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“Dice are Rolling, Knives Are Out”

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Article in FAIR by Ari Paul, 2/26/25

Headline:  “FCC’s Knives Are Out for First Amendment”

“Brendan Carr, newly appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission, is waging a war on the news media, perhaps the most dangerous front in de jure President Donald Trump and de facto President Elon Musk’s quest to destroy freedom of the press and the First Amendment.

“Trump’s FCC has revived right-wing requests to sanction TV stations over their election coverage—complaints that had previously been dismissed by the FCC as incompatible with the First Amendment’s guarantee of a free press. . .”

https://fair.org/home/fccs-knives-are-out-for-first-amendment/

New Muzzle for the Media?

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Article in The Guardian by Anna Betts, 2/28/25

Headline:  “Ex-Washington Post editor Marty Baron rebukes Bezos: ‘betrayal of free expression’ “

Subhead:  “Lauded former editor ‘appalled’ by billionaire newspaper owner’s overhaul of opinion section to narrow focus”

“Marty Baron, a highly regarded former editor of the Washington Post, has said that Jeff Bezos’s announcement that the newspaper’s opinion section would narrow its editorial focus was a “betrayal of the very idea of free expression” that had left him ‘appalled’.

“In an interview with The Guardian, Baron also said: .’I don’t think that [Bezos] wants an editorial page that’s regularly going after Donald Trump.’

“On Wednesday, the billionaire newspaper owner and Amazon founder sent an email to Post staffers announcing that the newspaper’s editorial section would shift its editorial focus and that only opinions that support and defend “personal liberties” and “free markets” would be welcome, and other viewpoints ‘will be left to be published by others’.

“Bezos’s announcement was met with criticism and resulted in the departure of the newspaper’s opinions editor, David Shipley. Baron, who was executive editor of the Washington Post from 2012 until 2021 and is one of the most esteemed figures in American journalism, blasted Bezos’s decision.

“There’s been a long tradition at the Post of having a variety of opinions on the opinion pages and that’s part of its heritage,” Baron said. ‘Bezos supported that since he acquired the paper, he advocated for that internally, but his most recent decision represents a real betrayal of the heritage of the Post and a betrayal of the very idea of free expression.’ ”

“Baron said that news organizations including the Post have traditionally honored the principle of free expression by allowing a wide variety of views on the opinion pages, but that Bezos’s decision on Wednesday ‘does exactly the opposite’ and ‘dishonors free expression, which is the most fundamental personal liberty of American citizens’ ”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/28/marty-baron-jeff-bezos-washington-post

 

US Media Control Expands to Namibia

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Article in The Guardian by Rachel Savage, 2/27/25

Headline:  “Namibian media outlets have reacted with anger and dismay after they were asked by the US embassy whether they were affiliated with western publications whose subscriptions have been cancelled by the US state department.”

“On 11 February, the state department ordered its outposts to cancel “non-mission critical” media subscriptions as part of the Trump administration’s drive to cut government costs.

“A 14 February directive then instructed prioritising the cancellation of subscriptions to the Economist, the New York Times, Politico, Bloomberg News, the Associated Press and Reuters, according to the Washington Post.

“Donald Trump’s second presidential term has started with a wave of initiatives to reduce the size of government and purge it of anything deemed to be liberal.”

The Namibian, an independent newspaper, was asked by a US embassy staff member on 18 February via email: “Are you or any of your services associated/affiliated with the following companies: The Economist, the New York Times, Politico, Bloomberg News Feed, Associated Press, or Reuters? If so, could you please explain how? ie Do you re-run their stories or are you a subsidiary of the publication?”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/27/namibia-media-outlets-angered-us-scrutiny-western-news-subscriptions

“The Bell Tolls For Thee”

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Article in The Guardian by Margaret Sullivan, 2/26/25

Headline:  “Jeff Bezos is muzzling the Washington Post’s opinion section. That’s a death knell”

Subhead:  ” ‘I couldn’t be more sad and disgusted,’ says former top editor Martin Baron”

“Owners and publishers of news organizations often exert their will on opinion sections. It would be naive to think otherwise.

“But a draconian announcement this week by Jeff Bezos, the Washington Post owner, goes far beyond the norm.

The billionaire declared that only opinions that support “personal liberties” and “free markets” will be welcome in the opinion pages of the Post. . .”

“The paper’s top opinion editor, David Shipley, couldn’t get on board with those restrictions. He immediately – and appropriately – resigned.

“The ‘Gulf of America’ feud is about something bigger: Trump wants to control the media

“Especially in light of the billionaire’s other blatant efforts to cozy up to Donald Trump, Bezos’s move is more than a gut punch; it’s more like a death knell for the once-great news organization he bought in 2013.

“It’s unclear what will happen to such excellent left-of-center columnists as Catherine Rampell, Eugene Robinson and EJ Dionne. And it’s unclear to what extent this ruling eventually will affect the paper’s hard-news coverage, which so far has been unbowed in covering the chaotic rollout of the new Trump administration.”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/feb/26/jeff-bezos-washington-post-opinion

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Andrew Rosenthal, 2/27/25

Headline:  “From Marty Baron to Robber Baron

Subhead:  “Jeff Bezos is heel-turning the Washington Post opinion section into the realm of the far right.”

“I was as startled as most people when, in 2013, Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder, wrote a check for $250 million to purchase the Washington Post. Not because a rich man was buying an important newspaper, for that has always been the story of the American newspaper business. The New York Times, where I spent most of my adult life as a journalist, was bought in 1896 by a rich man who turned it into the first politically independent newspaper in the country. . . ”

I was surprised that Bezos, an investor in the Reason Foundation, whose professed libertarianism reads like an Ayn Rand treatise, said it was civic duty that compelled him. But let’s judge Bezos by his actions, I thought, and was pleasantly surprised that his first act was to declare that he would not meddle in the Post’s newsroom and that he would accept the decisions of the editorial board, whose positions, he said, reflected his own. . .”

“The descent from Bezos’s civic duty and the Post’s journalistic integrity was swift. . .

“About a week before the 2024 election, Bezos refused to allow his editorial board to endorse Kamala Harris. Bezos called this a “principled decision.”

“Leave aside for the moment how Bezos—who has about as much in common with the common voter as he does with the people who drive his delivery trucks—knows this apparent “fact.” Let’s just take him at his word. He didn’t want the Post to seem biased. . . ”

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/jeff-bezos-editorial-opinion-washington-post-personal-liberties-free-markets-right-wing-heel-turn.php

Covering the Messiah

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Article in Media Matters by Payton Armstrong, 2/27/25

Headline:  “Right-wing media cheer Trump’s anti-Christian bias task force after years of laying the groundwork”

Subhead:  “Right-wing commentators have spent years claiming that the Biden administration was ‘waging spiritual warfare against Christianity’ and that ‘the left wants to drive Christians out of the public square’ “

“A task force created by President Donald Trump to eradicate alleged ‘anti-Christian bias’ is drawing praise from right-wing media figures — some of whom have spent years baselessly claiming that Christians are a persecuted group in the United States, even though experts say there’s no such widespread bias.

“Right-wing commentators celebrated Trump’s task force as  ‘a cultural resurgency’ and declared that ‘this is the counter-revolution against their color revolution that occurred in the summer of 2020’.

“In one instance, Christian nationalist media figure Lance Wallnau joined Steve Bannon’s podcast to praise the task force as the first step in the ‘recapturing of institutions,’ . . .

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/right-wing-media-cheer-trumps-anti-christian-bias-task-force-after-years-laying-groundwork

Boxing With the Press – Not a TKO

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Article in The New Republic by Staff, 2/26/25

Headline:  “Trump vs. the Media: He Won Round One, but He’s Going to Lose Bigly”

Subhead:  “A judge kinda-sorta found for the White House against the Associated Press. But Trumpworld is pushing things way too far.”

“The White House has been wrongly emboldened by Monday’s District Court decision denying a request by the Associated Press to immediately restore its full access to the White House press pool. The White House pulled AP’s access because the news organization continues to employ the term ‘Gulf of Mexico’ rather than Trump’s preferred ‘Gulf of America.’

In the wake of the decision, press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced a general policy of the White House determining which news outlets can staff the pool. The change breaks with a practice of over 100 years in which the White House Correspondents’ Association determined the press pool membership. New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker, one of the most eminent reporters in the country, wrote on social media, ‘Having served as a Moscow correspondent in the early days of Putin’s reign, this reminds me of how the Kremlin took over its own press pool and made sure that only compliant journalists were given access.’

“. . .The adjudication of the press pool exclusions will be a major test of the courts and not just district judges like Judge McFadden but the Courts of Appeals, where the issue will be decided. And if those courts, including the Supreme Court, fail to come through and issue lawless rulings upholding Trump’s tyrannical moves, our best hopes were already misplaced.

https://newrepublic.com/article/192015/trump-won-associated-press-media-lose

Drowning in the Press Pool

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Article in The New York Times by Peter Baker, 2/26/25

Headline:  “In Trump’s Washington, a Moscow-Like Chill Takes Hold”

Subhead:  “A new administration’s efforts to pressure the news media, punish political opponents and tame the nation’s tycoons evoke the early days of President Vladimir V. Putin’s reign in Russia.”

“She asked too many questions that the president didn’t like. She reported too much about criticism of his administration. And so, before long, Yelena Tregubova was pushed out of the Kremlin press pool that covered President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

“In the scheme of things, it was a small moment, all but forgotten nearly 25 years later. But it was also a telling one. Mr. Putin did not care for challenges. The rest of the press pool got the message and eventually became what the Kremlin wanted it to be: a collection of compliant reporters who knew to toe the line or else they would pay a price.

“The decision by President Trump’s team to handpick which news organizations can participate in the White House press pool that questions him in the Oval Office or travels with him on Air Force One is a step in a direction that no modern American president of either party has ever taken. The White House said it was a privilege, not a right, to have such access, and that it wanted to open space for “new media” outlets, including those that just so happen to support Mr. Trump.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/us/politics/trump-putin-russia.html#

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Article in the Columbia Journalism Review by Paul Farhi, 2/26/25

Headline:  “Will Others Dive into the White House Press Pool?”

Subhead:  “Given the expense of traveling with the president, Trump’s efforts to replace mainstream outlets with far-right media may fail.”

“From its semiformal beginning, in the late 1930s, the White House press pool solved a basic problem of physics: How could a lot of reporters have access to the president’s words and images when only a few of them could fit into the room he was occupying? . . .”

“For decades, pool members have been chosen by an independent organization, the White House Correspondents’ Association. Drawing from a list of volunteers, the WHCA organizes the print, audio, and TV pools that tail the president when he travels or speaks inside the White House. The White House hasn’t had a direct role, other than distributing the print pool’s periodic reports to thousands of recipients from a central email account. This noninvolvement was by design; it left reporters free to make their own decisions about who was qualified to report.

“The Trump White House now wants to blow all that up. . . ”

https://www.cjr.org/political_press/white-house-press-pool-far-right-friendly-media-expense-travel-president.php

WSJ Sued for Tariffs?

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Article in The Guardian by Staff, 2/26/25

Headline:  “Trump threatens to sue media after Wall Street Journal editorial criticizes tariffs”

Subhead:  “Journal argued Trump’s tariff plans would harm ‘US auto workers and Republican prospects in Michigan’ “

“Wall Street Journal editorial slamming Donald Trump’s tariff plans as terrible for the US economy and auto industry prompted a broadside from the president on Wednesday followed by threats to sue the media.

“In an opinion piece titled Trump’s Tariffs Will Punish Michigan, the Journal argued Trump’s tariff plans would harm ‘US auto workers and Republican prospects in Michigan’.”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/feb/26/trump-wall-street-journal-tariffs

Adrift on the Ocean

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Steven Mufson, 2/25/25

Headline:  “The Real Story of the Washington Post’s Editorial Independence”

Subhead:  “When the Kamala Harris endorsement was spiked, the publisher cited tradition. A closer reading of history tells a different story.”

“Not far from the last desk I occupied after thirty-five years at the Washington Post was the wall that lists all of the paper’s Pulitzer Prizes, trophies of its journalistic success. Tour guides would walk visitors up there and note with reverence the stars—the Woodwards and Bernsteins—as well as dozens of other staffers recognized for international affairs, investigative digging, criticism, the attack on the US Capitol, and more. . .”

“ ‘We all of us know, finally and fundamentally, that freedom of speech, freedom of education, freedom of the press, are the essential guarantees of that liberty without which a nation is only a hollow shell,” Morley said in accepting his Pulitzer, “regardless of the size of its army, the extent of its territory, or the millions of poor sheeplike helots which it may harbor.’

“Ninety years later, Morley and Meyer would be dismayed to see what has happened to the newspaper they did so much to reshape. Competitors—the New York Times, The Atlantic, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal—are poaching many of the Post’s most talented reporters, and large portions of its readership have dropped their subscriptions. . .”

But what’s needed isn’t a new platitude or slogan (Bezos gave the Post “Democracy Dies in Darkness”) or unrealistic financial goals. What’s needed is a simple declaration like the one Meyer and Morley placed atop the editorial page: ‘The Washington Post: An Independent Newspaper. . .’ ”

https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/the-real-story-of-the-washington-posts-editorial-independence.php

Get Those Reporters Out of the Pool!

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Article in The New York Times by Michael M. Grynbaym, 2/25/25

Headline:  “White House Moves to Pick the Pool Reporters Who Cover Trump”

Subhead:  “In announcing plans to handpick the reporters who can ask the president questions, the White House is breaking decades of precedent.”

“The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said on Tuesday that the Trump administration would start handpicking which media outlets were allowed to participate in the presidential pool, the small, rotating group of journalists who relay the president’s day-to-day activities to the public.

The change announced by Ms. Leavitt breaks decades of precedent. The White House Correspondents’ Association, a group representing journalists who cover the administration, has long determined on its own which reporters would participate in the daily pool.

“Because presidents often hold events in smaller settings like the Oval Office, where not every reporter who covers the president can fit, the pool format has long been used to ensure that journalists accurately record a president’s comments. The reporters who witness the events distribute a series of ‘pool reports’ to a wider group of journalists, including hundreds of news outlets that cover his daily activities and remarks.

  • The pool is most often made up of journalists from organizations like CNN, Reuters, The Associated Press, ABC News, Fox News and The New York Times.

Ms. Leavitt said that the new policy was intended to allow “new media” outlets — such as digital sites, streaming services and podcasts — “to share in this awesome responsibility.”

The White House Correspondents’ Association rebuked the move in a blistering statement.

“This move tears at the independence of a free press in the United States,” Eugene Daniels, the president of the association, wrote. “It suggests the government will choose the journalists who cover the president. In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps. . . .”

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5163291-white-house-press-pool-ap/