New Attack on Media?

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Article in AP by David Bauder, 12/19/25

Headline:  “Another line of attack: White House sets up a hall of shame for news outlets”

“NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump’s White House is taking on the role of media critic and asking for help from ‘everyday Americans.’

The White House launched a web portal it says will spotlight bias on the part of news outlets, targeting the Boston Globe, CBS News, The Independent and The Washington Post in its first two “media offenders of the week.”

It’s the latest wrinkle in the fight against what Trump, back in his first term, labeled “fake news.” The Republican president has taken outlets like CBS News and The Wall Street Journal to court over their coverage, is fighting The Associated Press in court over media access and has moved to dismantle government-run outlets like Voice of America. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://apnews.com/article/trump-press-media-bias-hall-of-shame-4571e8bfc924de0d83529b635be0a68c

Press Aren’t Coming to Take Him Away, Ha Ha

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Article in The Hill by Chris Truax, 12/19/25

Headline:  “All I want for Christmas is for the media to be honest about Trump”

“. . .Disinhibition can manifest itself in several ways, including ‘socially inappropriate behavior’ and a ‘loss of manners/decorum.’ People in the early stage of Alzheimer’s can begin to lose their social filter and their ability to control their impulses. They may make gratuitous, rude comments, exhibit racism or have sudden bouts of anger. These are all behaviors that Trump has recently displayed. . .”

“And yet, the media reports on Trump as if he were some sort of avant garde political performance artist challenging bourgeois values and outmoded conventions. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/5655223-trump-dementia-behavior-concerns/

FCC As Media Attack-Dog?

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Article in FAIR by Janine Jackson, 12/19/25

Headline:  “FCC Fights First Amendment and ‘Democracy Itself’ “

“. . .Under Trumpist Brendan Carr, the FCC is, as is well known, threatening stations that deliver content they disapprove (FAIR.org, 2/26/25), very much in violation of the First Amendment. Asked in a Senate hearing (Variety, 12/17/25) if it’s ‘appropriate to use your position to threaten companies that broadcast political satire,’ Carr responded that ‘any licensee that operates on the public airwaves has a responsibility to comply with the public interest standard.’

“But Trump’s FCC is also seeking to further loosen ownership limits and allow powerful media conglomerates to usurp more of the airwaves (CJR, 10/20/25; FAIR.org, 10/8/25). . .”

Read the full article at:

https://fair.org/home/fcc-fights-first-amendment-and-democracy-itself/

Stop Media Mergers?

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News Release in Free Press by Staff, 12/18/25

Headline:  “Free Press Urges the Carr FCC to Abandon Plans to Let Big Broadcast Conglomerates Become Even Bigger”

“On Wednesday, Free Press called on the Federal Communications Commission to reject further local-media consolidation, stating that any move to weaken the agency’s ownership rules would harm the public interest and undermine efforts to preserve quality local news.

“The comments, made in a filing in the agency’s Quadrennial Regulatory Review, address the FCC’s broadcast-ownership limits, which were originally designed to promote diversity, competition and localism in the licensing of broadcasters’ access to the public airwaves. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.freepress.net/news/free-press-urges-carr-fcc-abandon-plans-let-big-broadcast-conglomerates-become-even-bigger

Media Now Ashamed?

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Article in Daily Kos by News Corpse, 12/18/25

Headline:  “ENOUGH! American Media Disgraced Itself Again By Airing Trump’s Lie-Riddled Harangue-a-Thon”

“Wednesday night Donald Trump delivered a primetime address from the White House that was billed as an important communication to the American people concerning matters that would be of great interest to them. And every major national network carried the speech live. Ordinarily those networks don’t give up that valuable airtime unless they have been assured that there is a valid justification for it.

“However, on this occasion, the networks don’t appear to have done even a perfunctory review of what the content of Trump’s speech would be. Consequently, they greenlit his speech. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/12/18/2359078/-ENOUGH-American-Media-Disgraced-Itself-Again-By-Airing-Trump-s-Lie-Riddled-Harangue-a-Thon?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

Do Words Matter in Journalism?

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Article in The Guardian by Seth Stern & Clayton Weimers, 12/18/25

Headline:  “Brendan Carr admits his FCC is Trump’s journalism police”

Subhead:  “It is clear that the FCC is not an independent agency, but an instrument of the president’s political agenda”

“The Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, admitted at a Senate hearing on Wednesday that there had been a political “sea change” and he no longer viewed the FCC as an independent agency. Commissioners, he says, serve at the pleasure of the president. . .”

“By scrubbing references to independence from the FCC website after admitting the agency answers to Trump, Carr has made explicit what his actions already demonstrated. He could not have made a better argument for the dangers of letting the public interest standard serve as the government’s backdoor into the newsroom.”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/18/brendan-carr-fcc-trump-journalism-police

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Article in Poynter by Tom Jones, 12/18/25

Headline:  “Opinion | Why a single word disappearing from the FCC’s website matters for press freedom”

Subhead:  “FCC Chair Brendan Carr says the agency is not ‘independent,’ sharpening concerns about political pressure on the media”

“If you went to the Federal Communications Commission website first thing Wednesday morning, you would have read the following:

“ ‘An independent U.S. government agency overseen by Congress, the Commission is the federal agency responsible for implementing and enforcing America’s communications law and regulations.’

“Note the word: independent. . .”

“. . . Carr stunned everyone by saying, ‘The FCC is not an independent agency, formally speaking.’

“A short time later, the word ‘independent’ was removed from the FCC’s site. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2025/fcc-chair-brendan-carr-independent/

FCC Chair in Hot Water Again.

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Article in Free Press by Staff, 12/17/25

Headline: “Trump’s Censorship Czar Faces Senate Grilling on Efforts to Silence and Control the Media; Backpedals on Earlier Acknowledgement of FCC Independence”

“During a Wednesday Senate oversight hearing, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr faced a thorough grilling from Commerce Committee Democrats — and even some Republicans . . .”

“. . . recent polling from The Economist and YouGov shows 68 percent of the American public found it “unacceptable” for the government to pressure broadcasters to remove programming that includes speech it disagrees with. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.freepress.net/news/trumps-censorship-czar-brendan-carr-faces-senate-grilling-fcc-efforts-censor-and-control-media

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Article in Huffpost by Sanjana Karanth

“Headline: “Trump FCC Stooge Tries tp Rewrite History on Jimmy Kimmel Firestorm”

Subhead: “FCC Chair Claims Agency Never Threatened To Pull License Over Kimmel”

“FFC Chairman Brendan Carr told senators on Wednesday he never threatened to pull ABC’s license over late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s employment, calling it “nothing more than projection and distortion by Democrats.”

Read the Full Article at:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/brown-university-shooting-rob-reiner-death_n_693fda79e4b0775c50782f40/liveblog_6942e501e4b0fd459eef59ca?origin=home-latest-news-unit

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Article in The Guardian by Richard Luscombe & Vhris Stein, 12/17/25

Headline:  “FCC chair suggests agency is not independent amid fears of Trump power-grab”

“Brendan Carr’s declaration to senators raised concerns of a further power-grab by the White House, amid concerns surrounding efforts by Donald Trump and his officials to exert greater control over independent agencies since his return to office in January.

“The FCC, Carr told the Senate’s commerce, science, and transportation committee on Wednesday, ‘is not an independent agency, formally speaking’. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/17/trump-fcc-brendan-carr

NBC Getting Away With It?

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Article in Raw Story by David Edwards, 12/17/25

Headline: “Trump vows NBC won’t ‘get away’ with Dem interview in threat to broadcast license”

“President Donald Trump threatened NBC’s broadcast license days after the network aired an interview with Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA). . .”

“Trump then suggested that the Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, should investigate NBC.

“The Public airwaves, which these Networks are using at no charge, should not be allowed to get away with this any longer!’. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-abc-nbc-license/

Media in Crisis?

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Interview in The New Republic by Perry Bacon, 12/17/25

Headline:  “Transcript: America’s Three Media Crises and How to Fix Them”

Subhead:  “University of Pennsylvania media scholar Victor Pickard says that a robust system of public-funded media is essential for America democracy. “

“Victor Pickard: . . .’So I would identify the three major problems facing the U.S. today in terms of our media system and how it functions within a democratic society would be the collapse of local journalism, the defunding of our public media, and the what we might think of as runaway consolidation of our news media’. . .”

Read the full interview at:

https://newrepublic.com/article/204495/transcript-america-three-media-crises-fix

CBS’s Bari Weiss – Waking-up

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Article in Status by Natalie Korach, 12/17/25

Headline:  “Weiss’ Wake-Up Call”

Subhead: “As her first major CBS News town hall draws underwhelming ratings, Bari Weiss gets a public crash course in the metrics of television success. Now, Status has learned she’s delayed a planned address to staffers about the network’s future.”

“In the days leading up to the holidays, Bari Weiss had planned to address CBS News staffers with a broader vision of where she sees the network heading under her new leadership. But by Tuesday, as early Nielsen numbers for her high-profile Erika Kirk town hall circulated—and headlines began using words like “flop”—those plans quietly changed. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.status.news/p/bari-weiss-cbs-news-erika-kirk-town-hall-ratings