Article in by Oliver Darcy, 8/12/25
Headline: “The District of Distortion”
Subhead: “Donald Trump’s MAGA Media allies are spinning a misleading narrative of a crime-ravaged ‘hellscape’ D.C. to justify his unprecedented seizure of the city’s police Force”
Read the article at:
https://www.status.news/p/trump-dc-police-takeover-crime-fact-check
You are cordially invited to a hybrid discussion of how to reduce nuclear dangers and improve the prospects for broadly shared peace and prosperity — August 17, next Sunday, 2-4 PM Central.
Article in Mediaite by Staff, 8/12/25
Headline: “DC Reporter Confronts Jeanine Pirro on Trump Pardoning Cop-Beaters: ‘How Is This Not a Mixed Message?’ “
“U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro dismissed criticism from police of President Donald Trump’s January 6 pardons during an interview with Fox 5 reporter Jillian Smith about the administration’s decision to send the National Guard into Washington, D.C. to crack down on crime.
Smith pressed Pirro on the contradiction between the president’s pro-police messaging now and his sweeping pardons of rioters who assaulted cops during the January 6 Capitol attack. . .”
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Article in Poynter by Sophie Endrud, 8/12/25
Headline: “Young journalists are told to ‘build your brand.’ What does that even mean today?”
Subhead: “In demystifying this catch-all phrase, professors, media executives and journalists of all types weigh in”
“Eager young journalists flock to summer coffee chats and tell-all panel events, looking for the precise tools to jump-start long and sustainable media careers. Instead, they are left stalled on this loaded, ambiguous piece of advice: “Build your brand.” ”
““Suddenly, having your own presence online, and thinking about what your brand is and how that might help you land your next job or create the next opportunity, or just create some security for you in this crazy industry, like that stuff starts to become really important,” said Craig Silverman, co-founder of Indicator. . .”
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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by David C. Adams, 8/12/25
Headline: “The Cuban Journalist Trapped in America’s Immigration Blockade”
Subhead: “José Luis Tan Estrada has been stuck in Mexico since May, locked in asylum purgatory.”
“In 2024, a new ‘Social Communication Law’ declared that all social media outlets are ‘socialist property’ and ‘cannot be subject to any other type of ownership,’ effectively banning independent media. . .”
“At one point, a Cuban asylum seeker might have been welcome on American shores, but Tan Estrada’s journey has been one of extreme peril, made worse by the Trump administration’s blockade on nearly all political asylum or humanitarian cases. . .”
Read the full article at:
https://www.cjr.org/analysis/jose-luis-tan-estrada-cuban-journalist-exile.php
Article in The Guardian by Jason Burke, 8/11/25
Headline: ” ‘I risked everything’: remembering six media workers killed by Israel in Gaza”
Subhead: “CJP says the period since 7 October 2023 has been the most deadly for journalists since it began gathering data in 1992”
“Journalists have been prominent among casualties since the war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s incursion into Israel in October 2023. . . ”
The Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent non-profit organisation based in the US that promotes press freedom worldwide, says at least 186 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza . . .”
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Article in Al Jazeera by Mat Hashed and Abdelhakim Abu Riash, 8/11/25
Headline: “Anas and Mohammed, journalists slain by Israel, remembered as role models”
Subhead: “Colleagues pay tribute to assassinated Gaza journalists, vowing to continue their work.”
“Late Sunday evening, Israel’s military targeted Al Jazeera Arabic’s Gaza correspondents Anas al-Sharif, Mohammed Qreiqeh and three others, killing them in a drone strike against their media tent at the gate of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. . .”
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Article in Mother Jones by Julianne Mcshane, 8/11/25
Headline: “Israel Has Killed Nearly 200 Palestinian Journalists in Gaza”
Subhead: “The latest killings were targeted attacks on reporters covering the war in Gaza, according to the news network that employed them.”
Read the article at:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/08/israel-gaza-palestinian-war-journalists-killed/
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Story in Democracy Now by Mohamed Moawad, 8/11/25
Headline: “Silencing the Coverage”: Israel Assassinates 5 Al Jazeera Journalists in Targeted Strike in Gaza”
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Article in Media Matters by John Knefel, 8/8/25
Headline: “This segment exemplifies how Fox feeds garbage anti-immigrant slop to its audience
Subhead: “A recent appearance by Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin illustrates how the network pushes bad “worst of the worst” data”
Right-wing media have worked symbiotically with President Donald Trump’s administration to manufacture false media narratives of immigrant criminality and to justify subsequent crackdowns on those communities. . .”
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Article in Indian Country Today by Lyric Aquino, 8/8/25
Headline: Tribal radio stations hit hard by federal broadcasting cuts”
Subhead: “KWSO in Warm Springs is set to lose 40 percent of its budget, while other rural tribal stations across the U.S., which play essential roles in disseminating information such as emergency alerts and natural disaster updates, are facing similarly large shortfalls”
“More than $1 billion in cuts to previously allocated federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has left the fate of 59 tribal radio stations nationwide in question, including in the Pacific Northwest.
“Station managers note the integral role that tribal radio plays in the communities they serve, which are often rural, including delivering essential information such as emergency alerts during natural
disasters. . .”
Read the full article at:
https://ictnews.org/news/tribal-radio-stations-hit-hard-by-federal-broadcasting-cuts/
Article in The Guardian by Margaret Sullivan. 8/9/25
Headline: “A ‘bias monitor’ for CBS News is a bad idea. Here’s why”
Subhead: “I was a public editor at the New York Times, handling complaints from the public. That is a better path than CBS’s one”
“For years before I became the public editor at the New York Times, I admired the work of journalists doing the job of holding their own newsrooms accountable to high standards.
“And when I heard that CBS News would get a position something like that, I thought – briefly – that this could be a positive development. After all, the network’s credibility and independence has come under fire after its parent company settled a frivolous lawsuit brought by Donald Trump. . .”
“I quickly changed my mind once I learned the details. This is not a traditional ombudsman but what some have dubbed a ‘bias monitor’ who will receive and evaluate claims of bias in the network’s journalism and report on them to the corporation’s president. . .”
Read the full article at:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/09/bias-monitor-cbs-news
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Article in Poynter by Rick Edmonds, et al., 8/8/25
Headline: “Opinion | Skydance and Paramount complete their merger – whither CBS News?”
Subhead: “New chairman talks about ‘empowered’ journalists; critic assails trading principles for profit”
“The headline-chewing Skydance Media takeover of Paramount Global was formally concluded Thursday. . .
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Article in Status by Oliver Darcy, 8/7/25
Headline: “The Skydance Sidestep”
Subhead: “David Ellison admirably showed up to take tough, unscreened questions from a room full of reporters – but he danced around the biggest ones about Donald Trump. ’60 Minutes’, and more”
“Naturally, the assembled group of journalists didn’t ignore the elephant in the room, and the first was about Donald Trump. Specifically, whether Ellison, the Silicon Valley tech scion, had cut a secret side deal to air upwards of $20 million worth of public service announcements for causes Trump supports. . .”
Read the full article at:
https://www.status.news/p/david-ellison-paramount-trump-side-deal-60-minutes
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Article in Reuters by Deborah May and David Shepardson, 8/7/25
Headline: “Paramount closes $8 billion merger with Skydance after settling ’60 Minutes’ lawsuit”
“. . .The merger was approved after Skydance agreed to ensure CBS news and entertainment programming would be free of bias, hire an ombudsman for at least two years to review complaints, and end diversity programs. . .”
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Article in Reporters without Borders by Parteger, 8/8/25
Headline: “ ‘Almost all independent media were eradicated’ in Belarus: after detention and forced exile, journalist Ihar Karnei speaks out”
“Ihar Karnei, a Belarusian journalist with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), has talked to Reporters Without Borders (RSF) about his ordeal for the first time since the Belarusian authorities released him on 21 July and forced him into exile. His account illustrates the regime’s total control of the media five years after President Alexander Lukashenko’s rigged reelection in 2020 and the ensuing violent crackdown. RSF reiterates its call for the release of the 39 Belarusian journalists still held. . .”
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