Media Politicize

NPR Keeping Truth Alive

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Article in the Columbia Journalism Review by Bill Grueskin, 3/7/25

Headline:  “Under Attack, NPR Does Its Job”

“Brendan Carr, the newly appointed chair of the FCC, has made no secret of his antipathy for mainstream press—including NPR, which he recently alleged may be violating the law by broadcasting commercial messages.

“It’s an unusually timed claim, but as Carr made clear in a conversation with Semafor’s Ben Smith last week, he’s out for vengeance after four years of a Democratic administration in Washington. That’s why it’s all the more encouraging to see NPR stand tall with its tough-but-fair coverage of the Trump administration.

“One of NPR’s latest and most significant examples: reporter Stephen Fowler dug into many of the most absurd, multimillion-dollar claims made by Elon Musk’s DOGE group. He found error upon error—each of which pointed in the same direction of exaggerated or nonexistent savings for taxpayers. . .”

https://www.cjr.org/laurels-and-darts/laurels-darts-under-attack-npr-does-its-job.php

Fact Check Media Statements?

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Article in The Contrarian by Josh Levs, 3/6/25

Headline:  “Why all those Trump fact checks are too little too late”

Subhead:  “Many Americans distrust the media, largely because false claims have gone unchallenged for so long.”

“In the wake of Tuesday’s onslaught, mainstream news agencies—those whose leaders claim to be about journalism rather than partisanship—offered up fact checks. Unfortunately, these generally fail to make a dent in our political scene. I know because I spent years doing them both on air and online at CNN.

“To understand why these fact checks have so little discernible impact, we need to think about the different audiences. There are those who already dislike serial liars and would never vote for them; for this audience, these fact checks preach to the choir. There are those who adore or support the liar; for them, these fact checks fall on deaf ears.

“There also are millions of Americans who are not firmly in either camp and care deeply about the truth. Unfortunately, a great many of them have lost faith in large news organizations. . .”

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/why-fact-checking-trumps-speech-almost

We’re Watching Your Media!

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Article in The Register by Iain Thomson, 3/6/25

Headline:  “Uncle Sam mulls policing social media of all would-be citizens”

Subhead:  “President ordered immigration officials to ramp up vetting of foreigners ‘to the maximum degree’ “

“. . . On January 20 this year, President Trump signed an executive order calling for much tougher vetting of foreign aliens, and in response, USCIS has this week proposed rules saying all of those already in the country who are going through some process with the agency – such as applying for permanent residency or citizenship – will have their social media scanned for subversion.

“That means if you came to America before foreigners’ internet presence was screened as it now is, and you’re now seeking some kind of immigration benefit, at this rate you’ll be subject to the same scanning as those entering the Land of the Free today.

“What’s changed is they are seeking to extend the review of social media to non-citizens inside the US, not just people arriving in the country, as has previously been the case,” explained Michelle Mittelstadt, director of communications and public affairs for the Migration Policy Institute, told The Register.”

https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/06/uscis_social_media/

WH Rabbit-Response Media Team

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Article in The Washington Post by Drew Harwell and Sarah Ellison, 3/6/25

Headline:  “Inside the White House’s new media strategy to promote Trump as ‘KING’ “

Subhead:   “The Trump administration has transformed its traditional press shop into a rapid-response influencer operation, and “they’re all offense, all the time.”

“. . .The effort was part of a new administration strategy to transform the traditional White House press shop into a rapid-response influencer operation, disseminating messages directly to Americans through the memes, TikToks and podcasts where millions now get their news.

After years of working to undermine mainstream outlets and neutralize critical reporting, Trump’s allies are now pushing a parallel information universe of social media feeds and right-wing firebrands to sell the country on his expansionist approach to presidential power.

For the Trump team, that has involved aggressively confronting critics like Gomez, not just to ‘reframe the narrative’ but to drown them out, said Kaelan Dorr, a deputy assistant to the president who runs the digital team.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/03/06/trump-white-house-media-social-influencers/

Right-Wing Media Hate Medicaid

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Article in Media Matters by John Knefel, 3/4/25

Headline:  “Right-wing media lay foundations for Republican cuts to Medicaid”

Subhead:  “Steve Bannon and other right-wing figures are proposing drastic rollbacks to Americans’ health insurance coverage to pay for Trump’s massive tax cuts for the rich”

“Right-wing media figures have spent the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term urging congressional Republicans to drastically cut spending on Medicaid to offset the huge cost of President Donald Trump’s proposed tax cuts for the rich.

“The conservative pundits pushing this line have floated several policy options for the Medicaid cuts, including implementing work requirements for recipients or changing funding for the insurance program for poor people into a block grant issued to states. Many conservative figures also baselessly blame undocumented immigrants for driving up Medicaid costs, even though they are generally prohibited from accessing the program.”

https://www.mediamatters.org/health-care/right-wing-media-lay-foundations-republican-cuts-medicaid

 

“The Bell Tolls For Thee”

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Article in The Guardian by Margaret Sullivan, 2/26/25

Headline:  “Jeff Bezos is muzzling the Washington Post’s opinion section. That’s a death knell”

Subhead:  ” ‘I couldn’t be more sad and disgusted,’ says former top editor Martin Baron”

“Owners and publishers of news organizations often exert their will on opinion sections. It would be naive to think otherwise.

“But a draconian announcement this week by Jeff Bezos, the Washington Post owner, goes far beyond the norm.

The billionaire declared that only opinions that support “personal liberties” and “free markets” will be welcome in the opinion pages of the Post. . .”

“The paper’s top opinion editor, David Shipley, couldn’t get on board with those restrictions. He immediately – and appropriately – resigned.

“The ‘Gulf of America’ feud is about something bigger: Trump wants to control the media

“Especially in light of the billionaire’s other blatant efforts to cozy up to Donald Trump, Bezos’s move is more than a gut punch; it’s more like a death knell for the once-great news organization he bought in 2013.

“It’s unclear what will happen to such excellent left-of-center columnists as Catherine Rampell, Eugene Robinson and EJ Dionne. And it’s unclear to what extent this ruling eventually will affect the paper’s hard-news coverage, which so far has been unbowed in covering the chaotic rollout of the new Trump administration.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/26/jeff-bezos-washington-post-opinion

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Andrew Rosenthal, 2/27/25

Headline:  “From Marty Baron to Robber Baron

Subhead:  “Jeff Bezos is heel-turning the Washington Post opinion section into the realm of the far right.”

“I was as startled as most people when, in 2013, Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder, wrote a check for $250 million to purchase the Washington Post. Not because a rich man was buying an important newspaper, for that has always been the story of the American newspaper business. The New York Times, where I spent most of my adult life as a journalist, was bought in 1896 by a rich man who turned it into the first politically independent newspaper in the country. . . ”

I was surprised that Bezos, an investor in the Reason Foundation, whose professed libertarianism reads like an Ayn Rand treatise, said it was civic duty that compelled him. But let’s judge Bezos by his actions, I thought, and was pleasantly surprised that his first act was to declare that he would not meddle in the Post’s newsroom and that he would accept the decisions of the editorial board, whose positions, he said, reflected his own. . .”

“The descent from Bezos’s civic duty and the Post’s journalistic integrity was swift. . .

“About a week before the 2024 election, Bezos refused to allow his editorial board to endorse Kamala Harris. Bezos called this a “principled decision.”

“Leave aside for the moment how Bezos—who has about as much in common with the common voter as he does with the people who drive his delivery trucks—knows this apparent “fact.” Let’s just take him at his word. He didn’t want the Post to seem biased. . . ”

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/jeff-bezos-editorial-opinion-washington-post-personal-liberties-free-markets-right-wing-heel-turn.php

Covering the Messiah

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Article in Media Matters by Payton Armstrong, 2/27/25

Headline:  “Right-wing media cheer Trump’s anti-Christian bias task force after years of laying the groundwork”

Subhead:  “Right-wing commentators have spent years claiming that the Biden administration was ‘waging spiritual warfare against Christianity’ and that ‘the left wants to drive Christians out of the public square’ “

“A task force created by President Donald Trump to eradicate alleged ‘anti-Christian bias’ is drawing praise from right-wing media figures — some of whom have spent years baselessly claiming that Christians are a persecuted group in the United States, even though experts say there’s no such widespread bias.

“Right-wing commentators celebrated Trump’s task force as  ‘a cultural resurgency’ and declared that ‘this is the counter-revolution against their color revolution that occurred in the summer of 2020’.

“In one instance, Christian nationalist media figure Lance Wallnau joined Steve Bannon’s podcast to praise the task force as the first step in the ‘recapturing of institutions,’ . . .

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/right-wing-media-cheer-trumps-anti-christian-bias-task-force-after-years-laying-groundwork