Media Intimidation

“60 Minutes” Fallout

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Article in Status by Oliver Darcy, 5/19/25

Headline:  “The Showdown Over ’60’ “

Subhead: “For months, CBS News boss Wendy McMahon faced mounting pressure over the network’s coverage of Donald Trump—and over the weekend, it hit a crescendo.”

“On Monday morning, Wendy McMahon walked into the CBS News offices on the west side of Manhattan and led the network’s daily editorial meeting as she always did. She congratulated “60 Minutes” on a standout season, acknowledged the unusual circumstances the newsmagazine had navigated, and went over programming plans. What she didn’t mention was that it would be one of her final days at the network. That came soon after, in a memo that stunned staffers across CBS News and sent a jolt through the broader media industry.

McMahon told staffers she was resigning from her role as president and chief executive of CBS News and Stations—a decision she’d quietly finalized over the weekend after a bruising, weeks-long battle with the company’s top brass. . .”

Read the fullarticle at:

https://www.status.news/p/cbs-news-60-minutes-wendy-mcmahon

Stopping Blackmail by Paying?

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Article in The Hill by Dominick Mastrangelo, 5/19/25

Headline:  “Trump threatens ABC News over Qatar jet coverage”

“President Trump is threatening ABC News over its coverage of a luxury jet he is set to receive from Qatar, a decision that is drawing criticism from both congressional leaders and national security experts.

“ ‘Why doesn’t Chairman Bob Iger do something about ABC Fake News,’ Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Saturday, name-checking the Disney CEO who presides over the broadcast news network.

“The president referenced a multimillion-dollar settlement the network paid him late last year over comments made by George Stephanopoulos in which the ‘This Week’ anchor falsely said Trump had been convicted of sexual assault. The company retracted and apologized for the remarks. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5307218-trump-threatens-abc-news-qatar-jet-coverage/

Media Sources Not Confidential?

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Article in The Intercept Voices Staff, 5/19/25

Headline: “Attorney General Pam Bondi has opened the door to “subpoenas, court orders, and search warrants to compel” reporters to reveal information about their sources, warning that the Justice Department ‘will not tolerate disclosures that undermine President Trump’s policies.’ “

“. . .No journalist should go to jail for refusing to disclose confidential sources, but now news outlets like The Intercept face the risk of criminal prosecutions. Subpoenas, court orders, and search warrants must not be used to intimidate and silence media outlets from reporting the truth. . . .”

https://theintercept.com/

Journalism: Holding Feet to the Fire

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Article in Poynter by Tom Jones, 5/13/25

Headline:  “Opinion | Instead of answering legitimate ethics questions, Trump goes to his playbook and lobs insults at a reporter”

Subhead:  “He attacked ABC’s Rachel Scott after she questioned why he’d accept a $400 million jet from Qatar to use as Air Force One”

“Holding the powerful to account. That’s a key role for journalists.

“Among those in power are government officials. So whenever there is potential wrongdoing or misbehavior or shady business practices by our elected officials, it’s the duty of journalists to dig in and then confront those officials. . .”

“Journalists should press the president about whether it really is OK to accept such a gift from a foreign country. And that’s exactly what ABC News’ Rachel Scott did on Monday.

“Instead of answering these legitimate questions and explaining to Scott, to the media and, really, the rest of the country and world his rationale, Trump instead chose to attack Scott. . .”

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2025/qatar-give-us-plane-trump-ethics/

Media not Kowtowing Enough?

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Article in The Guardian by Adam Gabbatt, 5/11/25

Headline: “Trump complains the US media aren’t bending to his will. Aren’t they?”

Subhead: “Despite owners and networks forsaking journalistic independence, Trump continues to threaten journalists”

“In the telling of Donald Trump and his Republican colleagues, the US media is fake news, stocked with “radical-left monsters” who are guilty of “illegal” reporting on the president.

The reality is different.

Since the president’s election, a number of US news organizations have appeared to bend to his will, with a growing number of examples of billionaire owners seemingly setting aside journalistic independence in favor of staying in Trump’s good grace.

Despite that acquiescence, Trump has continued to threaten journalists, branding pollsters ‘negative criminals’ who ‘should be investigated for election fraud’ . . .”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/11/trump-media-journalists-60-minutes

Public Media Threat by the State

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Josh Hersch, 5/9/25

Headline:  “The Threat Is Very Real”

Subhead:  “NPR’s Katherine Maher on the fight to save public media.”

“Last week, Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for the end of funding for NPR and PBS. It’s the latest attempt by conservatives to cut back on support for public media, and in particular target NPR, which they view as having a liberal bias.

Katherine Maher, NPR’s CEO, says that perception is deeply unfair—and notes that the vast majority of the funding for public media goes to local stations, which are widely trusted across the political spectrum.

But the battle to insulate NPR from political influence is not easy—and, as Maher explains, it’s facing its toughest challenge yet. . .”

https://www.cjr.org/kicker/npr-pbs-katherine-maher-federal-funding.php

Local Small Stations Hurt the Most?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Andrew Mercein, 5/8/25

Headline:  “Rural and Tribal Public Radio Stations Brace for Funding Cuts”

Subhead:  “Small broadcasters fear they will be unintended victims of national culture wars.”

“Today, stations like KSTK (Wrangell, Alaska) are facing an existential crisis. Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to cease all funding to NPR and PBS and to eliminate indirect sources of public financing like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes hundreds of millions of dollars annually to stations nationwide. The move could wipe out funding appropriated through 2026 and 2027, endangering stations that already operate on razor-thin margins. “If CPB funding disappears, I don’t know how we’d survive,” said Cindy Sweat, KSTK’s general manager. . .”

https://www.cjr.org/news/npr-pbs-cpb-trump-public-radio-funding.php

How Dare They Ask A Question?

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Article in Huffpost by Lee Moran, 5/5/25

Headline:  “Donald Trump Flips Out At Wall Street Journal Reporter: ‘You Hear Me? What I Said?’ “

Subhead:  “The president melted down over a simple question on board Air Force One.”

“Donald Trump flipped out at a journalist for The Wall Street Journal on board Air Force One on Sunday.

“The journalist drew Trump’s ire after asking about talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid the U.S. president’s effort to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine over the former’s invasion of the latter.

“Trump asked which outlet the reporter worked for, a tactic he’s resorted to frequently during his second term.

“When told The Journal, he then railed: ‘That’s what I thought. Boy, you people treat us so badly. Wall Street Journal has truly gone to hell. Go ahead, yeah. Rotten newspaper. You hear me? What I said? It’s a rotten newspaper.’ . . .”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-wall-street-journal-reporter-question_n_681857cee4b08041c58c79f1?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=us_main

Student Journalists Under Threat?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Meghnad Bose, 5/6/25

Headline:  “A Student Journalist Covered a Pro-Palestine Protest. Soon, Her Graduation Came Under Threat.”

Subhead:  “A botched challenge to press freedom at Columbia University’s Barnard College.”

“. . .In early April, Georgia Dillane, a Barnard senior who works at WKCR, Columbia’s radio station, got a “fact-finding” email from Barnard’s Community Accountability, Response, and Emergency Services (CARES) that would eventually place her graduation under threat.”

“. . .Gary Maroni, the director of CARES, had written to each of them requesting a meeting ‘to provide any information you would like to share, including information that refutes any suggestion that you were involved, are a witness, or have information about this incident’ . . .”

“Dillane, Gamble, and the rest of the WKCR team were taken aback. “There would potentially be questions about what I knew as a journalist having an ear to what was going on, and they would try to extract that from me,” Dillane said. She didn’t want to violate journalistic ethics, or her sources’ trust. “I owe it to those that I report for, WKCR and its listeners, to be honest, truthful, and objective,” she said. “To pander to the calls of the administration to extract information to then target students is not something that I feel morally aligned with. . .”

https://www.cjr.org/news/student-journalist-columbia-covered-a-pro-palestine-protest-graduation-under-threat.php

Happy World Press Freedom Day!

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Article in The Guardian by Michael Savage, 5/3/25

Headline:  ” ‘A cocktail for a misinformed world’: why China and Russia are cheering Trump’s attacks on media”

Subhead:  “Today on World Press Freedom Day, there are warnings that US attempts to withdraw from promoting independent journalism will have far-reaching effects”

“As Donald Trump’s executive order in March led to the shuttering of Voice of America (VOA) – the global broadcaster whose roots date back to the fight against Nazi propaganda – he quickly attracted support from figures not used to aligning themselves with any US administration.

“Trump had ordered the US Agency for Global Media, the federal agency that funds VOA and other groups promoting independent journalism overseas, to be ‘eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law’. The decision suddenly halted programming in 49 languages to more than 425 million people. . .”

“It used to be that the US would put pressure on other countries for undermining free expression. . .”

“In Moscow, Margarita Simonyan, the hardline editor-in-chief of the state broadcaster RT described it as an “awesome decision”. The Global Times, an English-language Chinese state media publication, crowed that the broadcasters had been discarded by the White House “like a dirty rag”, ending their “propaganda poison’ ”

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/ng-interactive/2025/may/03/a-cocktail-for-a-misinformed-world-why-china-and-russia-are-cheering-trumps-attacks-on-us-media