Media Intimidation

NYT Sued Redux?

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Article in Poynter by Tom Jones, 1/23/26

Headline:  “Opinion | Stop us if you heard this one before: Trump threatens The New York Times“

Subhead:  “The president is not happy about the outlet’s recent poll results”

“With Donald Trump finishing up his first year as president for the second time, there’s a new New York Times/Siena poll about his job performance.

“Two things about it are not surprising.

“One, his approval rating is not good. And, two, Trump is mad as hell about it.. .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2026/trump-sues-new-york-times-tiktok-deal-reached/

Passes & Dossiers on Journalists?

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Article in Mediaite by Colby Hall, 1/23/26

Headline:  “Don Lemon, WaPo, Ozturk: Trump’s War on the First Amendment Now Alarmingly Clear”

“In a functioning democracy, the federal government does not compile dossiers on students for their political views, threaten journalists with prison for covering protests, or seize reporters’ devices as a warning to sources. Yet all three have now come into focus in the United States, supported by newly unsealed court records and recent actions by the Trump administration. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.mediaite.com/opinion/don-lemon-wapo-ozturk-trumps-war-on-the-first-amendment-now-alarmingly-clear/

Greeniceland, No Problem

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Article in Poynter by Tom Jones, 1/22/26

Headline:  “Opinion | Trump misspoke at Davos. Karoline Leavitt told reporters not to believe their ears.”

Subhead:  “During a speech, Trump repeatedly referred to Iceland while talking about Greenland. Then the press secretary denied what the video plainly shows.”

“Greenland? Iceland? What is President Donald Trump talking about? . . .”

“Meanwhile — and this is the larger concern — Leavitt losing her cool and trying to gaslight a reporter by saying the reporter didn’t hear what the world clearly heard only makes Leavitt and the administration look more deceitful and, quite frankly, shady. Somehow, Leavitt’s remarks made the matter even worse. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2026/did-trump-call-greenland-iceland-davos-speech/

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Article in The New Republic by Greg Sargent, 1/22/26

Headline:  “Trump Press Sec. Goes Full Cult as Reviews of Davos Fiasco Turn Brutal”

Subhead:  “As Karoline Leavitt and others struggle to spin Trump’s speech as a world-historical triumph, a critic of Trump’s unfitness explains why it was a disaster for our whole country and its future.”

“. . .White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt unleashed an extraordinary stream of obsequious praise, absurdly declaring that “America is back” and that Trump played “leader of the free world.” When reporters savagely noted the Greenland-Iceland confusion, she offered a true knee-slapper of buffoonish damage control. We think it all exposed the scam at the core of MAGA in a fresh way. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://newrepublic.com/article/205528/trump-press-sec-goes-full-cult-reviews-davos-fiasco-turn-brutal

“60 Minutes” Disappearing Staff?

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Article in Daily Beast by William Vaillancourt, 1/22/26

Headline:  “Trump-Kissing CBS Boss Is Plotting ‘60 Minutes’ Bloodbath”

“CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss may fire two 60 Minutes correspondents amid their criticism of her leadership.

“Sharyn Alfonsi and Scott Pelley, each winners of multiple Emmys, could soon become casualties of Weiss’s overhaul of the show, sources told the New York Post on Thursday.. . .”

“Alfonsi, 53, and Weiss, 41, butted heads over the program’s delayed segment on El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-kissing-cbs-boss-bari-weiss-is-plotting-60-minutes-bloodbath/

Washington Post Raid on Hold

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Article in The Guardian by Jeremy Barr, 1/21/26

Headline:  “Prosecutors barred from reviewing material seized from Washington Post reporter”

Subhead:  “Judge issues temporary order after paper had sought return of Hannah Natanson’s devices taken in ‘outrageous seizure’ “

“A US judge temporarily blocked federal prosecutors on Wednesday from reviewing material seized when the FBI raided a Washington Post reporter’s home.

“Hours earlier, the Post asked a federal court in Virginia to force the US government to return electronics belonging to Hannah Natanson.

“US magistrate judge William Porter directed prosecutors not to examine any information seized at . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jan/21/washington-post-reporter-fbi-search

Journalist Says, “What’s Next?”

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Article in AlterNet by Amy Goodman1/20/26

Headline:  “Journalist says what everyone’s thinking about Trump’s latest rounds of chaos “

“. . .One month has now passed since Congress’s deadline for the Justice Department to release all files on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but the DOJ says it’s made available less than 1% of those files. And you see many people are saying, ‘Is he going after Minneapolis, saying he’s going to take Greenland, you know, taking the president of Venezuela, and possibly threatening to bomb Iran to take attention away?’ . . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.alternet.org/trump-distractions-epstein-2674914497/

Minneapolis Journalists Attacked

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Article in Reporters Without Borders by Staff, 1/20/26

Headline:  “Attacks on journalists in Minnesota cap Trump’s first year back in office”

“Federal agents and officials are increasingly targeting journalists in the state of Minnesota covering widespread protests against the government’s sweeping immigration crackdown. At least six journalists have been violently attacked by agents in the state’s twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul since the start of the new year. Federal officials have also threatened independent journalist Don Lemon with criminal charges for his reporting on a protest inside a church. The attacks cap Donald Trump’s first year back in office, which has been defined by his explosive war on press freedom. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://rsf.org/en/attacks-journalists-minnesota-cap-trump-s-first-year-back-office

Venezuelan Media – Same Old

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Carolina Abbott Galvao & Ivan L. Nagy, 1/16/26

Headline:  “For Venezuelan Journalists, It’s Like Maduro Never Left”

Subhead:  ” ‘If you have contacts or sensitive information that you’re not supposed to have, you could be thrown in jail.’ “

“. . .This is less a function of recent American interference than business as usual. Under the leadership of Hugo Chávez, through Nicolás Maduro’s tenure to today, official narratives have echoed across state-controlled TV, radio, and print media; authorities have declined visas for foreign journalists to enter the country; independent news outlets are banned and accessible only via VPN. In the week following the US incursion, police, military forces, and colectivos—pro-government paramilitaries—roamed the streets, cracking down on protesters, members of the opposition, and independent journalists. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/news/for-venezuelan-journalists-its-like-maduro-never-left.php

Searching Reporter’s House Portends?

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Article in Chicago Defender by Konstantin Zhukov, 1/14/26

Headline: “Searching reporters’ homes, suing journalists and repressing citizen dissent are well-known steps toward autocracy”

“The FBI search of a Washington Post reporter’s home on Jan. 14, 2026, was a rare and intimidating move by an administration focused on repressing criticism and dissent.

“In its story about the search at Hannah Natanson’s home, at which FBI agents said they were searching for materials related to a federal government employee, Washington Post reporter Perry Stein wrote that ‘[it is highly unusual and aggressive for law enforcement to conduct a search on a reporter’s home.’. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://chicagodefender.com/searching-reporters-homes-suing-journalists-and-repressing-citizen-dissent-are-well-known-steps-toward-autocracy/

Journalists, Don’t be Intimidated!

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Article in The New Republic by Felipe La Hoz, 1/19/26

Headline:  “The Crisis Year for Journalism Is Here”

Subhead:  “Journalists have an inherent right and professional duty to defend their industry and its mission against those who want to derail it—even when those threats are coming from the inside.”

“. . .In-depth reporting is difficult work. It’s not easy to unearth hidden information on the one hand and parse avalanches of it on the other—much of it offered in bad faith—on deadline, especially as newsrooms have shrunk in tandem with the growth and entrenchment of PR and spin. . .”

“As increasingly emboldened interests amp up efforts to buy, sue, steal from, and use official power to coerce the news media into submission, we have to embrace a self-defense posture that won’t interfere with our news gathering but will acknowledge that we can’t continue news gathering if we’ve been knocked over by the powers we’re meant to hold accountable. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://newrepublic.com/article/205099/journalists-right-self-defense-cbs