Media News

News about the media.

Branding Journalists?

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Article in Poynter by Sophie Endrud, 8/12/25

Headline:  “Young journalists are told to ‘build your brand.’ What does that even mean today?”

Subhead:  “In demystifying this catch-all phrase, professors, media executives and journalists of all types weigh in”

“Eager young journalists flock to summer coffee chats and tell-all panel events, looking for the precise tools to jump-start long and sustainable media careers. Instead, they are left stalled on this loaded, ambiguous piece of advice: “Build your brand.” ”

““Suddenly, having your own presence online, and thinking about what your brand is and how that might help you land your next job or create the next opportunity, or just create some security for you in this crazy industry, like that stuff starts to become really important,” said Craig Silverman, co-founder of Indicator. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2025/young-journalists-are-told-to-build-your-brand-what-does-that-even-mean-today/

No Asylum for Journalists Now?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by David C. Adams, 8/12/25

Headline: “The Cuban Journalist Trapped in America’s Immigration Blockade”

Subhead: “José Luis Tan Estrada has been stuck in Mexico since May, locked in asylum purgatory.”

“In 2024, a new ‘Social Communication Law’ declared that all social media outlets are ‘socialist property’ and ‘cannot be subject to any other type of ownership,’ effectively banning independent media. . .”

“At one point, a Cuban asylum seeker might have been welcome on American shores, but Tan Estrada’s journey has been one of extreme peril, made worse by the Trump administration’s blockade on nearly all political asylum or humanitarian cases. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/jose-luis-tan-estrada-cuban-journalist-exile.php

A Trail of Radio Tears

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Article in Indian Country Today by Lyric Aquino, 8/8/25

Headline:  Tribal radio stations hit hard by federal broadcasting cuts”

Subhead:  “KWSO in Warm Springs is set to lose 40 percent of its budget, while other rural tribal stations across the U.S., which play essential roles in disseminating information such as emergency alerts and natural disaster updates, are facing similarly large shortfalls”

“More than $1 billion in cuts to previously allocated federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has left the fate of 59 tribal radio stations nationwide in question, including in the Pacific Northwest.

“Station managers note the integral role that tribal radio plays in the communities they serve, which are often rural, including delivering essential information such as emergency alerts during natural
disasters. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://ictnews.org/news/tribal-radio-stations-hit-hard-by-federal-broadcasting-cuts/

Impact on Native Americans

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Article in Indian Country Today by Kevin Abourezk, 8/2/25

Headline:  “Radio silence? Public media braces for impact of federal budget cuts” 

Subhead:  “Tribal communities will be impacted by $1.1 billion in federal budgets cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides funding to dozens of tribal community radio stations, plus funding cuts from the Federal Emergency Management Agency “

Article ins waves of snow battered the Rosebud Indian Reservation in December 2022, John Miller went to work alerting his community about closed roads, closed tribal programs and places where people could take shelter. Residents learned about the storm’s extent from the radio, which broadcast National Weather Service alerts, from people they knew and trusted.

Many residents of the South Dakota reservation lived in remote places that had become cut off by impassable roads, and some were cut off for as long as two weeks and ran out of propane to heat their homes. Miller, station manager for KOYA 88.1 FM, answered phone calls from people seeking help and directed them toward programs that could help. . .”

“Even though there were other ways people learned about the storm and where they could find help, many still relied on their local radio station, KOYA 88.1 FM, to provide them with constantly changing weather information and resources. . .”

“ ‘People may see media such as radio as something that is very dated, but it’s absolutely not,’ Edsitty said. ‘They are the first and foremost for these communities providing news and community updates, cultural programming, emergency alerts given circumstances that a lot of Indigenous communities experience’. . .”

” ‘Most of our stations are going to lose most of their funding’ he said. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://ictnews.org/news/radio-silence-public-media-braces-for-impact-of-federal-budget-cuts/

Media and Hands Off

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Article in Common Dreams by Stan Cox, 8/4/25

Headline:  “As Gaza Starved, NPR Coverage Grew but Didn’t Get Any Better”

Subhead:  “As conditions worsen on the ground, some establishment media have indeed increased their quantity of coverage, but few are expressing the heightened sense of horror and urgency that’s needed at this juncture.”

“Before the third week of July, when mass-starvation alarms finally started sounding, only a tiny minority of Americans were focused on the crimes against humanity that Israel was committing in Gaza. Common Dreams readers had long known what was going on, of course, but most Americans who depend on establishment media, whether liberal or MAGA, for their news had little idea. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/npr-gaza-coverage

Journalists in Danger From AI?

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Article in Yahoo! News by Thomas Urbain, 8/3/25

Headline:  “AI search pushing an already weakened media ecosystem to the brink”

“Generative artificial intelligence assistants like ChatGPT are cutting into traditional online search traffic, depriving news sites of visitors and impacting the advertising revenue they desperately need, in a crushing blow to an industry already fighting for survival.

” ‘The next three or four years will be incredibly challenging for publishers everywhere. No one is immune from the AI summaries storm gathering on the horizon,’ warned Matt Karolian, vice president of research and development at Boston Globe Media.

” ‘Publishers need to build their own shelters or risk being swept away.’ ”

Read the full article at:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/ai-search-pushing-already-weakened-013023862.html

“Good Friends”?

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Article in NPR by David Folkenflik, 7/29/25

Headline:  “Trump lawsuit against Murdoch and ‘Wall Street Journal‘ turns personal”

Subhead:  “President Trump’s defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and its powerful owner has taken a personal turn.”

In the legal filings — and on social media — Trump says he personally told media mogul Rupert Murdoch that the racy birthday greeting he had supposedly sent two decades earlier to the late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein had been faked and did not exist. Murdoch’s Journal reported it anyway, despite Trump’s warning.

Now, Trump is asking a federal judge in Miami to compel the man he once called ‘my very good friend Rupert Murdoch’ to answer his lawyers’ questions under oath within 15 days of the order. Trump’s legal team acknowledges that the ink is barely dry on the lawsuit — there is no schedule of court deadlines yet — but argues that Murdoch is unlikely to testify in person whenever a trial occurs due to his advanced age and health issues. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.npr.org/2025/07/29/nx-s1-5482955/trump-epstein-murdoch-deposition-lawsuit?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

Use Courts to Punish Media?

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Article in Vox by Noel King & Avishat Artsy, 7/25/25

Headline:  “Trump’s media war just got a $10 billion twist”

Subhead:  “It’s his latest move in an ongoing effort to silence critical news outlets and control the narrative.”

“President Donald Trump is using the courts to punish media outlets for publishing stories he doesn’t like.

“The latest example is a $10 billion lawsuit filed in federal court in Miami against the Wall Street Journal and its owners, including Rupert Murdoch, for publishing a story that described a sexually suggestive birthday card Trump allegedly sent to the late Jeffrey Epstein in 2003.

“Trump has made no secret of his disdain for the press. Even before taking office for his first term, he began dismissing the mainstream media as ‘fake news,’ and soon after assuming office he tweeted that the ‘FAKE NEWS media’ is ‘the enemy of the American people’. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.vox.com/today-explained-podcast/421116/trump-sues-murdoch-wall-street-ournal

Last One to Leave News Room, Turn Out the Light.

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Article in Poynter by Sophie Endrud, 7/28/25

Headline:  “The tragedy of local news hits the stage in ‘The Last American Newspaper’”

Subhead:  “Ken Tingley, former managing editor of The Post-Star in Glens Falls, N.Y., adapted his memoir into a two-hour play for Adirondack Theatre Festival”

“Over the weekend, the plea to save local news entered a new stage — the theatre.

“In four sold-out staged readings at the Adirondack Theatre Festival from July 25-27, Ken Tingley presented “The Last American Newspaper,” a play adapted from his memoir about The Post-Star in Glens Falls, New York.

“I think it’s a great message, and I think a lot of people believe in newspapers, love their newspapers and miss their newspapers,” he said. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2025/last-american-newspaper-local-news-theater-play/

 

Unlikely Free Press Ally?

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Article in The Guardian by Jane Martinson, 7/28/25

Headline:  “Murdoch v Trump: why the flawed media titan could be the final protector of press freedom”

Subhead:  “His companies may have hacked phones and broadcast lies, but Murdoch appears ready to battle the president to uphold editorial freedoms”

“. . .More than two decades later, is the crisis in the US media, one in which everything seems about to be lost, motivating Murdoch to take on the most powerful man in the world? It is as good a reason as many of those given over the past week for the fact that the billionaire whose Fox News channel has acted as a Trump cheerleader throughout is now, alone among US media titans, preparing to do battle in the courts.

“Trump’s onslaught on the US media – withdrawing federal funds, banning reporters and launching multi-billion-dollar lawsuits – has led once-renowned defenders of media freedom such as the Washington Post, ABC News and CBS to crumple, either changing their editorial policies or agreeing to apparently frivolous settlements . . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/28/rupert-murdoch-donald-trump-press-freedom