Press Freedom

Billionaire Media Owners Know Best

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Article in The Guardian by Emily Bell, 12/13/24

Headline:  “Can billionaire media moguls be trusted in Trump’s America?”

Subhead:  “The new gatekeepers use ‘trust’ to discredit the press and talk about removing bias with AI – distracting us from their own shift to the right”

“If we want to know what news organisations will look like under the second Trump administration in America, well, we are beginning to get an idea. At the Dealbook conference in New York last week, Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post and multi-billionaire founder of Amazon, gave a very favourable assessment of Donald Trump’s upcoming second term. “I am very hopeful … he seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation,” beamed Bezos. It was surprising, then, that the Washington Post did not endorse Trump in its pre-election editorial. Instead the writers crafted an endorsement of Democratic candidate Kamala Harris which Bezos killed, in his first act of blatant editorial interference since he bought the title in 2013.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/13/can-billionaire-media-moguls-be-trusted-in-trumps-america

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Article in Daily Kos by Alex Samuela, 12/13/24

Headline:  “America’s largest media and tech moguls line up to kiss Trump’s ass”

“Jeff Bezos’ Amazon is reportedly planning to donate $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration—mirroring a similarly large donation from Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman.

“The billionaires’ respective decisions to open their pocketbooks to the incoming president come as other tech leads and media moguls have similarly begun to soften their approach toward Trump—despite his promise to exact vengeance on news outlets that anger him. On Thursday, Rolling Stone reported that Trump’s lieutenants are planning more personal lawsuits and legal threats against news outlets during his second White House stint.”

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/12/13/2291744/-America-s-largest-media-and-tech-moguls-line-up-to-kiss-Trump-s-ass?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_1&pm_medium=web

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Article in Mediaite by David Gilmour, 12/13/24

Headline:  ” ‘He’s Right!’ Colby Hall Says Media Has Been Tamed – And Trunp’s Person Of The Year Was A Veiled Threat”

“Mediaite’s Colby Hall agreed with President-elect Donald Trump’s take that the media had somewhat “tamed” in its coverage of him since the election but flagged Trump’s Person Of The Year speech at the New York Stock Exchange as a veiled threat.

The analysis came after Trump appeared on Wall Street Thursday to ring the bell in celebration of being named Time’s Person of the Year. Delivering a speech at the event, the president-elect mused about the more benevolent coverage he’d been receiving.

After thanking Time for the honor, he said, “The media is tamed down a little bit. They like us much better now I think. If they don’t, then we’ll just have to take them on again, and we don’t want to do that.”

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/hes-right-colby-hall-says-media-has-been-tamed-and-trumps-person-of-the-year-speech-was-a-veiled-threat/

 

Sudan Journalists at Risk

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Photo: AFP/Amaury Falt-Brown

Article by Staff in Citizens to Protect Journalists, 12/12/24

Headline:  “Rapid Support Forces kill Sudanese journalist Hanan Adam and brother”

“On Monday, December 8, soldiers with the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed journalist Hanan Adam, a correspondent for local Sudan Communist Party-affiliated newspaper al-Midan, and her brother, Youssef Adam, at their home in the village of Wad Al-Asha in the east-central al-Gezira state, according to statements by the Sudanese Journalists’ Union and the Sudan Communist Party.

“We are deeply shocked and outraged by Rapid Support Forces’ brutal killing of journalist Hanan Adam and her brother in al-Gezira state, which further illustrates the extreme conditions journalists and their families currently face in Sudan,” said CPJ Interim MENA Program Coordinator Yeganeh Rezaian, from Washington, D.C

https://cpj.org/2024/12/rapid-support-forces-kill-sudanese-journalist-hanan-adam-and-brother/

Reporter Records Seized in Past

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Article in AP by Eric Tucker and Alanna Durkin Richer, 12/10/24

Headline:  “Justice Department ignored some policies when seizing reporters’ phone records, watchdog finds”

“Federal prosecutors sidestepped some Justice Department rules when they seized the phone records of reporters as part of media leak investigations during the Trump administration, according to a new watchdog report being released as the aggressive practice of hunting for journalists’ sources could again be resurrected.”

https://apnews.com/article/justice-department-inspector-general-reporters-congress-records-d337eb87f286b9c14779adb8b4b14365

Press Freedom Jeopardy?

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Article in FAIR by Ari Paul, 12/6/24

Headline:  “Appeals Court Upholding TikTok Ban Is a Grim Sign for Press Freedom”

“Donald Trump is just weeks away from returning to the White House, and when he gets there, it is all but assured that he will attack press freedom (FAIR.org, 11/14/24; NBC, 12/4/24).

“But the will and desire to clamp down on free speech and expression isn’t just a Trumpian phenomenon. A US District Court of Appeals panel, with two Republican-appointed judges and one picked by a Democrat, has upheld a law forcing the sale of TikTok because of its alleged Chinese government control (AP, 12/6/24).

“All corners of government, joined by members of both major parties, concur that national security concerns should allow the government to scrap First Amendment principles. This means that Trump’s aggressiveness against free speech isn’t an anomaly of his Make America Great Again movement, but a general feature of American state power. The enormity of this decision, if upheld by the notoriously conservative Supreme Court, is a dire sign of what is to come.”

https://fair.org/home/appeals-court-upholding-tiktok-ban-is-a-grim-sign-for-press-freedom/

Biased About Media Bias?

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Article in The Guardian by Anna Betts, 12/6/24

Headline:  “Owner of Los Angeles Times says paper will employ AI-powered ‘bias meter’

Subhead:  “Biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong also wants to include more conservative voices in paper’s opinion section”

“Patrick Soon-Shiong, the owner of the Los Angeles Times, has announced plans to incorporate an artificial intelligence-powered “bias meter” into the newspaper’s coverage.

“Soon-Shiong, the biotech billionaire who bought the Los Angeles Times in 2018, made the comments on a podcast hosted by conservative commentator Scott Jennings, who is soon joining the LA Times editorial board.

The proposed move is the latest controversy to rock the newspaper which has suffered a wave of resignations and layoffs under Soon-Shiong’s ownership. Most recently, Soon-Shiong blocked the paper from endorsing Democrat Kamala Harris in last month’s presidential election, sparking outrage from many staff.”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/dec/06/la-times-ai-bias-meter-owner

 

Media Need Protection

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Article in Daily Kos by Max Burns, 12/2/24

Headline:  “What the Media Missed: Trump’s new war on the press”

“Viewers hoping that the corporate media had finally learned its lesson after nearly a decade of Trumpian manipulation likely came away from the Sunday shows disappointed, as anchors across the political spectrum devoted almost all of their time to breathlessly cataloguing Donald Trump’s unhinged list of political nominations.

“That was especially true over on “Meet the Press,” where anchor Kristen Welker seemed practically giddy while describing Trump’s plan to “shake up” (destroy) the federal government.

“Lost in the froth was any context for why Trump’s nominees are so dangerous—and why increasingly alarmed Senate Republicans could pose unexpected headaches for Trump’s latest picks. . .”

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/12/2/2289736/-What-the-Media-Missed-Trump-s-new-war-on-the-press?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_1&pm_medium=web

Will the Press Remain Free?

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Article in Common Dreams by Joe Queally, 12/1/24

Headline:  “Trump Picks ‘Deeply Strange’ Kash Patel – Who Vowed to ‘Come After People in the Media’ – for FBI Director”

“. . .Journalist Medhi Hasan, co-founder of Zeteo, said that while previously working for MSNBC he had done a deep-dive on Patel, during which he discovered just what ‘a deeply strange and alarming and sycophantic figure’ Trump’s pick is.”

 

” . . .Last year, during an appearance on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, Patel vowed that Trump’s enemies would be targeted if the former president returned to power. ‘We will go out and find the conspirators not just in government, but in the media,’ Patel said at the time.

” ‘Yes, we’re going to come after people in the media,’ Patel explained to Bannon, talking about journalists and others who he claimed ‘help Joe Biden rig elections.’ ”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/kash-patel-fbi

Stopping Teen Social Media

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Article in TechXplore by Lara Chuung, 11/29/24

Headline:  “Social media companies slam Australia’s under-16 ban”

“Social media giants on Friday hit out at a landmark Australian law banning them from signing up under-16s, describing it as a rush job littered with “many unanswered questions”.”

“. . .One of the biggest issues will be privacy—what age-verification information is used, how it is collected and by whom.”

“. . .Social media companies remain adamant that age verification should be the job of app stores, but the government believes tech platforms should be responsible.”

“. . . The legislation will be closely monitored by other countries, with many weighing whether to implement similar bans.”

https://techxplore.com/news/2024-11-social-media-companies-slam-australia.html

Another Journalist Abduction

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Article in Common Dreams by Jessica Corbett, 11/28/24

Headline:  ” Rights Groups Alarmed by Arrest of Pakistani Journalist Matiullah Jan”

Subhhead:  “Amnesty International said that his arbitrary detention ‘on trumped up charges after he was abducted in the late hours of November 27 is an affront on the right to freedom of expression and media freedom.’ “

” Human rights and press freedom groups on Thursday expressed concern after Pakistani journalist Matiullah Jan’s family said he was “abducted,” and then a judge placed him in police custody for a terrorism and narcotics case that critics call “bogus.”

” ‘Matiullah Jan has been abducted from the parking of PIMS tonight at around [11:00 pm] by unmarked abductors in an unmarked vehicle ‘ Jan’s son, Abdul Razzaq, said on the journalist’s X account . . .”

” ‘This follows his courageous coverage of the protests in Islamabad. I demand that my father be let go immediately and his family immediately be informed of his whereabouts,’ added the son, who later posted a video on social media.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/matiullah-jan

Journalists Will Be Muzzled?

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Article in The Columbia Journalism Review by Kyle Paolette, 11/22/25

Headline:  “A New Normal”

Subhead:  “If Donald Trump returns to the White House, the Espionage Act offers a clear path for him to stifle press freedom.”

“It’s the summer of 2025, and the home screen of every major news outlet bears the same image: a journalist being escorted by a cloud of black suits across a brick plaza to a hearing at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia. She is the first American reporter ever to be charged under the Espionage Act.”

“. . .Since the eighties, the Espionage Act has served as the primary means of prosecuting government employees for disclosing confidential information. This century, the threat has grown significantly. During the George W. Bush administration, Judith Miller—a Times reporter whose coverage of the Iraq War drew upon what turned out to have been fabricated intelligence—was jailed for refusing to reveal a source being investigated under the Espionage Act. . . .”

https://www.cjr.org/covering_the_election/new-normal-paoletta-trump-espionage-act-project-2025-prosecute-enemies.php