Media Politicize

Who Monitors the Monitor?

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Article in The Guardian by Margaret Sullivan. 8/9/25

Headline: “A ‘bias monitor’ for CBS News is a bad idea. Here’s why”

Subhead: “I was a public editor at the New York Times, handling complaints from the public. That is a better path than CBS’s one”

“For years before I became the public editor at the New York Times, I admired the work of journalists doing the job of holding their own newsrooms accountable to high standards.

“And when I heard that CBS News would get a position something like that, I thought – briefly – that this could be a positive development. After all, the network’s credibility and independence has come under fire after its parent company settled a frivolous lawsuit brought by Donald Trump. . .”

“I quickly changed my mind once I learned the details. This is not a traditional ombudsman but what some have dubbed a ‘bias monitor’ who will receive and evaluate claims of bias in the network’s journalism and report on them to the corporation’s president. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/09/bias-monitor-cbs-news

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Article in Poynter by Rick Edmonds, et al., 8/8/25

Headline:  “Opinion | Skydance and Paramount complete their merger – whither CBS News?”

Subhead: “New chairman talks about ‘empowered’ journalists; critic assails trading principles for profit”

“The headline-chewing Skydance Media takeover of Paramount Global was formally concluded Thursday. . .

Red the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2025/skydance-and-paramount-complete-their-merger-whither-cbs-news/

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Article in Status by Oliver Darcy, 8/7/25

Headline: “The Skydance Sidestep”

Subhead: “David Ellison admirably showed up to take tough, unscreened questions from a room full of reporters – but he danced around the biggest ones about Donald Trump. ’60 Minutes’, and more”

“Naturally, the assembled group of journalists didn’t ignore the elephant in the room, and the first was about Donald Trump. Specifically, whether Ellison, the Silicon Valley tech scion, had cut a secret side deal to air upwards of $20 million worth of public service announcements for causes Trump supports. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.status.news/p/david-ellison-paramount-trump-side-deal-60-minutes

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Article in Reuters by Deborah May and David Shepardson, 8/7/25

Headline:  “Paramount closes $8 billion merger with Skydance after settling ’60 Minutes’ lawsuit”

“. . .The merger was approved after Skydance agreed to ensure CBS news and entertainment programming would be free of bias, hire an ombudsman for at least two years to review complaints, and end diversity programs. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/paramount-closes-8-billion-merger-with-skydance-after-settling-60-minutes-2025-08-07/

Independent Media – Future U.S?

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Article in Reporters without Borders by Parteger, 8/8/25

Headline:  “ ‘Almost all independent media were eradicated’ in Belarus: after detention and forced exile, journalist Ihar Karnei speaks out”

“Ihar Karnei, a Belarusian journalist with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), has talked to Reporters Without Borders (RSF) about his ordeal for the first time since the Belarusian authorities released him on 21 July and forced him into exile. His account illustrates the regime’s total control of the media five years after President Alexander Lukashenko’s rigged reelection in 2020 and the ensuing violent crackdown. RSF reiterates its call for the release of the 39 Belarusian journalists still held. . .”

Red the full article at:

https://rsf.org/en/almost-all-independent-media-were-eradicated-belarus-after-detention-and-forced-exile-journalist

No News Media for Rural Areas?

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Public Media are NOT state-controlled media

Article in Common Cause by Staff, 8/6/25

Headline:  “Trump’s Funding Cuts Are Already Gutting Rural Public Media Stations Across the Country”

Subhead:  “Trump signed a bill cutting $1.1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, putting local NPR and PBS stations at risk, especially in rural areas.”

“Trump just signed a bill to cancel $1.1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, in a move that jeopardizes local NPR and PBS stations across the country, especially in rural areas.

“In their latest attack on public media, Donald Trump and his allies in Congress have cancelled over a billion dollars in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which finances NPR and PBS.

“While federal funding makes up 2% of NPR’s annual budget and 15% of PBS’s, some stations will be hit much harder by these cuts. Member stations in rural areas disproportionately rely on federal funding, since they have fewer donors and sponsors that can contribute to their operating budgets. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.commoncause.org/articles/trumps-funding-cuts-are-already-gutting-rural-public-media-stations-across-the-country/

Media Consolidation Threat

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News Release from Free Press by Staff, 8/5/25

Headline:  “Press Freedom Groups Tell FCC: Media Consolidation Poses Grave Threat to Independent News and Information in the United States”

Subhead:  ” ‘Allowing for even more media consolidation poses too great a risk to our democracy, and to the free press on which it depends.’ “

“WASHINGTON — On Monday, 16 leading press freedom groups, civil liberties organizations and labor unions urged the Federal Communications Commission not to move forward with plans to loosen media ownership limits before it fully assesses the negative impacts media consolidation has had and will have on local news and information in the United States.

Earlier this summer, the FCC asked for public comments on changing or eliminating a longstanding rule that limits the size and national reach of giant broadcasters — like Sinclair, Nexstar and Fox Corporation — which already own hundreds of local stations across the country.

“Our chief concern regards the impact further consolidation of media ownership will have on the independence of the nation’s press and the vitality of its local journalism,” wrote the groups, including the NewsGuild CWA, Free Press, Open Markets Institute, Reporters Without Borders-USA, the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Coalition Against Censorship, Project Censored, Writers Guild of America East and Writers Guild of America West, among others. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.freepress.net/news/press-freedom-groups-tell-fcc-media-consolidation-poses-grave-threat-independent-news-and

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Article in Common Dreams by Jessica Corbett, 8/5/25

Headline:  “Press Freedom Coalition to FCC: Don’t Ditch Checks on Corporate Media Consolidation”

Subhead:  “The 16 groups urge the agency “to uphold its obligation to promote competition, localism, and diversity in the U.S. media.”

“A coalition of 16 civil liberties, press freedom, and labor groups this week urged U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to abandon any plans to loosen media ownership restrictions and warned against opening the floodgates to further corporate consolidation.

“Public comments on the National Television Multiple Ownership Rule were due to the Federal Communications Commission by Monday—which is when the coalition wrote to the FCC about the 39% national audience reach cap for U.S. broadcast media conglomerates, and how more mergers could negatively impact “the independence of the nation’s press and the vitality of its local journalism. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-fcc

Constitution Not for All – Rt. Wing Media

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Article in Media Matters by Toni Lonergan, 8/5/25

Headline:  “Right-wing media’s campaign against due process for immigrants”

Subhead:  “Figures on the right falsely claimed that migrants don’t — or shouldn’t — get constitutionally protected rights”

“The Constitution guarantees due process rights for everyone in the United States, regardless of citizenship status, but as part of their ongoing effort to defend President Donald Trump’s mass deportations, right-wing media have repeatedly and wrongly insisted that immigrants are excluded from this constitutional protection.

“Some right-wing media figures have alleged only ‘nut jobs’ believe undocumented immigrants deserve due process, and some have claimed that even legal immigrants ‘have no rights at all.’ Others on the right acknowledged that migrants have rights but cheered at the prospect of taking them away, lamenting that constitutionally enshrined rights like due process and habeas corpus were slowing down mass deportations. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.mediamatters.org/immigration/right-wing-medias-campaign-against-due-process-immigrants

Captive Media?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Joel Simon, 8/5/25

Headline  “Is the US Media Captured?”

Subhead:  “The phenomenon comes in many forms. Experts believe it’s already here.”

“Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, who was born in Romania and today is a leading scholar of democracy, first observed ‘media capture’ two decades ago in Eastern Europe. The press there was not facing active repression. But it was far from free. Governments, she realized, were exercising control through indirect means—collusion and corruption. Captured media, Mungiu-Pippidi wrote in a 2013 paper, ‘trade influence and manipulate rather than inform the public.’

“Other scholars of media capture have since examined the phenomenon in different parts of the world—Mexico, Kenya, Hungary—highlighting government strategies ranging from manipulation of advertising to economic and regulatory pressure to the exploitation of informal relationships with media owners.  . .”

“The US government-funded Center for Independent Media Assistance, part of the National Endowment for Democracy, produced a video in 2019 describing how government cronies buy up struggling media outlets and bring them to heel.  . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/paramount-la-times-media-capture.php

Public Media – Gone Now

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Public Media are NOT state-controlled media

Article in The Guardian by Joseph Gedeon, 8/1/25

Headline: “Corporation for Public Broadcasting to close after US funding cut”

Subhead:  “Closure of public broadcasting group follows House Republicans’ decision to strip $1.1bn in funding over two years”

“The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced on Friday it will shut down operations after losing federal funding, delivering a blow to America’s public media system and the more than 1,500 local stations that have relied on its support for nearly six decades.

“The closure follows the Republican-controlled House’s decision last month to eliminate $1.1bn in CPB funding over two years, part of a $9bn reduction to public media and foreign aid programs.

“Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations,” said Patricia Harrison, corporation’s president and chief executive. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/01/corporation-for-public-broadcasting-closure

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Article in The Hill by Aris Folley, 8/1/25

Headline:   “Corporation for Public Broadcasting says it is beginning to shut down “

“The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) said Friday it will begin “an orderly wind-down of its operations” after seeing its budget cut through GOP-led legislation. . .”

“The CPB said most of its employees jobs would conclude at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, while a small transition team would work through January “to ensure a responsible and orderly closeout of operations. . .”

“Less than 5 percent of the nonprofit’s funding goes toward its operations, while more than 70 percent “goes directly to local public media stations,” the CPB states on its website. And almost half of its “total 544 radio and TV grantees are considered rural. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://thehill.com/media/5432389-corporation-for-public-broadcasting-shutting-down/

Subsaharan VOA impact

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Article in Reporters without Frontiers by Partager, 7/30/25

Headline:  “Sub-Saharan Africa: community radio programmes shut down, access to information in jeopardy after Voice of America suspension”

“Disrupted programming, journalists sacked from their jobs: the US government’s suspension of Voice of America (VOA), whose programmes were broadcast in all sub-Saharan African countries via over a thousand local partners, undermines access to reliable and diverse information. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns this major setback for the right to reliable information on the African continent, and urges the international community to find alternative solutions to remedy the situation.”

Read the full article at:

https://rsf.org/en/sub-saharan-africa-community-radio-programmes-shut-down-access-information-jeopardy-after-voice

Defending the Media

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Liam Scott, 7/30/25

Headline:  “Anna Gomez’s Lonely Fight”

Subhead:  “As the FCC’s sole Democrat, she’s been outspoken about protecting the First Amendment. Getting her way has been tough.”

“. . .Once Trump assumed office, however, Gomez found it hard to ignore the political aspects of the job. Within days, Carr announced on Fox News that he was opening an investigation into KCBS, a San Francisco–area radio station, for its reporting on ICE raids. Gomez was dismayed. “We are supposed to be this technical expert body that calls balls and strikes fairly and independently, but instead we are being weaponized for political retribution and ideological purity,” she told me. . .”

““I was growing increasingly alarmed about what was happening and what that would do to the freedom of the press,” she said. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/anna-gomez-democrat-fcc-paramount-carr.php

Slight of Mouth

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Article in Media Matters by Noah Dowe & Reed McMaster, 7/28/25

Headline:  “Right-leaning podcasters call out the Trump administration’s 2016 election claims as a ‘distraction’ from Jeffrey Epstein”

Subhead:  “Hosts of right-leaning online shows have called DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s report a “distraction” meant to make Trump supporters “stop paying attention to Epstein”

“Following weeks of outrage from right-wing media over the Trump administration’s handling of files relating to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard recently declassified multiple documents relating to Russian interference in the 2016 election, arguing they prove a ‘treasonous conspiracy’ to interfere with the results by Obama administration officials. However, hosts of right-leaning online shows — including many who helped promote President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign — have argued that Gabbard’s report and Trump’s subsequent rhetoric are a “distraction” meant “to appease the Trump base” and change the narrative away from the Epstein case. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.mediamatters.org/trumprussia/right-leaning-podcasters-call-out-trump-administrations-2016-election-claims