Press Freedom

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

Press Freedom Essential!

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Article in Poynter by Ren LaForme, 4/2/25

Headline:  “Max Frankel on how news became the oxygen of our liberty”

Subhead:  “In a foreword written after 9/11, the late New York Times editor captured journalism’s essential role — and warned what happens when we forget it”

“. . .only honest and reliable news media could instruct the world in its vulnerability, summon Americans to heroic acts of rescue, and ignite the global search for meaning and response. Only trusted news teams could discern the nation’s anxiety, spread words of hope and therapy, and help to move us from numbing fear toward recovery.

Here, then, lies above all the ultimate demonstration of the danger that Americans invited when they lost their interest in the world beyond the self and in serious news coverage of those other realms. Another generation has been awakened, summoned to recognize that dependable news occupies a precious but vulnerable place in our society. . .”

“News is not neutral. Like literature, the most important news dwells on stories of conflict, on the rivalries and casualties of life. Yet while conflict is universal, so is the human desire to avoid and reduce it. And so news also serves the armies of reform and implicitly holds out hope and a faith in progress. . .”

Since a free and open society is, by definition, a constantly self-correcting organism, it is constantly nourished by news that exposes flaws and failures and so stimulates debate about how to overcome them. News is the enemy of certainty, and therefore of tyranny.

https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2025/max-frankel-september-11-2001/

News is What They Make It

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Article in The Beast by William Vaillancourt

Headline:  “Jake Tapper on WH Signal Response: ‘Nothing Matters Anymore’ “

Subhead:  “Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt tried to wrap up the scandal, insisting that ‘this case has been closed.’  CNN’s Jake had more to say”

“Jake Tapper threw up his hands Monday in response to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declaring resolved the issue of top administration officials inadvertently revealing planned strikes in the Middle East to a journalist through a Signal group chat.

“Nothing matters anymore,” the CNN anchor said in a discussion with The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who wrote last Monday how he had been invited into the Signal chat earlier this month by National Security Adviser Mike Waltz.

“Leavitt told reporters earlier in the day that “this case has been closed here at the White House, as far as we are concerned”—despite no firings and no inspectors general from any government department launching an investigation into the shocking security lapse.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/cnns-jake-tapper-reacts-to-white-house-signal-response-nothing-matters-anymore/

How to Save The News

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A bronze sidewalk plaque on Library Way quotes Thomas Jefferson and features New York newspapers, Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2021 in New York. Jefferson is quoted, “Where the press is free, and every man is able to read, all is safe.” (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

Article in Poynter by Amaris Castillo, 4/1/25

Headline:  “Concerned about press freedom? Here are some things you can do about it.”

Subhead:  “Democracy needs a free press, and a free press needs support — here’s how everyday people can help defend it.”

“Freedom of the press in the United States is legally protected by the First Amendment, which famously declares: ‘Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.’

“Nearly three-quarters U.S. adults say press freedom is extremely or very important to the well-being of society, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center survey. But there’s been grave concern about the state of press freedom for some time. A separate Pew survey from 2023 found that 57% of U.S. journalists reported feeling extremely or very concerned about potential restrictions on press freedoms.

“ ‘We are truly standing at a crossroads in which one of the five freedoms of the First Amendment is under unprecedented duress,’ said Ken Paulson, who directs the Free Speech Center at the College of Media and Entertainment at Middle Tennessee State University. ‘We’ve seen, for decades, attacks by politicians on news media of all sorts. And it’s part and parcel of the relationship between a free press and those in power, but what we’re seeing now is much more aggressive and involves the use of government power directly against journalism.’ . . .”

https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2025/how-protect-press-freedom-support-journalism-first-amendment/

Investigation the Media “Investigator”

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Article in The Verge by Emma Roth, 4/1/25

Headline:  “House Democrats launch investigation into ‘bogus’ FCC probes”.

“In a letter to the FCC, Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee call out Chairman Carr’s ‘actions to target and intidimate’ media companies in violation of the First Amendment:

” ‘You have launched sham investigations into entities disfavored by President Trump, Elon Musk, and the Republican Party to censor journalists and news coverage. In the absence of actual agency authority and any real evidence of wrongdoing, your pursuit of these actions is clearly intended to punish and burden broadcasters and other media companies by inflicting incalculable reputational harm and excessive costs to defend themselves.’

“The Democrats are giving Carr until April 14th to respond to a series of questions about the FCC’s wave of investigations.”

https://www.theverge.com/news/641084/t

Media Roped?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Jon Alsop, 3/31/25

Headline:   “The Tug-of-War Between Trump and the Press”

Subhead:  “The media is vulnerable to Trump’s attacks. But that doesn’t mean it’s powerless.”

“Eight days ago, David Bauder, a media reporter at the Associated Press, published a story listing the by now familiar ways in which Trump and his administration have put journalists “on their heels” after only two months back in power, checking off a barrage of lawsuits and rhetorical attacks, the “newly aggressive” posture of the Federal Communications Commission, the gutting of the US-funded overseas broadcaster Voice of America, and the White House banning Bauder’s own shop, the AP, from events after it refused to start referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” in the stenographic way Trump would like. . .”

” On an episode of the New York Times’ influential podcast The Daily, Jim Rutenberg outlined how Trump is not only undermining the press, but circumventing it, as alternative right-wing outlets and podcast bros furnish him with unprecedented levels of “media cheerleading and support.” (The episode’s title: “Nixon Dreamed of Breaking the Media. Trump Is Doing It.”) In Vanity Fair, Joel Simon situated Trump’s efforts to bend the media to his will in the wider context of growing authoritarianism in the US, and argued that “anticipatory obedience is rife” on the part of outlets from the Washington Post to ABC News. . . .”

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

Buy the Media, Buy an Election

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Article in The Hill by Sarah Fortinsky, 3/30/25

Headline:  “Musk says he is giving out two $1 million checks to ‘get attention’ from ‘legacy media’ “

“Tech billionaire Elon Musk handed out oversized $1 million checks to two attendees of his town hall in Wisconsin on Sunday evening, saying the stunt is cheaper and more effective than paying for the same amount of media coverage.

“ ‘The reason for the checks is that it’s really just to get attention. It’s like, we need to get attention. And it’s somewhat inevitably, when I do this, these things. . . it causes the legacy media to, like, kind of lose their minds, and then they’ll run it on every news channel,’ Musk said on stage at the town hall, before giving out the large checks.”

“ ‘And I’m like, I couldn’t pay them to, it would cost, like, 10 times more… to get the kind of coverage that we get’  without distributing the checks, Musk said.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5222859-musk-says-he-is-giving-out-two-1-million-checks-to-get-attention-from-legacy-media/

Media Swirling Around The Anger

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Article in The Guardian by Adam Gabbatt, 3/30/25

Headline:  “Revenge is his number one motivation’: how Trump is waging war on the media”

Subhead:  “The president – who believes he has been treated unfairly by the press – is squeezing the media in different ways than his first term”

“On Tuesday 4 March, Donald Trump stood in the House of Representatives to issue a speech to a joint session of Congress, the first of his second term.

“Near the beginning of what was to be a marathon address, the president declared: ‘I have stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in America. It’s back.’

What Trump did not mention was that less than three weeks earlier he had barred Associated Press journalists from the Oval Office, because the news agency refused to use his preferred nomenclature for the Gulf of Mexico. He did not mention that he was waging lawsuits against ABC and CBS, nor that the man he appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission had ordered a flurry of investigations into NBC News, NPR and PBS.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/30/trump-media-attacks

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Article in Poynter by Anela Fu, 3/31/25

Headline: “As Trump attacks the press, many Americans aren’t hearing about it”

Subhead:  “Just 36% of Americans say they’ve heard ‘a lot’ about the Trump administration’s relationship with the media, down from 72% in 2017”

“From suing outlets to banning The Associated Press, President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has brought an unprecedented flurry of attacks on the media. But news about these events doesn’t appear to be reaching many Americans, according to a Pew Research Center study released Monday.

“The study, based on a survey of 5,123 adults between Feb. 24 and March 2, found that just 36% of Americans reported hearing “a lot” about the Trump administration’s relationship with the news media. Nearly a fifth said they’ve heard “nothing at all,” and 44% said they’ve heard “a little” about it.

Though national news consumption has generally been on the decline, those changes are slight and wouldn’t explain the dramatic decrease that Pew found, Shearer said.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans described the relationship between the Trump administration and the press as “very” or “somewhat bad.” Just 11% described it as “very” or “somewhat good,” and 22% said it is “neutral.”

https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2025/president-donald-trump-relationship-attacks-journalists/

Journalists in Danger

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Article in Bellingcat by Staff. 3/27/25

Headline:  “Shot From Above: The Dangerous Work of Drone Journalists in Gaza”

“According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least 165 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023. In fact, according to CPJ, last year was the deadliest year for journalists worldwide since they began documenting deaths in 1992.

Gathering aerial footage of Gaza is a dangerous task, and Bellingcat along with our partners at Forbidden Stories, Le Monde, Die Zeit, Der Standard, Paper Trail Media, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) and RFI identified several cases where drone journalists were killed or injured shortly after capturing aerial images.

The Gaza Project is a collaborative investigation coordinated by Forbidden Stories, involving more than 40 journalists representing 12 media outlets (Forbidden Stories, Paper Trail Media, RFI, Bellingcat, Die Zeit, Le Monde, France 24, ARIJ, The Seventh Eye/Shakuf +972 Magazine, ZDF and Der Standard) who continued the work of Gazan journalists and investigated about the threats and difficulties they are facing.

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2025/03/27/gaza-israel-palestine-shot-killed-injured-destroyed-dangerous-drone-journalists-in-gaza/

Progressive Media Activist Dies

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Article in Free Press by Timothy Karr, 3/27/25

Headline:  “Free Press Mourns the Death of Co-Founder and Scholar Robert W. McChesney”

“McChesney was the author or editor of 27 books, including Rich Media, Poor Democracy; The Problem of the Media; and Digital Disconnect. He co-authored several books with his frequent co-author and close friend John Nichols, including The Death and Life of American Journalism and Dollarocracy. McChesney was the president of Free Press in its early years and served on its board of directors afterward. . .”

“While McChesney spent much of his career charting the problems of the media and the critical junctures that created our current crises, he believed fundamentally in the public’s ability to solve those problems and build a media system that serves people’s needs and sustains democracy. . .”

https://www.freepress.net/news/press-releases/free-press-mourns-death-co-founder-and-scholar-robert-w-mcchesney

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Article in The Nation by John Nichols, 3/27/25

Headline:  “Robert McChesney, the Great Champion of Journalism and Democracy, Has Died”

“The academic and activist inspired generations of people to challenge corporate power and support a media reform movement that lives on.

“Bob McChesney, who died on Tuesday at the age of 72, first introduced himself to me almost 30 years ago, on the set of a public television news program in Madison, Wisconsin. Bob was a distinguished University of Wisconsin professor who was gaining an international reputation for his groundbreaking analysis of the threat to democracy posed by corporate control of media. Raising his arguments in books, speeches, and frequent C-Span appearances, he was well on his way to becoming one of the great public intellectuals of his time. . .”

“The program was framed as a debate about the future of journalism. Bob was positioned as the doomsayer, warning about how media consolidation was killing journalism. . .”

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/robert-mcchesney-obituary/