CBS News Moving Right Along


Article in Media Matters by Matt Gertz, 10/24/25

Headline:  “Bret Baier touts CBS News’ move toward ‘more balance’ and ‘coverage that’s fair’ ”

Subhead:  “In an interview with Sean Hannity, Baier denounced the ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ of mainstream reporters”

Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier — who is reportedly under consideration to take over CBS Evening News — spent part of Thursday afternoon praising CBS News’ rightward shift and his Trumpist colleague Sean Hannity’s coverage of ‘Russia, Russia, Russia,’ panning mainstream reporters for purportedly demonstrating ‘Trump derangement syndrome’ in an interview on Hannity’s radio show.

Oliver Darcy reported Thursday for his Status newsletter that Bari Weiss, the CBS News editor-in-chief recently installed to move the network to the right, ‘has spoken to associates about bringing Baier into the CBS News fold, potentially for the ‘CBS Evening News’ anchor chair.’. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.mediamatters.org/bret-baier/bret-baier-touts-cbs-news-move-toward-more-balance-and-coverage-thats-fair

Journalism by Order of Management


Article in The Guardian by Jeremy Barr, 10/24/25

Headline:   “Ex-60 Minutes producer Bill Owens says bosses discouraged him from covering Gaza and Trump”

Subhead: “Show’s leader, who resigned in April, says he was also pressured to apologize for edit of Kamala Harris interview”

“The former executive producer of 60 Minutes, Bill Owens, said he faced intense internal pressure from his corporate bosses to avoid certain stories that had the potential to generate backlash for parent company Paramount, in his first public remarks since his sudden resignation in late April.. .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/24/60-minutes-bill-owens

Media Ignore Bombing?


Article in FAIR by Belen Fernandez, 10/21/25

Headline:  “To Media, Gaza Ceasefire Holds Despite Repeated Israeli Strikes”

“. . .In the ten days following the implementation of the ostensible truce, the Israeli military reportedly killed at least 97 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 230, violating the ceasefire agreement no fewer than 80 times. One might have expected, then, to see a headline or two along the lines of, I dunno, “Israel violates ceasefire”—or maybe “So much for ‘peace’ in Gaza.”

“No such headlines turned up in the Western corporate media—not that there weren’t some pretty spectacular violations to choose from. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://fair.org/slider/to-media-gaza-ceasefire-holds-despite-repeated-israeli-strikes/


Article in Common Dreams by Laura Flanders, 10/18/25

Headline: “Why Can’t the Corporate Media See the Trump-GOP Shutdown Plan Lying in Plain Sight?”

Subhead: “The power struggles that animate this shutdown are meant to outlast it, leveraging legal ambiguities, executive fiat, and congressional paralysis to redefine “essential” as that which survives unchallenged.”

“What is it about an insidious, long-term plan that causes commercial media to ignore what’s lying in plain sight?

“With Congress at a standstill, the Republican-led House refusing to return to session, and the Senate unable to pass any bill to reopen the government, reporters seem stuck in a loop. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/what-s-behind-the-government-shutdown


Article in FAIR by Janine Jackson, 10/17/25

Headline: ” ‘You Had US Media Carrying Out Incitement to Genocide, and Then Shifting to Genocide Denial’ “

Subhead: “CounterSpin interview with Gregory Shupak on how to deny genocide”

“. . .The Committee to Protect Journalists states that in the first 10 weeks after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, Israel had already killed more media workers in Gaza than had ever been killed in a year anywhere. Israel has systematically targeted journalists and their families for reporting the realities of genocide, famine and displacement, with the murders often followed by official PR efforts depicting the journalists as Hamas propagandists, or simply as ‘terrorists.’. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://fair.org/home/you-had-us-media-carrying-out-incitement-to-genocide-and-then-shifting-to-genocide-denial

Article in Democracy Now! by Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan, 10/16/25

Headline:  “Too Many Palestinian (and Certain Israeli) Voices Are Excluded from the U.S. Media”

“. . .In Israel, twenty families reunited with their loved ones who endured two years of captivity in Gaza following October 7th, 2023. Their pain and joy received blanket coverage in the US, and rightly so. But the ongoing suffering of the Palestinians rarely appears in the mainstream US media. It is absolutely essential that people here, the source of Israel’s arsenal, have access to the full breadth of debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. . ”

Read the full article at:

https://www.democracynow.org/2025/10/16/too_many_palestinian_and_certain_israeli


Article in The New Republic by James North, 10/15/25

Headline:  “The Media Is Blowing a Big Story in Venezuela”

Subhead:  “With the president and his cronies ratcheting up their belligerence, the political press is failing to grasp how close we are to another regime change war.”

“How’s this for history repeating? The mainstream American media is botching its coverage of the Trump administration’s mounting military threats to Venezuela, and that failure is contributing to what looks to be a prolonged and violent disaster for both nations. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://newrepublic.com/article/201512/media-courting-colossal-failure-venezuela


Article in Raw Story by Robert Reich, 10/9/25

Headline:  “Opinion – How our media became so vulnerable to Trump — and what we can do about it”

“. . .today’s media ecosystem is far more vulnerable to authoritarianism than it was decades ago. . .”

“Today I want to explore three structural changes in our political economy that have made it so, and suggest what must be done to strengthen media independence.

” 1. Media concentration has facilitated censorship. . .; 2. Ultra-wealthy individuals are now controlling major media. These are people likely to be biased against the public’s right to know. . .; 3. The shift from stakeholder to shareholder capitalism. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.rawstory.com/bari-weiss-2674169028/?utm_source=breaking

 

Conspiracy Theories in Media?


Article in Media Matters by Matt Gertz, 10/7/25

Headline:  “Why the right-wing media apparatus is suddenly yelling about Jack Smith supposedly spying on GOP senators”

“Republicans and their right-wing media allies yesterday spun out frothy allegations about former special counsel Jack Smith purportedly ‘spying on Republican senators’ in order to forestall tough questions about the state of the Justice Department. But their dark conspiracy theory immediately collapses under scrutiny. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/why-right-wing-media-apparatus-suddenly-yelling-about-jack-smith-supposedly-spying-gop

 

Media Hide Project 2025?

Article in Common Dreams by Stephen Prager, 10/3/25

Headline: “Media Faces Reckoning After Helping Trump Downplay Project 2025 on Campaign Trail”

Subhead:  ” ‘A Trump denial is not a fact,’ said one media critic.”

“As President Donald Trump openly embraces Project 2025, mainstream media outlets are facing criticism for their role in helping him downplay his ties to the wildly unpopular far-right governing playbook in the lead-up to his reelection last year. . .”

“She [Kamala Harris] and other Democrats warned that if he retook power, he would swiftly enact many of its most extreme and unpopular proposals and dramatically expand executive power while doing it. . .”

“After nine months back in power, the website Project 2025 Tracker estimates that Trump has already implemented approximately 48% . . .”

“ ‘Nothing showed the difference between mainstream and independent media better than the response to Trump’s obvious lie about not knowing anything about Project 2025,’ said David Pepper, author of the book Saving Democracy: A User’s Manual.”

Read the full article at:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/project-2025-media-backlash