Media News

News about the media.

Robber-Baron Media?

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Article in The New York Times by CeciliaKing, Mike Isaac, and David McCabe, 4/14/25

Headline:  “U.S. Argues Meta Built a Social Media Monopoly”

Subhead:  “The tech giant went to court on Monday in an antitrust trial focused on its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. The case could reshape its business.”

“The Federal Trade Commission on Monday accused Meta of creating a monopoly that squelched competition by buying start-ups that stood in its way, kicking off a landmark antitrust trial that could dismantle a social media empire that has transformed how the world connects online.

“In a packed courtroom in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia, the F.T.C. opened its first antitrust trial under the Trump administration by arguing that Meta illegally cemented a monopoly in social networking by acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp when they were tiny start-ups. Those actions were part of a ‘buy-or-bury strategy,’ the F.T.C. said.”

https://archive.is/OKi9X#selection-751.0-767.46

Indigenous News Pioneer Honored

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                                                                                    ICT photo

Article in Indian Country Today by Staff. 4/11/25

Headline:  “A call to do more: former ICT editor honored by Harvard”

Subhead:  “Mark Trahant will be receiving the 2025 I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence”

“Mark Trahant, former editor-at-large at ICT, has been selected for the 2025 I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence for his 50-year long career in journalism and commitment to Indigenous storytelling. . .”

“Trahant directed the revival of Indian Country Today after the news organization went dark in 2017. He brought it back as a digital newspaper with a mobile-first approach in 2018 when it was previously owned by the National Congress of American Indians in Washington, D.C. Back then the newsroom had a staff of three and it grew to more than 30 employees in 2024. . .”

https://ictnews.org/news/a-call-to-do-more-former-ict-editor-honored-by-harvard

Check-to-Check Financial News

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Article in The Guardian by Zach Vasquez, 4/12/25

“Check-to-Check Business News Channel offers ‘financial news to regular folk living paycheck to paycheck’. Whereas the S&P means nothing to the hosts or their audience, other signs – such as ‘candy bars are up from ‘sure, baby, to “put that back” ‘, are dire signs. Meanwhile, healthcare spending remains at zero, while millions of Americans are investing in healthcare alternatives such as ‘just lay down, take an Advil, or just pray it goes away’.”

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/apr/13/saturday-night-live-jon-hamm-host

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAKznUoQa-I&t=9s

 

Rt. Wing Media Split?

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Article in Poynter by Tom Jones. 4/11/25

Headline:  “Opinion | Trump’s tariff chaos rattles markets — and conservative media is split”

Subhead:  “Uncertainty abounds after a week of stock market volatility, and many wonder about the president’s motives.”

“The big news this week, of course, was the stock market bouncing up and down like a yo-yo as Trump imposed, then paused tariffs on other countries. Oh, except for China — where the tariffs jumped up even more. Anxiety over that caused the markets to take a dive again on Thursday.

“So what are Americans making out of all of this?  Well, it depends on where they get their news and information. Conservative media, mostly, is  portraying Trump as a brilliant negotiator and genius businessman. They see him as the master of the art of the deal.

“Everyone else, and, yes, even a few in conservative media outlets, continue to watch an unstable stock market and rickety world economy and ask: ‘What is Trump doing? Does Trump even know what he is doing?’

“Once again, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board continues to be among Trump’s biggest critics when it comes to the shifting tariff policies. . .”

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2025/trumps-tariff-chaos-rattles-markets-conservative-media-split/

Money-Truth on the Radio

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Josh Hersch 4/11/25

Headline:  “Kai Ryssdal Was America’s Economic Voice of Reason This Week”

Subhead:  “The Marketplace host on Trump’s economic policies, and telling it like it is.”

“Kai Ryssdal has been the host of Marketplace, a leading daily radio show and podcast about the economy, produced by American Public Media, since 2005.

“He delivers the news—from the bitter latest on our 401(k)s to unexpected interviews about the modern-day resurgence of train robberies—with an affable, direct tone. . .”

“This week on The Kicker, Ryssdal explains what, exactly, just happened with the economy, and why he feels it’s so important for Marketplace to call it like they see it. . .”

https://www.cjr.org/kicker/kai-ryssdal-marketplace-trump-economy.php

Media Ecosystems

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Article in The Contrarian by Jeff Nesbit, 4/9/25

Headline:  “Here’s why Trump ignores traditional media: He has his own media ecosystem now.”

Subhead:  “And Democrats not only don’t have the same network, but they don’t seem interested in building one.”

“A recent report from Media Matters, a non-profit advocacy group that studies and reports on the state of media in America today, makes a stark reality crystal clear: The principal reason Donald Trump no longer pays any attention to traditional media outlets is that his presidential administration has the right-wing media ecosystem marketing content and messages daily to a mass audience reaching 100 million Americans every single day. . .”

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/heres-why-trump-ignores-traditional

Protest Coverage and Lack-of

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Sacha Biazzo, 4/9/25

Headline:  “Why Protests Against Trump Got More Play Overseas Than Here”

Subhead:  “European editors on how the news out of America drives coverage at home”

“If you were flipping through an American newspaper earlier this week, looking for news about the “Hands Off!” anti-Trump street protests that consumed much of the country over the weekend, you might have had a hard time finding it. Despite more than a thousand rallies at sites across all fifty states—including substantial turnout in Washington, New York, and Los Angeles—a number of major newspapers deemed the actions not quite front-page news, as several keen-eyed observers have noted recently, burying it on page eleven (the Boston Globe) or eighteen (the New York Times) or in a second section entirely (the LA Times). . .”

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/trump-hand-off-protests-coverage-europe.php

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Article in Fair by Julie Hollar and Jim Naureckas, 4/8/25

Headline:  “Corporate Media Minimize Massive Hands Off! Protests”

“After the biggest anti-Trump protests since the 2017 Women’s March, many major media outlets seemed intent on downplaying the size and significance of the massive demonstration of opposition. . . ”

“The Hands Off! protests took place on April 5 in 1,400 locations across the country, with solidarity rallies in Europe and Canada.  Burying the news . . .”

“The Washington Post (4/6/25) relegated protesters “across the US” to the Metro section.

“Despite the scale and significance of the protests, neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post had stories about them on their front pages the next day.

“The Washington Post (4/6/25) had a thumbnail at the bottom of the front page with the blurb “Metro: Thousands gather in DC as protesters rally across the US against Trump. . .”

“A Times blurb promoting the story in a roundup of stories about “The Trump Administration’s First Hundred Days” minimized the scale and seriousness of the event . . .”

https://fair.org/home/corporate-media-minimize-massive-hands-off-protests/

 

Foreign Journalists in Danger

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Article in AP by Didi Tang, 4/5/25

Headline: “Foreign journalists at US-backed media fear being sent to repressive homelands after Trump’s cuts”

“After hiding in Thailand for seven years, two Cambodian journalists arrived in the United States last year on work visas, aiming to keep providing people in their Southeast Asian homeland with objective, factual news through Radio Free Asia.

But Vuthy Tha and Hour Hum now say their jobs and legal status in the U.S. are at risk after President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order gutting the government-run U.S. Agency for Global Media. The agency funds Radio Free Asia and other outlets tasked with delivering uncensored information to parts of the world under authoritarian rule and often without a free press of their own. . .”

“ ‘It fell out of sky,’ Vuthy, a single father of two small children, said through a translator about the Trump administration’s decision, which he says threatens to upend his life. I am very regretful that our listeners cannot receive the accurate news,’ Hour said, also through a translator.

“Both men said they’re worried about providing for their families and being allowed to stay in the U.S. They say it’s impossible to return to Cambodia, a single-party state hostile to independent media where they fear being persecuted for their journalistic work.”

https://apnews.com/article/radio-free-asia-voice-of-america-trump-084045acb927d5cc2ddc46b61d59a692

Media? So-What?

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Article in Mediaite by Zachary Leeman,, 4/4/25

Headline:  ” ‘He Doesn’t Give a F**k’: White House Official Tells Washington Post Trump Has Reached Peak ‘Not Giving a F**k’ “

“President Donald Trump has reached the “peak of not giving a fuck,” one White House official told The Washington Post for a lengthy report on what went on behind the scenes leading up to the president’s massive tariff announcement this week.

“On Wednesday — or ‘Liberation Day,’ as Trump calls it — the president announced massive tariffs on imports from a number of countries. He’s maintained that the massive shift in economic strategy will result in better trade deals and a boost in manufacturing for the United States.

“The stock market has meanwhile taken major hits since Trump’s announcement as the tariffs have led to uncertainty among companies and investors. . .”

“The Post story — by Natalie Allison, Jeff Stein, Cat Zakrzewski, and Michael Birnbaum — cites other White House officials and paints an administration that is very different from the one Trump oversaw in his first term. Despite strategizing on tariff policy up to just three hours before the president’s official announcement in the Rose Garden, there was reportedly very little disagreement with Trump making the final decisions himself. . .”

https://www.mediaite.com/news/he-doesnt-give-a-fk-white-house-official-tells-washington-post-trump-has-reached-peak-not-giving-a-fk/

Bezos Loses Another Post Star

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Wikipedia photo, Grace Skidmore

Article in The Hill by Dominick Mastrangelo, 4/4/25

Headline:  “Pulitzer-winning columnist leaving Washington Post“

“Longtime Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson is leaving the newspaper, he announced this week.

Robinson informed his Post colleagues of his decision Thursday, he wrote on the social platform X.  “I’m retiring from my longtime journalistic home but not from journalism, and I’ll keep you posted as I decide what my next chapter will be,” he said.

Robinson has been writing for the Post’s opinion section since 2005 and in recent years has been a regular on MSNBC and other cable news shows.

He won a Pulitzer Prize in 2009 for his columns on the 2008 presidential race.

Robinson is the latest in a slew of Post opinion writers to leave the news organization as it goes through major changes to its editorial strategy and business under billionaire owner Jeff Bezos.

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5232097-eugene-robinson-washington-post/