Media News

News about the media.

WH Rabbit-Response Media Team

by


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/

Some Journalists Gain Access!

by


Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Yona TR Golding, 3/3/25

Headline:  “Wires Crossed”

“This move does not give the power back to the people—it gives power to the White House.”

“f you had asked me to come up with the most pandering question possible to put to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, I don’t think I could have produced something better than the softball lobbed by Breitbart reporter Matt Boyle at the Trump administration’s first press briefing, in January. “You laid out several of the actions that President Trump has taken,” Boyle said to Leavitt. “Obviously, it’s a stark contrast to the previous administration and a breakneck speed from President Trump. Can we expect that pace to continue?” (“There is no doubt President Trump has always been the hardest-working man in politics,” Leavitt replied. “This president did more in the first hundred hours than the previous president did in the first hundred days.”)

More of this fawning treatment, it seems, is coming soon. . .”

“It’s beyond time that the White House press operation reflects the media habits of the American people in 2025, not 1925,” she added, noting that the goal is including outlets that have been excluded in the past and “restoring power back to the American people, who President Trump was elected to serve.” In the first configuration, the wire service spots usually reserved for journalists from Reuters and the Associated Press were designated for conservative outlets Newsmax and Blaze Media.

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/wires-crossed-ap-reuters-new-media-press-pool-white-house-leavitt-softball.php

Right-Wing Media Hate Medicaid

by


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

 

Extra! Extra! Get Yer News by Algorithm!

by

Article in The Guardian by Lois Beckett, 3/3/25

Headline:  “LA Times to display AI-generated political rating on opinion pieces”

Subhead:  “Los Angeles paper’s ‘Insights’ tool comes after months of public debate between opinion staff and billionaire owner”

“Some Los Angeles Times opinion pieces will now be published with an artificial intelligence-generated rating of their political content, and an AI-generated list of alternative political views on that issue, the paper’s biotech billionaire owner announced on Monday.

“The new AI “Insights” feature will only be applied to a range of opinion content in the paper, not its news reporting, according to a public letter announcing the change from Patrick Soon-Shiong, the medical entrepreneur who bought the Los Angeles Times in 2018.

“he AI-generated tool “operates independently” from the paper’s human journalists, and “the AI content is not reviewed by journalists before it is published”, the Los Angeles Times noted in a summary of the new feature.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/03/la-times-ai-opinion-rating

State Media Control?

by

Podcast on NPR On he Media, by staff  2/28/25

Headline:  “The New ‘State Media.’ Plus, Podcasters Are Running the FBI.”

“Breaking from a century of tradition, the White House says it will seize control of the press pool covering the president. On this week’s On the Media, the new administration is prioritizing access for an array of far-right influencers and news outlets. . . ”

“Host Brooke Gladstone sits down with Anna Merlan, senior reporter at Mother Jones covering disinformation, technology, and extremism, to discuss the White House’s latest move to control the press pool covering the president. Host Micah Loewinger speaks with Brandy Zadrozny, senior reporter at NBC News covering the internet, to discuss the rise of Dan Bongino, from right wing podcaster to Donald Trump’s new pick for Deputy Director of the FBI, and his history of anti-FBI rhetoric.”

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

– – – – –

Article in Mother Jones by Anna Merlan, 2/25/25

Headline:  “Meet the New State Media”

Subhead:  “How the second Trump administration grants access and status to conspiracy theorists, propagandists, and far-right influencers.”

“. . . From the moment Trump returned to office, his second administration has prioritized giving access and status to an array of far-right influencers and news outlets, including figures with checkered pasts and thin or nonexistent journalistic credentials. In doing so, the administration has created a swell of flattering media coverage, a gauzy bubble around its every decision, no matter how destructive or incoherent. This new state media displays unquestioning loyalty, and its propaganda pipeline is speedier than ever, ensuring that every executive order or new move by the Department of Government Efficiency is greeted with rapturous pseudo-reporting the moment it’s announced.

As part of this new order, the White House press briefing room is now chock-full of conservative podcasters, influencers, and representatives of right-wing media outlets. Nine days after Trump reassumed office, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt took to the podium for her first briefing to announce that the White House would encourage what she called ‘new media voices’ to apply for press passes, including ‘independent journalists, podcasters, social media influencers, and content creators.’

“ ‘Starting today,’ she added, ‘this seat in the front of the room, which is usually occupied by the press secretary staff, will be called the “new media” seat. . .’

“This new crop of people who have been given extremely good access are not journalists.

“ ‘For the most part, this new crop of people who have been given extremely good access are not journalists in the traditional sense ‘ says Margaret Sullivan, executive director of the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security at Columbia University and a former public editor for the New York Times.

“ ‘They’re closer to propagandists than journalists,’ Sullivan adds. ‘I don’t know if you could call it ‘coverage. It’s positive exposure for the Trump administration. They’ll be part of a cheering squad.’ ”

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/02/donald-trump-press-room-conservative-media/

 

“Dice are Rolling, Knives Are Out”

by


Article in FAIR by Ari Paul, 2/26/25

Headline:  “FCC’s Knives Are Out for First Amendment”

“Brendan Carr, newly appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission, is waging a war on the news media, perhaps the most dangerous front in de jure President Donald Trump and de facto President Elon Musk’s quest to destroy freedom of the press and the First Amendment.

“Trump’s FCC has revived right-wing requests to sanction TV stations over their election coverage—complaints that had previously been dismissed by the FCC as incompatible with the First Amendment’s guarantee of a free press. . .”

https://fair.org/home/fccs-knives-are-out-for-first-amendment/

New Muzzle for the Media?

by


Article in The Guardian by Anna Betts, 2/28/25

Headline:  “Ex-Washington Post editor Marty Baron rebukes Bezos: ‘betrayal of free expression’ “

Subhead:  “Lauded former editor ‘appalled’ by billionaire newspaper owner’s overhaul of opinion section to narrow focus”

“Marty Baron, a highly regarded former editor of the Washington Post, has said that Jeff Bezos’s announcement that the newspaper’s opinion section would narrow its editorial focus was a “betrayal of the very idea of free expression” that had left him ‘appalled’.

“In an interview with The Guardian, Baron also said: .’I don’t think that [Bezos] wants an editorial page that’s regularly going after Donald Trump.’

“On Wednesday, the billionaire newspaper owner and Amazon founder sent an email to Post staffers announcing that the newspaper’s editorial section would shift its editorial focus and that only opinions that support and defend “personal liberties” and “free markets” would be welcome, and other viewpoints ‘will be left to be published by others’.

“Bezos’s announcement was met with criticism and resulted in the departure of the newspaper’s opinions editor, David Shipley. Baron, who was executive editor of the Washington Post from 2012 until 2021 and is one of the most esteemed figures in American journalism, blasted Bezos’s decision.

“There’s been a long tradition at the Post of having a variety of opinions on the opinion pages and that’s part of its heritage,” Baron said. ‘Bezos supported that since he acquired the paper, he advocated for that internally, but his most recent decision represents a real betrayal of the heritage of the Post and a betrayal of the very idea of free expression.’ ”

“Baron said that news organizations including the Post have traditionally honored the principle of free expression by allowing a wide variety of views on the opinion pages, but that Bezos’s decision on Wednesday ‘does exactly the opposite’ and ‘dishonors free expression, which is the most fundamental personal liberty of American citizens’ ”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/28/marty-baron-jeff-bezos-washington-post

 

Boxing With the Press – Not a TKO

by


Article in The New Republic by Staff, 2/26/25

Headline:  “Trump vs. the Media: He Won Round One, but He’s Going to Lose Bigly”

Subhead:  “A judge kinda-sorta found for the White House against the Associated Press. But Trumpworld is pushing things way too far.”

“The White House has been wrongly emboldened by Monday’s District Court decision denying a request by the Associated Press to immediately restore its full access to the White House press pool. The White House pulled AP’s access because the news organization continues to employ the term ‘Gulf of Mexico’ rather than Trump’s preferred ‘Gulf of America.’

In the wake of the decision, press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced a general policy of the White House determining which news outlets can staff the pool. The change breaks with a practice of over 100 years in which the White House Correspondents’ Association determined the press pool membership. New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker, one of the most eminent reporters in the country, wrote on social media, ‘Having served as a Moscow correspondent in the early days of Putin’s reign, this reminds me of how the Kremlin took over its own press pool and made sure that only compliant journalists were given access.’

“. . .The adjudication of the press pool exclusions will be a major test of the courts and not just district judges like Judge McFadden but the Courts of Appeals, where the issue will be decided. And if those courts, including the Supreme Court, fail to come through and issue lawless rulings upholding Trump’s tyrannical moves, our best hopes were already misplaced.

https://newrepublic.com/article/192015/trump-won-associated-press-media-lose

Drowning in the Press Pool

by


Article in The New York Times by Peter Baker, 2/26/25

Headline:  “In Trump’s Washington, a Moscow-Like Chill Takes Hold”

Subhead:  “A new administration’s efforts to pressure the news media, punish political opponents and tame the nation’s tycoons evoke the early days of President Vladimir V. Putin’s reign in Russia.”

“She asked too many questions that the president didn’t like. She reported too much about criticism of his administration. And so, before long, Yelena Tregubova was pushed out of the Kremlin press pool that covered President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

“In the scheme of things, it was a small moment, all but forgotten nearly 25 years later. But it was also a telling one. Mr. Putin did not care for challenges. The rest of the press pool got the message and eventually became what the Kremlin wanted it to be: a collection of compliant reporters who knew to toe the line or else they would pay a price.

“The decision by President Trump’s team to handpick which news organizations can participate in the White House press pool that questions him in the Oval Office or travels with him on Air Force One is a step in a direction that no modern American president of either party has ever taken. The White House said it was a privilege, not a right, to have such access, and that it wanted to open space for “new media” outlets, including those that just so happen to support Mr. Trump.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/us/politics/trump-putin-russia.html#

– – – – –

Article in the Columbia Journalism Review by Paul Farhi, 2/26/25

Headline:  “Will Others Dive into the White House Press Pool?”

Subhead:  “Given the expense of traveling with the president, Trump’s efforts to replace mainstream outlets with far-right media may fail.”

“From its semiformal beginning, in the late 1930s, the White House press pool solved a basic problem of physics: How could a lot of reporters have access to the president’s words and images when only a few of them could fit into the room he was occupying? . . .”

“For decades, pool members have been chosen by an independent organization, the White House Correspondents’ Association. Drawing from a list of volunteers, the WHCA organizes the print, audio, and TV pools that tail the president when he travels or speaks inside the White House. The White House hasn’t had a direct role, other than distributing the print pool’s periodic reports to thousands of recipients from a central email account. This noninvolvement was by design; it left reporters free to make their own decisions about who was qualified to report.

“The Trump White House now wants to blow all that up. . . ”

https://www.cjr.org/political_press/white-house-press-pool-far-right-friendly-media-expense-travel-president.php