Feasting on the Remains?

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Article in Status by Natalie Korach, 2/22/26

Headline:  “Picking off the Post”

Subhead:  “After The Washington Post’s retreat from local news and sports, rival outlets are racing to fill the void, scooping up displaced talent and capitalizing on the opportunity.”

“In the weeks since The Washington Post largely abandoned its local coverage of its namesake city—gutting its metro team and shuttering its sports desk—a question has hovered over Washington’s media circles: Will another outlet make a serious play for the territory?

“Washington is one of the country’s largest and wealthiest media markets, home to some 6 million residents across the metropolitan area. And in the aftermath of The Post’s sweeping round of layoffs that cut more than a third of the newsroom, a meaningful gap has opened in local coverage. . .

Read the full article at:

https://www.status.news/p/washington-post-local-sports-coverage

Free Speech for All?

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Article in The Nation by Atarah Israel, 2/20/26

Headline:  “Trump’s Threats to Free Speech Aren’t New to Black Journalists”

Subhead:  “Two years after Trump’s infamous invitation to the National Association of Black Journalists’ convention, the organization is adapting and bracing for escalating hostility.”

“. . .NABJ’s decision to invite a hostile actor to a Black advocacy space in the name of journalistic tradition left many professional Black journalists reeling. Almost two years later, in the wake of the Trump administration’s blatant attacks against Black journalists, the decision seems even more incomprehensible. From the federally backed arrests of Georgia Fort, Don Lemon, and Jerome Richardson in January, to Trump’s recent racist social-media post depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys, the president’s hostility toward Black people, immigrants, and anyone who questions power has been transparent. Even his social-media tribute to Jesse Jackson on Tuesday sparked heated backlash for using the civil rights leader’s death as self-inflating PR fodder. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/trump-free-speech-press-black-journalists-nabj/

A Threat to Some Media?

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Article in FAIR by Jim Naurekas, 2/19/26

Headline:   “Why Corporate Media Needed to Misrepresent Jesse Jackson”

“If there’s one person onto whom establishment media have projected their anxieties about race, class and democracy, it’s the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who died this week at the age of 84.

“The civil rights icon, a protege of Martin Luther King and a brilliant community organizer, made history with his groundbreaking runs for the presidency in 1984 and 1988 (Extra!, 3–4/88). He put together what he aptly called a Rainbow Coalition. . .”

“Advocating for these constituencies with an unabashedly left agenda—a brave move in Reaganite America—Jackson did well in both of his races for the Democratic nomination. . .”

“And that kind of politics terrified an elite that thrives on keeping the 99 Percent divided and conquered. ‘Jesse Jackson scares the bejesus out of me,’ then–New York Times publisher Arthur ‘Punch’ Sulzberger Sr. confided to FAIR’s Jeff Cohen in a private meeting in 1990 (Extra!, 3–4/90).

“And this fear was palpable in corporate media coverage, from the right to what passed as the centrist ‘left,’ from 1984 well into the 21st century. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://fair.org/home/why-corporate-media-needed-to-misrepresent-jesse-jackson/

Media Ignore Catastrophe

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Susie Banikarim, 2/20/26

Headline: “What We Need to Know”

Subhead:  “Ann Curry reports from Sudan. Plus: Second-person scenarios, and AI mayhem.”

“Sudan is in the grip of the world’s largest and most catastrophic humanitarian crisis. Since a brutal civil war erupted in 2023, almost fourteen million people have been forced to flee their homes, and famine is so widespread that more than 40 percent of the population is not getting enough food. The healthcare system has completely collapsed, and there are reports of another genocide in Darfur. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/laurels-and-darts/what-we-need-to-know-ann-curry-south-sudan-pbs-newshour-second-person-measles-atlantic.php

CBS Loses Training Wheels?

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Article in Poynter by Tom Jones, 2/19/26

Headline:  “Opinion | CBS keeps finding new ways to have a bad week”

Subhead:  “Anderson Cooper’s exit from ‘60 Minutes’ and Stephen Colbert’s clash with the network add to months of ugly news for CBS“

“It has been another awkward and miserable week at CBS.

“The network has been in the news a lot. And not in a positive way.

“First, CBS News lost one of the most respected journalists in the business when Anderson Cooper announced he was stepping away from the venerable ’60 Minutes’ after nearly two decades. . .”

“Then came the whole Stephen Colbert drama. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2026/cbs-news-anderson-cooper-stephen-colbert/

Nonprofit Lifeline for Journalism?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Emily Bell and Heatger Chaplin, 2/19/26

Headline: “Profit or Nonprofit? A Debate over Journalism’s Future”

Subhead: “While the newspaper industry continues to contract, nonprofit news outlets have proliferated over the past decade. But dismissing profitable models for journalism is premature. “

“How can journalism survive? Perhaps the question would once have sounded unduly panicked, but it has only grown more pressing over the past twenty years. Between 2004 and 2019, newspapers lost an astonishing 77 percent of their jobs—more than any other industry on record, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/kicker/profit-nonprofit-debate-journalism-future-amazon-washington-post-bezos-bureau-labor-statistics.php

Covering War Buildup or Not?

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Article in Common Dreams by Stephen Prager, 2/18/26

Headline:  “As Trump Marches US Toward Iran War, Critics Ask: Where’s the ‘Pushback’ From Dems and Media?”

Subhead:  “It’s astonishing that we’re building up for a significant military clash, and Congress isn’t involved, no real case is being made to the public, and the average American has no clue.”

“Amid reports that President Donald Trump is pushing the US toward a “massive” war in Iran, critics have found themselves shocked by the lack of ‘pushback’ from top Democrats and mainstream media institutions.

“Barak Ravid reported for Axios on Wednesday that, with a deal between the US and Iran appearing increasingly out of sight, “the Trump administration is closer to a major war in the Middle East than most Americans realize’ and ‘It could begin very soon.’. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-iran-war-pushback

CBS Censored Interview for FCC?

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Article in The Hill by Sophie Brams, 2/18/26

Headline:  “Colbert dismisses CBS statement on Talarico interview: ‘I’m just so surprised’ “

” ‘Late Show’ host Stephen Colbert on Tuesday dismissed CBS’s denial that it blocked his interview with Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico from airing as ‘crap.’

“ ‘They know damn well that every word of my script last night was approved by CBS lawyers, who, for the record, approve every script that goes on the air,’ Colbert said during his show Tuesday evening.

“ ‘In fact, between the monologue I did last night, and before I did the second act talking about this issue, I had to go backstage,’ he continued. ‘I got called backstage to get more notes from these lawyers. Something that had never, ever happened before.’

Colbert told viewers on Monday that CBS, which is owned by Paramount, said he could not have Talarico on the broadcast over concerns about the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) ‘equal time’ rule. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5743078-colbert-cbs-talarico-interview/

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Article in The Guardian by Jeremy Barr, 2/18/26

Headline:  “FCC chair Brendan Carr says media were ‘lied to’ over Stephen Colbert controversy”

Subhead: “Carr says the Federal Communications Commission has also opened an enforcement action into ABC’s the View“

“The chair of the US’s top media regulator claimed on Wednesday that journalists had been tricked into covering claims by the late-night host Stephen Colbert that he had been blocked by his network from interviewing a Texas Senate candidate. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/feb/18/fcc-brendan-carr-stephen-colbert

Grim Reaper for WaPo?

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Article in Poynter by Tom Jones, 2/18/26

Headline:  “Opinion | Will The Washington Post exist in five years? A veteran insider weighs in.”

Subhead:  “Former Post media reporter Paul Farhi joined ‘The Poynter Report Podcast’ to explain how the newsroom reached this moment and what may come next”

“It’s still hard to believe what happened at The Washington Post.

“In just one day earlier this month, owner Jeff Bezos and then-publisher and CEO Will Lewis took a sledgehammer to one of the most respected and legendary news outlets in history by laying off more than 300 journalists, accounting for, according to some reports, more than 40% of the staff. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2026/future-washington-post-for-sale-closed-down/

Media in Crisis?

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Article in Common Dreams by Victor Packard, 2/17/26

Headline:  “Why the US Media Is in Crisis and How to Rescue It”

“What we’re witnessing isn’t a singular breakdown, but discrete and cascading layers of ‘media capture’ by capitalists, oligarchs, and authoritarians that produce censorship, exclusion, and democratic failure.

“From the recent gutting of the Washington Post to the rightward lurch of CBS, the sheer proliferation and variation of media failures and attacks on the press during Trump 2.0 are difficult to grasp. Regulatory bodies have become political weapons. Major news organizations have complied and retreated. Media ownership has consolidated in the hands of a few feckless billionaires. Taken together, these developments endanger our information and communication systems, our First Amendment freedoms, and our democracy. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/us-media-crisis