Media News

News about the media.

Crusader Against Media

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Podcast on NPR by Plott Calabro, 12/4/24

Kash Patel’s Crusade Against the Media

“. . . Atlantic staff writer Elaina Plott Calabro, profiled Kash Patel in August, charting his rise to power, starting at the very beginning of his legal career. She explains how he came to loathe the media, and love Trump. Further reading: “The Man Who Will Do Anything For Trump,” by Elaina Plott Calabro “What the FBI Has Done, and Kash Patel Could Do,” by Jon Allsop On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today . Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

https://www.npr.org/podcasts/452538775/on-the-media

Media Stand Firm

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Article in the New York Times by Daisuke Wakabayashi and Su-Hyun Lee, 12/4/24

Headline:  “Martial Law Didn’t Silence South Korea’s Media. It Empowered Them.”

“Journalists criticized the president’s attempt to place the press under military control, hardened by years of challenges to press freedoms by the country’s political leaders.

“When President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea shocked the nation by declaring martial law, he placed news organizations under the rule of military command and outlawed “fake news.” It was a striking escalation of his long-running feud with media critical of his administration.

“But when faced with censorship by the military, the Korean press did not acquiesce. News organizations spanning the political spectrum — even right-leaning publications more aligned with Mr. Yoon’s conservative People Power Party — stood united in criticism of his actions and any efforts to limit a free press.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/04/business/south-korea-news-media-martial-law.html

Newsrooms Emptying Out

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Article in Mother Jones by Abby Vesoulis, 12/4/24

Headline:  “Watching the Media Reckoning Unfold in a Now-Shuttered Broadcast Newsroom”

“In about two weeks, nearly everyone in this Atlanta conference room will be out of a job. But tonight, on November 5, the Scripps News team has an election to cover.

“Nothing goes on the air unless it gets vetted through the control room, okay?” says Brian Donlon, a New Yorker who tempers his gruff side with wisecracks. ”

“. . . Like other newsrooms across the country, Scripps News was bracing for the worst—potential violence, claims of rigged voting, a deluge of disinformation. But it was also wrestling with its own reckoning: the unraveling of its national broadcast news operation and the imminent unemployment of roughly 200 colleagues”

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/12/scripps-news-election-broadcast-media-layoffs/

Throwing the Media Away

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Article in Meditite by Joe DePaolo. 12/4/24

Headline:  “Pete Hegseth Trashes the Media With His SecDef Candidacy On the Ropes: ‘They Smear’ With ‘BS Stories’”

“President-elect Donald Trump’s embattled pick to be the next Secretary of Defense — is going after the media, following a series of unflattering reports which have put his candidacy in jeopardy.”

“In a Wednesday morning post to X, Hegseth — a former Fox News host — attacked what he called the “BS stories” which have come out about him in recent days.

“ ‘I’m doing this for the warfighters, not the warmongers,’ Hegseth wrote. ‘The Left is afraid of disrupters and change agents. They are afraid of @realDonaldTrump — and me. So they smear w/fake, anonymous sources & BS stories. They don’t want truth. Our warriors never back down, & neither will I.’ ”

https://www.mediaite.com/news/pete-hegseth-trashes-the-media-with-his-secdef-candidacy-on-the-ropes-they-smear-with-bs-stories/

Guess Who Uses Legacy Media?

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Article in the Washington Post by Eric Wemple, 12/3/24

Headline: “Who still trusts legacy media? Fox News, that’s who.”

Subhead:  “At the same time the right-wing network is draining trust from legacy media, it’s relying on legacy media’s reporting.”

“. . .Nowhere is the influence of major news providers more robust, after all, than on the airwaves of Fox News. Across the daily schedule of the No. 1 cable news network, that influence is inescapable, with host after host citing stories from The Post, the New York Times, Reuters, CNN, Politico, Axios and so on — all outlets heavy with reporters who bring scoops to bear on topics dear to Fox News viewers.

“Gallup reported in October that a frightening 36 percent of U.S. adults have no trust at all in the media.. . ”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/12/03/fox-news-legacy-media-bashing/

Media Need Protection

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Article in Daily Kos by Max Burns, 12/2/24

Headline:  “What the Media Missed: Trump’s new war on the press”

“Viewers hoping that the corporate media had finally learned its lesson after nearly a decade of Trumpian manipulation likely came away from the Sunday shows disappointed, as anchors across the political spectrum devoted almost all of their time to breathlessly cataloguing Donald Trump’s unhinged list of political nominations.

“That was especially true over on “Meet the Press,” where anchor Kristen Welker seemed practically giddy while describing Trump’s plan to “shake up” (destroy) the federal government.

“Lost in the froth was any context for why Trump’s nominees are so dangerous—and why increasingly alarmed Senate Republicans could pose unexpected headaches for Trump’s latest picks. . .”

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/12/2/2289736/-What-the-Media-Missed-Trump-s-new-war-on-the-press?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_1&pm_medium=web

Talk Radio Slants One Way

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Podcast on NPR by Staff 11/29/24

Headline:  “How Conservative Talk Radio Came to Dominate the Airwaves”

“How did the right get their vice grip of the airwaves, all the while arguing that they were being censored? On this week’s On the Media, a look at the early history of American radio, and why, in the post-war era, the U.S. government encouraged more diverse viewpoints on the airwaves — until it didn’t. Plus, the technological and legal changes that led to the popularity of conservative talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh. [00:10] Reporter Katie Thornton explains how radio programming shifted from the 1930s to the 1960s, and how the FCC attempted to prevent propaganda on the airwaves.”

https://www.npr.org/podcasts/452538775/on-the-media

Will the Press Remain Free?

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Article in Common Dreams by Joe Queally, 12/1/24

Headline:  “Trump Picks ‘Deeply Strange’ Kash Patel – Who Vowed to ‘Come After People in the Media’ – for FBI Director”

“. . .Journalist Medhi Hasan, co-founder of Zeteo, said that while previously working for MSNBC he had done a deep-dive on Patel, during which he discovered just what ‘a deeply strange and alarming and sycophantic figure’ Trump’s pick is.”

 

” . . .Last year, during an appearance on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, Patel vowed that Trump’s enemies would be targeted if the former president returned to power. ‘We will go out and find the conspirators not just in government, but in the media,’ Patel said at the time.

” ‘Yes, we’re going to come after people in the media,’ Patel explained to Bannon, talking about journalists and others who he claimed ‘help Joe Biden rig elections.’ ”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/kash-patel-fbi

Something Wrong with Reporting?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Jeff Jarvis, 10/29/24

Headline:  “Why Are Liberals Infuriated with the Media?”

Subhead:  “From sanewashing to false equivalence, many readers have had it with their favorite news publications. Editors would do well to listen.”

“Even before the owners of the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post overruled their editorial boards and, without warning or explanation, spiked endorsements of Kamala Harris—triggering resignations of journalists, a public uproar, and mass subscription cancellations—liberal disappointment and anger with some of the largest national news organizations was already boiling over.

“Of course, the right-wing has had it out for the press across generations and continents, labeling news media Lügenpresse (‘the lying press’) or ‘fake news.’ Donald Trump has attacked and threatened the press. That is not new. Nor is liberal loathing of Rupert Murdoch’s bully pulpits, which act as political agents (though the Wall Street Journal editorial board just mined fresh depths, dismissing the threat of fascism as merely a meme and marking Democrats as ‘the national socialists’.

“What is new and striking is the current wave of grievances regarding political coverage coming from once-devoted liberal readers as well as experienced journalists.”

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/liberals-infuriated-media-cancel-subscription-editorial-endorsement-times-washington-post-jarvis.php

Another Journalist Abduction

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Article in Common Dreams by Jessica Corbett, 11/28/24

Headline:  ” Rights Groups Alarmed by Arrest of Pakistani Journalist Matiullah Jan”

Subhhead:  “Amnesty International said that his arbitrary detention ‘on trumped up charges after he was abducted in the late hours of November 27 is an affront on the right to freedom of expression and media freedom.’ “

” Human rights and press freedom groups on Thursday expressed concern after Pakistani journalist Matiullah Jan’s family said he was “abducted,” and then a judge placed him in police custody for a terrorism and narcotics case that critics call “bogus.”

” ‘Matiullah Jan has been abducted from the parking of PIMS tonight at around [11:00 pm] by unmarked abductors in an unmarked vehicle ‘ Jan’s son, Abdul Razzaq, said on the journalist’s X account . . .”

” ‘This follows his courageous coverage of the protests in Islamabad. I demand that my father be let go immediately and his family immediately be informed of his whereabouts,’ added the son, who later posted a video on social media.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/matiullah-jan