. Others denounced Trump’s remarks as ‘music to the ears of Vladimir Putin.’ ”

https://www.mediamatters.org/russias-invasion-ukraine/right-wing-media-are-divided-after-trump-pushed-russian-propaganda-attack

Trump – Golf or Gulf?

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Article in the Columbia Journalism Review by Yona TR Golding, 2/21/24

Headline: “The Gulf Between Trump and the Press”

Subhead: “Trying to make the ‘Gulf of America’ happen.”

When President Trump signed an order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” back in January, I couldn’t stop thinking about a scene from the 2004 teen classic Mean Girls, in which queen bee Regina George snaps at Gretchen Weiner, her underling, for trying to make the word fetch a synonym for cool. (“Stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen!” Regina says. “It’s not going to happen!”) . . . The Associated Press, it seems, was on the same page as me: two days after the order was signed, the agency issued an update to its stylebook—which is widely followed throughout the news business—recommending the continued use of the original name, though it would acknowledge the new name as well. “Trump’s order only carries authority within the United States. Mexico, as well as other countries and international bodies, do not have to recognize the name change,” the AP reasoned in an announcement about the decision. ‘As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.’

“But Trump, it turned out, was determined to make “Gulf of America” happen. Last week, an AP reporter was blocked from attending the signing of an executive order in the Oval Office; later in the day, Julie Pace, its executive editor, wrote in a statement that she had been informed that the decision was the White House’s response to the new stylebook guidance. “It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism,” she wrote. “Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.”

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

 

Some Media Got it Right on Ukraine

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Article in Poynter by Tom Jones, 2/20/25

Headline:  “Opinion | Good on the media for calling out President Trump’s falsehoods on Ukraine”

“Just when you thought our politics couldn’t get any more bizarre and divisive and distressing, something else transpired.

“As happens far too often these days, it was something said by President Donald Trump.

“In a truly stunning post on Truth Social, Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ‘A Dictator without Elections.’ He also called Zelenskyy a ‘modestly successful comedian’ and, just as he did a day earlier, seemingly blamed Zelenskyy for starting the war with Russia even though it was Russia that invaded Ukraine. Trump wrote that Zelenskyy ‘talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and “TRUMP,” will never be able to settle.’ ”

“In a positive sign, the media appropriately and responsibly covered Trump’s comments. . .”

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2025/trump-truth-social-statements-ukraine-zelenskyy-elected-media/

Scared Media

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Article in FAIR by Gregory Shupak, 2/20/25

Headline:  “Media Afraid to Call Ethnic Cleansing by Its Name”

“Earlier this month, President Donald Trump said that the US will ‘take over the Gaza Strip’ and ‘own’ it for the ‘long-term’ (AP, 2/5/25), and that its Palestinian inhabitants will be ‘permanently’ exiled (AP, 2/4/25). Subsequently, when reporters asked Trump whether Palestinians would have the right to return to Gaza under his plan, he said ‘no’ (BBC, 2/10/25).

“After Trump’s remarks, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (Reuters, 2/5/25) said ‘it is essential to avoid any form of ethnic cleansing.’ ”

https://fair.org/home/media-afraid-to-call-ethnic-cleansing-by-its-name/