Media News

News about the media.

Media Can Upset Fragile People

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Article in The Washington Post by Eric Wemple, 3/23/25

Headline:  “The Justice Department’s new argument: Trump is a snowflake”

“Why did Trump boot the Associated Press from the White House press pool? That’s an easy one.”

“President Donald Trump defaulted to his usual spiel when he discussed the expulsion of the Associated Press from the White House press pool. The wire service’s Stylebook declined to adopt Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the ‘Gulf of America.’  ‘It’s called the Gulf of America now; it’s not called the Gulf of Mexico any longer,’ said Trump in a Feb. 18 news conference, a week after the expulsion.

“Piling on, the president also said that the AP has been ‘very, very wrong on the election, on Trump and the treatment of Trump,’ an apparent reference to his defeat in the 2020 election. That, of course, was a lie.

“The truth behind the sidelining of the AP, however, emerged from a hearing last Thursday at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In that charged forum, a Justice Department lawyer argued that Trump was a snowflake who needed safe spaces, free from entities like the fearsome AP. . . ”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/04/23/trump-ap-autonomy-access/

 

No Journalistic Independence Now

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Article in The Guardian by Leonie Chao-Fong, 4/22/24

Headline:  “60 Minutes executive producer leaves program over journalistic independence”

Subhead:  Bill Owens says in staff memo ‘it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it’ “

“Bill Owens, the executive producer of 60 Minutes, says he is leaving the flagship news program because he lost his journalistic independence.

“In a staff memo obtained by the New York Times, Owens said that ‘over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to . run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience’ . . .”

“He said the show will continue to cover the new Trump administration, adding: ‘The show is too important to the country. It has to continue, just not with me as the executive producer.’ ”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/22/60-minutes-executive-producer-leaves-bill-owens

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Article in Mediaite by Michael Luciano, 4/22/25

Headline: “Tapper Rips CBS Owner for 60 Minutes Shakeup Amid Trump Pressure: ‘Hope the Money’s Worth It, Shari’ “

“CNN’s Jake Tapper pilloried the controlling owner of CBS’s parent company after the departure of the executive producer of 60 Minutes on Tuesday.

“President Donald Trump is suing CBS over an interview 60 Minutes conducted last year with then-vice president Kamala Harris after she secured the Democratic presidential nomination. CBS aired two different parts of a response Harris gave to a question. One part of the response was in a teaser for the show, and the other was aired on the show itself.

“ ‘The president alleges that editing the 60 Minutes interview and running two different answers to the same question helped Vice President Harris and amounted to electoral fraud,’ Tapper explained on Tuesday’s edition of The Lead. ‘In reality, this is just editorial discretion. Editors do it all the time with recorded interviews, including all the time with taped interviews by Fox [News]’. . .”

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/tapper-rips-cbs-owner-after-60-minutes-shakeup-amid-trump-pressure-hope-the-moneys-worth-it-shari/

 

Media and the Vatican

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Jon Alsop, 4/21/25

Headline:  “The Pope and the Press”

“In late February, with Pope Francis critically ill in the hospital, CJR’s Sacha Biazzo spoke with members of the Vaticanisti, the Italian term for the press corps that covers the pope.. .”

“From his early days as pope, however, he appeared to be savvy about countering negative narratives while, intentionally or not, cultivating an image as a common man (by doing things precisely like canceling his own newspaper subscription); he didn’t put the papacy on Twitter—that was Benedict, at the very end of his tenure—but as the years rolled by, he harnessed it as he ‘revolutionized the Vatican’s media strategy with his direct and personal approach to communication,’ as my colleague Biazzo put it, “making him one of the most accessible popes in history. . . .”

“In 2018, he made a major intervention on “fake news,” which he likened to the serpent in the Garden of Eden; his analysis, the Times wrote at the time, was partially “questionable,” not least in its apparent conflation of disinformation with “an incremental and sensational style of journalism he dislikes,” but otherwise “offered a largely cleareyed assessment of the problem, its social impact, and the responsibility of social media giants and journalists. . .”

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/pope_death_journalists_media.php

Media Not Covering The Resistance?

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Article by in the Washington Post by Erik Wemple, 4/18/25

Headline:  “Heard the resistance was dead? You’ve been reading too much.”

Subhead:  “The zone might be flooded, but an anti-Trump protest movement is well underway.”

“. . .the civil rights protests that followed the murder of George Floyd in 2020 appropriately made front pages across the country. The current mobilization has not reached that level. It’s still robust, yet ‘you can barely find word of it in the major outlets,’ said Chenoweth, a Harvard Kennedy School professor and founding co-director of the Crowd Counting Consortium.

“. . .“People are turning to noncorporate podcasts in the media space and influencers on social media because they can’t trust what they read in the Washington Post or the New York Times anymore,” said Levin, who rips the papers for not having placed their April 5 protest stories on the front page.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/04/18/anti-trump-protests-resistance-media/

When You Jilt Your Media Fans

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Article in Politico by Michael Kruse, 4/18/25

Headline:  ” Trump’s Most Important Relationship Is Ending. And the Break-Up Isn’t Pretty.”

Subhead:  “For a half-century Trump and the mainstream media have mutually benefited from a stormy symbiosis. Why is he trying to kill the institution that made him?”

“. . .“I’m thinking seriously of running for president,” Trump said. “Why aren’t you writing about me?”

“ ‘He knew that you couldn’t be a serious presidential candidate in this country at that time unless your name showed up in every newspaper in the country,’ Fournier told me. ‘And if the AP wrote about you, that’s what would happen,’ he said.

“Trump used to court the AP. Today he’s in court with the AP — key members of Trump’s administration are defendants in a lawsuit filed by the flagship wire service after he booted its reporters from the Oval Office and Air Force One for not following his order to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. . .”

Because his relationship with the media is his most important relationship. More than his three wives — more than any business partners — Trump’s symbiotic relationship with the media helped him craft an identity that has fueled every other achievement.

No longer. In the wake of his election last fall and at the outset of his second presidential term, Trump has turned his performative anti-media schtick into actual anti-media deeds. Wielding lawsuits, executive actions and the unleashing of allies and aides, he’s attempting to starve, squelch or shutter network television stations, global news agencies and reporters in Washington and beyond — a roster of targets ranging from ABC to CBS to NPR to the publication you’re reading right now. . .”

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/04/18/trump-media-history-ap-apprentice-00271192

Bot Journalists are Here!

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Article in Poynter by J.J. Thomson, et al, 4/17/25

Headline:  “What news audiences can teach journalists about artificial intelligence”

Subhead:  “Generative AI is changing journalism. Audiences have clear expectations for how it’s used.”

“As generative artificial intelligence shows up in more corners of public and private life, newsrooms should be talking with their staff about how they’re using it — and keeping audiences in the loop as those practices shift. Just as important: listening to how audiences experience and react to AI in journalism to help guide the industry forward. . .”

https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2025/want-news-readers-want-ai/

 

Rt, Wing Listeners Flying Away

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Article in Media Matters by Gideon Taaffem 4/17/25

Headline:  “Callers to conservative radio shows voice their displeasure with Trump’s tariffs”

Subhead:  “Caller: ‘To me, this is just reckless, and I’m so angry. I’ll be darned if I’ll vote for another Republican again.’ ”

“Conservative radio listeners have been vocal about their displeasure as President Donald Trump’s tariffs created economic uncertainty and sent stock markets plunging.

“Though many right-wing media figures have dismissed the stock market volatility and praised Trump’s tariff policy, some listeners of right-wing radio shows were displeased, calling in to pronounce it ‘reckless,’ ‘sloppy,’ and ‘the single biggest, dumbest move in political history’. . .”

https://www.mediamatters.org/tariffs-trade/callers-conservative-radio-shows-voice-their-displeasure-trumps-tariffs

Media – Acid or Base?

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Article in Mediaite by Alex Griffing, 4/17/25

Headline:  “The Abrego Garcia Saga Is a Litmus Test For Media Figures”

“As President Donald Trump flirts with defying a Supreme Court order to help return a migrant that his administration admitted it deported and indefinitely imprisoned in El Salvador by ‘error,’ the media is faced with one of its easiest litmus tests in years: does due process and the rule of law matter in America?

“Many are failing. . .”

https://www.mediaite.com/opinion/the-abrego-garcia-saga-is-a-litmus-test-for-media-figures/

 

 

Media Deals in the Works?

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Article in the Washington Post by Eric Wemple, 4/14/25

Headline:  “Has the media made any deals with Trump?  I answered your questions”

Subhead:   “From Erik’s Q&A on the media with readers from  Monday, April 14”

“Are the DOGE job losses similar to the newspaper industry’s?

“I’m a former newspaper executive who faced laying off my share of staffer for almost a decade. The DOGE cuts have felt eerily similar to the news industry’s cuts and have left me feeling uneasy about my former role. Tell me if I’m right for feeling guilty or tell me what are the differences  between DOGE tactics and the news industry’s? . . .”

Rt. Wing Media Find Fault

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Update:

Article in The Verge by Sato, 4/16/25

Hedline:  “Tariffs are splitting even Trump’s loudest boosters.”

“At least somewhat. Media Matters analyzed top podcasters aligned with Donald Trump and found that while most covered his tariff policy positively, there are signs of fracturing. Ben Shapiro and Joe Rogan are among the right wing influencers who’ve criticized Trump’s trade war in recent weeks. . .”

https://www.theverge.com/news/650096/tariffs-are-splitting-even-trumps-loudest-boosters

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Article in Media Matters by Zachary Pleat4/14/25

Headline:  “MAGA media knives are out for Trump’s tariff advisers”

Subhead:  “Trump supporters are blaming some of Trump’s economic appointees — instead of Trump — for confusion and general turmoil over his tariff”

“Numerous right-wing media figures are placing blame for the chaos and confusion over Trump’s ‘reciprocal’ tariffs on two of his top economic appointees — senior trade adviser Peter Navarro and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — rather than on Trump himself. . . .”

“Pro-Trump media figures on Fox and elsewhere have been blaming Lutnick and Navarro for tariff-related confusion over the past week . . .”

https://www.mediamatters.org/tariffs-trade/maga-media-knives-are-out-trumps-tariff-advisers