Killing the News

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Article in Reporters Without Borders, 12/22/25

Headline: “2025, a deadly year for journalists: this is where hate and impunity lead”

Subhead:  “Journalists do not just die – they are killed. The number of murdered journalists has risen again, due to the criminal practices of military groups — both regular and paramilitary — and organised crime. . .”

“. . .“This is where the hatred of journalists leads! It led to the death of 67 journalists this year – not by accident, and they weren’t collateral victims. They were killed, targeted for their work. It is perfectly legitimate to criticise the media — criticism should serve as a catalyst for change that ensures the survival of the free press, a public good. But it must never descend into hatred of journalists, which is largely born out of — or deliberately stoked by — the tactics of armed forces and criminal organisations. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://rsf.org/en/2025-deadly-year-journalists-where-hate-and-impunity-lead

Disappeared People, Disappeared News

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Article in Mediaite by Jennifer Bowers Bahney, 12/21/25

Headline: “Critics Lash Out at Bari Weiss After 60 Minutes Yanks Segment on Trump Deportations Last Minute: ‘SHAME, SHAME, SHAME!’ “

“New CBS News boss Bari Weiss was bashed by a number of media critics on Sunday night, immediately after 60 Minutes abruptly postponed a report on a “brutal” El Salvador prison that President Donald Trump deported suspected gangsters and illegal immigrants to. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.mediaite.com/media/critics-lash-out-at-bari-weiss-after-60-minutes-yanks-segment-on-trump-deportations-last-minute-shame-shame-shame/

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Article in Daily Beast by Julia Ornedo, 12/22/25

Headline: “ ‘60 Minutes’ Suddenly Drops Segment on Major Trump Controversy”

“60 Minutes abruptly canceled a segment about a notorious El Salvador megaprison that houses deportees who have been kicked out of the U.S. by President Donald Trump.

“The iconic CBS newsmagazine show announced that the scheduled segment covering the Terrorism Confinement Center—dubbed CECOT or Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo in Spanish—will air at a later date instead. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/60-minutes-suddenly-drops-segment-on-major-trump-controversy/

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Article in Showbiz411 by Roger Friedman, 12/21/25

Headline:  “CBS News Pulls ’60 Minutes‘ Story on Trump Sending Venezuelans to El Salvador Prison — and Torturing Them — Promoted, Then Erased (Photo, Teaser)”

“The story was about Trump and something called CECOT — aka Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, the El Salvadoran prison where he was sending Venezuelans.

“But now the newly conservative network has pulled the plug, announcing there will be no segment even though it was promoted. CBS says it will air sometime in the future. But it’s very rare for a ’60 Minutes’ piece to get axed right before showtime. This reeks of new CBS News editor in chief, conservative website owner Bari Weiss, who’s been given control of the department. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.showbiz411.com/2025/12/21/cbs-news-pulls-60-minutes-story-on-trump-sending-venezuelans-to-el-salvador-prison-and-torturing-them-promoted-then-erased

Media Imploding or Exploding?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Betsy Morais, 12/20/25

Headline: “A Year Under Pressure”

Subhead:  “Assaults on press freedom, at home and abroad—which CJR is uniquely positioned to cover.”

“This week, Jem Bartholomew writes about a new report shared with CJR by the US Press Freedom Tracker, led by the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), which documented thirty-two instances of journalists being arrested or charged for doing their jobs in America in 2025. The report also recorded a hundred and seventy assaults against journalists in the past year: ‘nearly as many as across the previous three years combined,” Bartholomew notes.’. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/editors-note/year-pressure-press-freedom-attack-journalism.php

Are Media Sick?

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Article in The Guardian by Margaret Sullivan, 12/20/25

Headline:  “The tug-of-war over CNN shows how dysfunctional US media has become”

Subhead:  “The network’s fate has become a battle of corporate ownership, not a question of what benefits Americans”

“. . .Whatever the outcome, the fate of CNN has become part of a high-stakes game of corporate ownership, not as a question of what benefits the information-seeking public.

“America’s media system isn’t set up for that lofty goal. It’s set up for corporate profitability, for shareholder gain, for ever-increasing size and ever-decreasing competition. . .”

“Policies that strengthen independent news organizations, bolster local journalism, fund public media, and prohibit the concentration of media power in too few hands are not only possible – they are necessary for a functioning democracy.”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/20/cnn-us-news-media-corporate-ownership

Unlimited Coverage?

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Article in AP by Bill L Barrow, 12/19/25

Headline:  “Trump gave an unusually partisan White House address. Should networks have given him the TV time?”

“ATLANTA (AP) — When Donald Trump delivered the first White House address of his second presidency Wednesday night, all major U.S. networks beamed his image and voice onto their airwaves, cable feeds and online platforms.

Americans ended up watching the Republican president stand in the Diplomatic Reception Room and deliver 18 minutes of aggressive, politically motivated arguments that misstated facts, blamed the nation’s ills on his predecessor, exaggerated the results of his nearly 11 months in office and amplified his characteristically gargantuan, immeasurable promises about what’s to come. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-address-tv-networks-c9704130f09f607f82f9e0054dfc3c02

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