Media Intimidation

Stopping Reporting With Force

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Article in Mediaite by Michael Luciano, 10/10/25

Headline: “Border Patrol Agents Arrest Chicago News Producer and Ram Vehicle in Hasty Getaway”

“Masked Border Patrol agents on Friday arrested a TV producer for WGN News in Chicago, threw her into an unmarked van, and rammed into another vehicle as they drove away.”

“A video posted on Facebook by a bystander named Josh Thomas shows three masked agents pinning Debbie Brockman on a street in Chicago’s North Side as they handcuff her. Thomas asks her name, which she gives, before Thomas asks the agents, ‘You guys wanna share your names, too?’. . .”

“They declined. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/ice-agents-arrest-chicago-news-producer-and-ram-vehicle-in-hasty-getaway/

Nothing New at Pentagon – Move Along

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Ivan L. Nagy, 10/9/25

Headline:  “The Pentagon Doubles Down on Muzzling Reporters”

Subhead:  “Members of the press corps covering the Department of Defense say guidelines, newly revised, remain unsignable.”

“Last month, the Department of Defense issued a memo to reporters imposing an unprecedented set of restrictions on covering the Pentagon and setting a deadline for members of the press to sign a pledge of compliance. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/news/pentagon-doubles-down-pete-hegseth-muzzling-reporters-press-corps-policy.php

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Article in Axios by Julianna Bragg, 10/8/25

Headline:  “New Pentagon policy sends ‘message of intimidation,’ press group says”

The Department of Defense plans to enforce new policies that ‘appear designed to stifle a free press,’ the Pentagon Press Association said Wednesday.

Why it matters: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has faced weeks of backlash over a Sept. 15 memo restricting engagements alongside new requirements that journalists sign an ‘express agreement’ not to gather any information the department hasn’t officially authorized for release, or they risk losing access to Pentagon facilities. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.axios.com/2025/10/09/pentagon-press-restrictions-trump-journalists-ppa

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Article in The Guardian by Jeremy Barr, 10/9/25

Headline:  “News organizations hold out on signing Pentagon media policies ‘designed to stifle a free press’

Subhead:  “Trump administration has been accused of preparing to severely limit journalists’ ability to cover the department”

“With days left before journalists covering the Pentagon must sign on to a new set of guidelines to retain physical access to the department, major US news companies – and organizations representing their interests – remain concerned about specific policies they fear will stifle independent reporting on the Pentagon. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/09/new-pentagon-press-rules-trump– – – – –

Article in The Contrarian by Jennifer Rubin and Ned Price, 10/8/25

Headline:  “The Pentagon handcuffs free press and Gaza’s potential peace deal with Ned Price”

Subhead:  “The president could really care less.”

“In a deep discussion with Jen, Ned presents the dangers of handcuffing independent journalists to reporting solely Pentagon-approved memos. “Day to day journalism is so important,” Ned shares, designating the burden of safeguarding classified information on the Pentagon. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/the-pentagon-handcuffs-free-press

Media Consolidation & Intimidation

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Article in FAIR by Pete Tucker, 10/8/25

Headline:  “MAGA’s Little Helpers: Sinclair, Nexstar and the Consolidation of Broadcast TV”

“When Jimmy Kimmel made his dramatic return to ABC’s airwaves on September 23, I was eager to be one of the over 6 million who tuned in. Only I couldn’t, at least not on TV.

That’s because the local ABC station in the DC area, WJLA, is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Network. And the right-wing network refused to air the Jimmy Kimmel Show! on any of its 38 ABC affiliates. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://fair.org/home/magas-little-helpers-sinclair-nexstar-and-the-consolidation-of-broadcast-tv/

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Article in Mother Jones by Monika Bauerlein, 10/8/25

Headline: “Nice Little TV Network You Got There”

Subhead: “How easily has Trump rolled corporate media? So much more easily than he probably expected.”

“The most basic American freedom, the first one enumerated in the Constitution, the right to say whatever the hell we please, including and especially about the powerful, was no longer reliable—for a celebrity employed by one of the world’s biggest media corporations, and thus for any of us.

Read the full article at:

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/10/cbs-news-bari-weiss-free-press-corporate-media-nice-little-tv-network-trump/

Riding the Press?

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Article in The Hill by Max REgo, 10/6/25

Headline:  “Hegseth defends media restrictions: ‘The Pentagon press corps can squeal all they want’ “

“Pete Hegseth is doubling down on the Pentagon’s new restrictions for the press corps, arguing it will not change despite complaints from the press.

“ ‘I think the American people see things like that as absolute common sense,’ the Defense secretary told Fox News on Sunday. ‘The Pentagon press corps can squeal all they want, we’re taking these things seriously. They can report, they just need to make sure they’re following rules.’ . . .”

Read the full article at:

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5540286-hegseth-defends-pentagon-rules/

 

Journalism in U.S. Now Dangerous

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Article in The Hill by Michael R.Sisak, 9/30/25

Headline: “Federal agents grab and shove journalists outside NYC immigration court, sending one to hospital”

“Federal agents grabbed and shoved journalists in a hallway outside a NewYork City immigration court on Tuesday, sending one to the hospital in the latest clash between authorities enforcing President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and members of the public seeking to observe and document their actions. . . ”

Read the full article at:

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/federal-agents-shove-journalists-immigration-court/

Pay to Play?

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Article in FAIR by Janine Jackson, 9/26/25

Headline:  “‘The White House Is Shaking Down Media Owners to Get Them to Follow the Trump Agenda’:

Subhead:  “CounterSpin interview with Tim Karr on media capitulation”

“. . .And this is all part of a project by the Trump administration to basically control the message, to control the media. And they have been more effective in this administration than he was in his first administration, of figuring out where those pressure points are.

And those pressure points are often with massive media corporations that have business before government. They’re seeking approval of a merger, as is the case with Nexstar and TEGNA, as was the case for Paramount. . .”

And in order to get onto the government’s good side, they have to capitulate. They have to do whatever the chairman of the FCC, Brendan Carr, tells them to do, and whatever the White House tells them to do. / /”

Read the full article at:

Reporting Limitations at Pentagon

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Article in Status by Oliver Darcy, 9/25/25

Headline:  “Predicament at the Pentagon”

Subhead:  “News organizations face a looming deadline from Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon which is demanding they sign restrictive new rules, or risk being expelled from the building entirely”

Read the full article at:

https://www.status.news/p/pentagon-press-restrictions-pete-hegseth

Booted Off the Air?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Carolina Abbott Galvao & Riddhi Setty, 9/25/25

Headline: “Local ABC Affiliates Are Getting Slammed”

Subhead:  “Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, promised to bring power to community stations. But it’s their corporate owners who make the big decisions—while regional reporters and station managers take the heat.”

“Fewer and fewer local broadcasters are independently owned: “In the early eighties, it was north of fifty companies that owned or controlled 90 percent of broadcast media. And I think over the last decade or so, it’s become five or six, depending on how you break it down,” Reed Showalter, the former antitrust enforcer now running for Congress in Illinois, said. . .”

“. . .”Louis Wall, the president of Sagamore Hill Broadcasting, a privately owned broadcaster in Georgia . . . who considers himself to be “very supportive” of the First Amendment, has suddenly had to navigate a complex and often contradictory set of political, ideological, and financial concerns. “Broadcast is under attack from so many different mediums and video sources, we don’t need another piece of our armor or another piece of our programming to be lost,” he said.

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/news/local-abc-affiliates-nexstar-sinclair-getting-slammed.php

 

Flag Flying Over All Media?

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Article in The Atlantic by David Karpf, 9/24/25

Headline:  “The MAGA Media Takeover”

Subhead:  “Trump and his powerful friends are creating a dangerous moment for free speech.”

“American mass media has been transformed in these early months of President Donald Trump’s second administration. We’re about 35 weeks into a term that will last for 173 more, and in that time, we have seen a tech titan gut a once-great newspaper in an apparent act of capitulation to the commander in chief, government accounts gleefully spreading hateful memes on X (the far-right platform owned by a billionaire tech oligarch), a defamation lawsuit filed by Trump against The New York Times (and quickly dismissed by the judge as ‘superfluous’), and, of course, the assault on free speech carried out by Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chairman. Big things can happen very quickly. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2025/09/maga-media-takeover-tiktok/684351/

 

Gotta Catch ‘Em All

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Article in The New York Times by Cecelia Kang, 4/24/25

Headline:  “Brendan Carr Plans to Keep Going After the Media”

Subhead:  “While “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” returned to ABC on Tuesday, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission has promised to continue his campaign against what he sees as liberal bias in broadcasts.”

“. . .Driven by the belief that liberal tech and media companies have unfairly silenced viewpoints on the right, Mr. Carr is working to transform the F.C.C. from a once sleepy agency best known for licensing local TV stations and expanding 5G cellular networks into a protector of conservative speech. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/technology/brendan-carr-fcc-kimmel.html