Press Freedom

Authoritarians Hate Free Speech

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Daniel Golden, 8/4/25

Headline:  “Joseph McCarthy’s War on Voice of America”

Subhead:  “A largely forgotten campaign of harassment and persecution from the 1950s that still echoes today.”

“In nationally televised hearings, Senate Republicans denounce Voice of America. They accuse the government’s international broadcasting arm of harboring saboteurs, misspending taxpayer funds, condoning anti-Semitism, compromising security by relying on foreign-born workers, and denigrating the country it is supposed to serve. . .”

“These hearings that gripped the country were not part of the Trump administration’s recent campaign against VOA. They took place in 1953, and the committee chair running them was none other than Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy, then at the peak of his power. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/joseph-mccarthy-voice-of-america.php

Where Legacy Media Dare Not Go

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Article in Comic Sands by Amelia MAvis Christnot, 7/28/25

Headline: ” ‘South Park’ Creators Reveal How They Got Uncensored NSFW Joke About Trump On Air”

“While speaking at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone revealed how they were able to expose MAGA Republican President Donald Trump’s alleged micropenis on the season 27 premiere of their Comedy Central cartoon.”

“The much-anticipated return of South Park—after a two-year hiatus—took on the show’s bosses at Paramount over the decision to settle a frivolous lawsuit with Trump over a CBS News 60 Minutes episode for $16 million. The move was criticized as both extortion by Trump and a bribe by Paramount to secure FCC approval for their deal with Skydance Media. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.comicsands.com/stone-parker-uncensored-penis

Journalistic Values Kaput?

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Article in The New Republic by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Steven Tian, Stephen Henriques, 7/28/25

Headline: “The “Tiffany Network” Shatters as Paramount-CBS Sells Its Soul Cheap”

Subhead: “The new, post-merger head of CBS donated to Biden—but apparently wants to make Bari Weiss a network star. How worried should we be?”

“The sellout of the Columbia Broadcasting System’s journalistic values to commercial interests was foreshadowed in 1976, in Sidney Lumet and Paddy Chayefsky’s dark comedy satire Network; in James Brooks’s 1987 romantic comedy Broadcast News; and in Michael Mann and Eric Roth’s 1999 drama The Insider, explicitly calling out the revered CBS. However, it was insider Shari Redstone who completed the dreaded desecration last week.

“Surely the capitulation to President Trump by Redstone, controlling owner of Paramount-CBS, to secure Federal Communications Commission clearance to sell her dwindling media empire to David Ellison of Skydance and Redbird Capital was a moment of tragic irony. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://newrepublic.com/article/198492/paramount-cbs-sells-soul-trump-cheap

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

Legal Fight Against Corporate Media?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Kyle Paoletta, 7/25/25

Headline: “The Fight for Free Speech Goes Corporate”

Subhead: “As Paramount prepares for a merger, the Freedom of the Press Foundation stands to challenge the company for capitulating to Trump. Will it work?”

“Early this month, as soon as the news broke of Paramount’s decision to pay President Donald Trump’s foundation sixteen million dollars to settle a lawsuit against CBS News, the Freedom of the Press Foundation moved to take legal action. The FPF, as it’s known, tracks and resists government infringement on the news media. It’s also a Paramount shareholder, prepared to push for those interests with corporate muscle. Trump’s case, and the response of Paramount’s board, immediately set off alarm bells, as the company was in the midst of pursuing an eight-billion-dollar merger with Skydance, a Hollywood studio, that required approval from the Federal Communications Commission. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/feature-2/paramount-trump-lawsuit-settlement-skydance-merger-press-freedom.php

Goal: Bankrupt Opposition Media?

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Article in the New York Times by Kenneth Vogel, Kate Conger, Ryan Mac; 7/25/25

Headline:  “Under Siege From Trump and Musk, a Top Liberal Group Falls Into Crisis”

Subhead:  “Scrambling to pay legal fees, Media Matters has dialed back its criticism, trimmed its staff and contemplated closing entirely.”

“Media Matters, a nonprofit group that has played a key role in liberal politics, is struggling to withstand months of legal assaults by President Trump’s allies, offering a glimpse of what might be in store for even well-funded targets of his retribution campaigns.

“The organization, which is funded by some of the Democratic Party’s biggest donors, has racked up about $15 million in legal fees over the past 20 months to defend itself against lawsuits by Elon Musk, in addition to investigations by Mr. Trump’s Federal Trade Commission and Republican state attorneys general. . .”Read the full article at:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/25/us/politics/media-matters-musk-crisis.html

Rural Public-Media Freefall

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PUBLIC MEDIA ARE NOT STATE-CONTROLLED MEDIA

Article in The Daily Beast by Ben Sheehan, 7/23/25

Headline:  “What Trump’s PBS and NPR Funding Cuts Really Mean For America”

Subhead:  “Millions of Americans understand the value of public media—it makes us more informed and keeps us safe.”

“. . .American public media, as we know it today, has been a decades-long project. The government began funding it in 1967 through the nonprofit Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which then gave money to the Public Broadcasting Service (founded in 1969), National Public Radio (founded in 1970), and other nonprofits.  Until now.

“Last week, Congress voted to kill CPB’s funding for 2026 and 2027. Every Democratic representative and senator voted to maintain the funding as did Republicans Brian Fitzpatrick and Mike Turner in the House, and Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins in the Senate. Every other Republican voted to cut it. . .”

“Then what happens?

“For starters, local news coverage would decline further. (To be clear, it’s already in a state of freefall.) PBS and NPR affiliates, in many cases, are the best local news option. It’s not ‘woke’ programming that will die from these cuts, but oversight of your county, city, town, and neighborhood. Of your sheriff, district attorney, county executive, mayor, city council and school board—the people with the most impact on your day-to-day life. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-trumps-pbs-and-npr-funding-cuts-really-mean-for-america/

Probing Questions? Hang Up!

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Article in AlterNet by Carl Gibson, 7/22/25

Headline:  “ ‘Got to be kidding’: Trump abruptly hangs up on CNN when asked about new Epstein photos”

“Previously unseen photos of President Donald Trump and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein were released by CNN on Tuesday night, and he has yet to answer the network’s questions about them. . . ”

“According to CNN reporters Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck, the president put a quick end to a phone call the moment he was asked about the photos of him and Epstein at Trump’s wedding to Marla Maples in 1993 at New York’s Plaza Hotel. The network also published footage of Trump and Epstein smiling and laughing with each other during a 1999 Victoria’s Secret fashion show. The new photos and video took place several years before Epstein’s first conviction.

“In a brief call with CNN on Tuesday, President Trump, asked about the wedding photos, responded, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ before repeatedly calling CNN ‘fake news’ and hanging up,” Kaczynski and Steck wrote. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.alternet.org/trump-epstein-photos-2673663251/

Can Journalism Survive Alone?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Hamilton Nolan, 7/22/25

Headline:  “Journalism Needs Government Funding to Survive”

Subhead:  “The recent cuts to public media are part of a broader attack on public welfare.”

“Last week’s decision by Republicans in Congress to eliminate government funding for public media blows a billion-dollar hole in the budgets of local news stations across America. While NPR and PBS will survive, the existence of small broadcasters in rural, red-state news deserts is now endangered. In at least one sense, however, this attack on the public’s right to news will have a unifying function. Journalists, citizens, and civil society as a whole—red, blue, or striped—can be assured that we are all riding a pendulum swinging at terrifying speed in the wrong direction.

“If we want to see a robust level of news reporting exist in this nation—comparable to what we had in the twentieth century—we will need public funding for journalism. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/journalism-needs-government-funding-to-survive.php