Media News

News about the media.

Writers Debate Intelligence

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R. Crumb

Article in the Daily Beast by Janna Brancolini, 12/27/24

Headline:  “Right-Wing Media’s Hilarious Self-Own Over Tulsi Gabbard”

Subhead:  “Writers for the National Review are duking it out in print over Trump’s pick for head of national intelligence.”

“A writer for the right-wing National Review has eviscerated his own magazine for two editorials it ran in support of Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for head of national intelligence.

“The conservative-media stalwart had previously published pieces by former CIA counterterrorism director Bernard Hudson and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) arguing that decades of instability in the Middle East have eroded Americans’ faith in the intelligence community.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/national-review-right-wing-media-descends-into-hilarious-self-own-over-tulsi-gabbard/

Only Private Broadcasting in the Future?

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Article in The Giardian by Cecelia Nowell, 12/28/24

Headline:  “Trump’s threat to defund all US public media has NPR and PBS on the back foot”

Subhead:  “President-elect’s agenda and Project 2025 playbook align in stripping Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s license”

“On the campaign trail this year, Donald Trump routinely criticized US media. The president-elect called for CBS to be stripped of its broadcast license after it aired an interview with Kamala Harris, refused to participate in an interview with 60 Minutes and routinely called journalists the “enemy of the people”.

“But perhaps no American media has attracted as much ire from the president-elect as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting – a non-profit corporation created by federal law in 1967 to distribute funding to public media organizations like PBS and NPR. . . ”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/28/trump-npr-pbs-funding-cut

Voice of Trump or America?

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Article in The Hill by Dominick Mastrangelo, 12/27/24

Headline:  “Kari Lake sparks concerns at Voice of America”

“President-elect Trump has nominated GOP Senate candidate Kari Lake to lead Voice of America (VOA), a decision that is renewing worries of partisan meddling at the government-funded global news agency.

“Lake, who ran for governor and senator in Arizona and previously was a local news anchor, is one of a number of loyalists Trump has called on to serve in his Cabinet and administration.

“. . .But Lake’s attacks on the media and history of floating unfounded theories about voter fraud are sparking widespread concern that the outlet could be used by the federal government as a megaphone to push pro-Trump propaganda around the world.”

https://thehill.com/media/5048504-trump-nominates-lake-voa-concerns/

Defund Public Media?

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Article in the New York Times by Benjamin Mullin and Kate Conger, 12/27/24

Headline:  “NPR and PBS Stations Brace for Funding Battle Under Trump”

Subhead:  “Republicans in Congress have tried to defund public media for decades. With the help of Elon Musk, could they finally make good on their threat?”

“Elon Musk is gunning for public media.

“In his new role advising President-elect Donald J. Trump, Mr. Musk has floated sweeping cuts to the federal government, including the elimination of entire departments and the firing of agency leaders. One of the most concrete proposals on his list is eliminating hundreds of millions of dollars in annual funding that the government funnels to PBS and NPR stations, home to cultural touchstones like Elmo, Big Bird and “Fresh Air.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/27/business/media/npr-pbs-funding-trump-musk.html

Too Much News

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ARticle in The Hill by Ashleigh Fields, 12/26/24

Headline:  “Most Americans want to reduce political news consumption due to fatigue: Survey”

“Americans feel like they should increasingly avoid political news content, according to a study published Thursday by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research at the University of Chicago.

Their research found 65 percent of adults have felt the need to limit their media consumption about the government and politics due to information overload, fatigue, or similar reasons, and half feel the same for overseas conflicts.

Democrats were the demographic most likely to say they feel the need to avoid media referencing the government and politics, with 72 percent of party participants saying they avoid the topic in the survey.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5056424-americans-political-news-consumption-poll/

Legacy Media Clickbait

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Article in Daily Kos by DrLou 12/24/24

Headline:  “A complicit corporate mainstream media ‘sustained, resurrected’ and enabled Trump – because he sells”

Suhbhead:  ” ‘Never Trump:’ a sorry tale”

” ‘Trump was created by the media. He was sustained and resurrected by the media’ and is the ‘best hope of a dying cable TV business.’ I’ve been arguing these very points for years. The media, with special attention going to the New York Times, was directly complicit in helping Trump slither into the White House in 2016. The corporate media then did it again in 2024.

“The corporate Right mainstream media has enabled and continued to use Trump to create the stories THEY want to present. To generate clickbait rather than reporting honestly on the stories that are happening. False equivalent and ‘both sideism’ journalism have ruled. If Thomas Paine or Alexander Hamilton were still alive, the collusion and outright cowardice of American corporate media would kill them all over again.”

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/12/24/2293563/-A-complicit-corporate-mainstream-media-sustained-and-resurrected-Trump-because-he-sells?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

News Mis-informer Award

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Steve Mesler photo

Article in Media Matters by Matt Gertz, 12/23/24

Headline:  “Misinformer of the year: Anti-media intimidation”

“The role of the free press, enshrined by the Constitution’s First Amendment, is an essential element of our democracy. The public cannot become informed about the problems facing our country and the efforts to improve or worsen them without robust protections for journalism.

“But powerful people hate the light journalism shines on them and the dissent it can spur. A coalition of right-wing billionaires, Republican law enforcement officials, and an authoritarian once and future president are using wealth, lawfare, and government power to silence the press and carry out their political agenda unimpeded. And they are perilously close to succeeding.”

https://www.mediamatters.org/misinformer-year/misinformer-year-anti-media-intimidation

Journalist Afterlife

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Staff, 12/23/24

Headline: “Afterlife”

Subhead:  “Journalists who have left the traditional media on what they lost and what they gained.”

“At the start of this year, Condé Nast announced that Pitchfork would merge with GQ, and in the process laid off a dozen employees—or about half the publication’s staff. “Both Pitchfork and GQ have unique and valuable ways that they approach music journalism,” Anna Wintour, the chief content officer at Condé Nast, said in a staff memo at the time. . . .”

““It’s been a real learning curve, because, you know, I was an editor—I wasn’t really a manager at Pitchfork. Now we’re kind of all managers,” . . .”

https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/afterlife-journalists-leaving-traditional-media-jobs.php

Media Better Duck

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Article in The Atlantic by Jonathan Chait, 12/18/24

Headline:  “Trump Has Found the Media’s Biggest Vulnerability”

Subhead:  “Most major media properties are tied to larger business interests that can benefit from government policy—or be harmed by it.”

“Now that the election is over, Donald Trump has returned to one of his most cherished pastimes: filing nuisance lawsuits. Abusing the legal system was a key precept of Trump’s decades-long career as a celebrity business tycoon, and he kept it up, out of habit or perhaps enjoyment, during his first term as president.

The newest round of litigation is different. Trump has broadened his targets to include not just reporters and commentators but pollsters. On Monday, his lawyers filed an absurd lawsuit against the polster J. Ann Selzer, accusing her of “election interference” and consumer fraud for a now-infamous poll released on the eve of the election that showed Trump losing to Kamala Harris in Iowa. (The lawsuit also names The Des Moines Register, which published the poll, and its parent company, Gannett, as defendants.) An even more important difference is the behavior of the targets of his threats. Unlike during his first term, when they mostly laughed off his ridiculous suits, much of the media’s ownership class now seems inclined to submit.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/12/trump-media-lawsuits-vulnerability/681082/

Future of Journalism is Here

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Article in TechXplore by Megan Schumann, 12/19/24

Headline:  “Survey highlights public concerns over AI’s political and media impact”

“As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more prevalent, a new Rutgers University-New Brunswick survey sheds light on public attitudes, revealing widespread concerns about its impact on politics and the media, alongside an increasing adoption of AI tools in daily life.

“More than half of the respondents expressed worry about AI’s impact on politics (58%) and news media (53%), with researchers suggesting these concerns may stem from fears of misinformation and manipulation, particularly during the 2024 election cycle when the survey was conducted.”

https://techxplore.com/news/2024-12-survey-highlights-ai-political-media.html

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Sarah Grevy, Gotfredsen, 12/19./24

Headline:  “An AI Chatbot Joins Time”

Subhead:  “The magazine calls it ‘a pivotal step toward charting the future of journalism.’ “

“Last week, Time continued its nearly century-old annual tradition of choosing a Person of the Year, or an individual who, “for better or for worse,” has had the biggest impact on the world over the previous twelve months. Donald Trump, who the magazine said has perhaps played the largest role of any individual in changing the course of politics and history, was Time’s pick for 2024. Alongside its big reveal, the magazine launched TIME AI: a platform that consists of generative AI tools meant to assist people as they read the story. It’s a move that Time optimistically describes as setting a new standard for immersive storytelling. “It’s more than an experiment,” a Time announcement proclaimed. “It’s a pivotal step toward charting the future of journalism.”

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/time-magazine-ai-chatbot-openai-perplexity.php