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Article in Common Dreams by Joseph Bouchard, 9/16/25

Headline:  “Trump’s Venezuela Boat Strikes Are War Crimes, So Where’s The Media?”

Subhead:  “Why hasn’t the mainstream media pressed the administration on these strikes being illegal and dangerous (and unpopular)?”

“On September 2, the Trump administration shared footage purporting to show a US strike on a Venezuelan fishing boat. Even if we take the incident entirely at face value (and there are a lot of reasons to question the video itself)—the US Navy attacked a fishing boat off Venezuela, killing 11 people. On Monday, another strike was allegedly conducted on a boat, killing three people. The way the media has handled these strikes is an indictment of the state of American neoliberal reporting in a neofascist age. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-boat-strikes-crimes

Trial Times

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Article in Daily Kos by Oliver Willis, 9/16/24

Headline: “The New York Times has done so much for Trump—but it’s never enough”

“Following months of mainstream media capitulation toward President Donald Trump and his administration, Trump filed a $15 billion lawsuit on Monday night against The New York Times. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/9/16/2343832/-The-New-York-Times-has-done-so-much-for-Trump-but-it-s-never-enough?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_1&pm_medium=web

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Article in Poynter by Angela Fu, 9/16/25

Headline:  “Legal experts doubt Trump’s chances in his $15B defamation suit against The New York Times”

Subhead:  “The case, filed in Florida, faces high hurdles under longstanding defamation precedent”

“President Donald Trump sued The New York Times Monday, demanding at least $15 billion in damages for what he alleges has been defamatory coverage of his rise to power. . .”

“Regardless of venue, Trump must meet a high burden to prove he was defamed. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2025/trump-sues-new-york-times-lawsuit/

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Article in The Guardian by Michael Savage, /16/25

Headline:  “Donald Trump files $15bn lawsuit against the New York Times”

Subhead:  “Title says it will not be ‘deterred by intimidation tactics’ after US president announces latest legal action”

“Donald Trump has filed a $15bn defamation lawsuit against the New York Times in his latest use of legal action targeting a major media outlet. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/16/donald-trump-says-he-is-suing-new-york-times-15bn-lawsuit-against-newspaper-ntwnfb

Selective Firing?

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Article in Free Press by Staff, 9/16/25

Headline: “The Media 2070 Project Denounces the Washington Post’s Firing of Columnist Karen Attiah”

“On Monday, Karen Attiah, a Washington Post opinion columnist, wrote on her Substack that the paper had fired her over her social-media posts on gun violence and race following the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk last week in Utah.

“Attiah wrote she was fired for “speaking out against political violence, racial double standards, and America’s apathy toward guns.”

“Attiah noted she was “the last remaining Black full-time opinion columnist at the Post, in one of the nation’s most diverse regions,” adding that her firing “is part of a broader purge of Black voices from academia, business, government, and media — a historical pattern as dangerous as it is shameful — and tragic. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.freepress.net/news/media-2070-project-denounces-washington-posts-firing-columnist-karen-attiah

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Article in The New Republic by Perry Bacon, 9/15/25

Headline:  “Black Voices Are Vital to Democracy. The Media Must Stop Firing Them.”

Subhead:   “The Washington Post’s Karen Attiah is the latest prominent Black journalist to lose her job. The trend is a sign of retrenchment in both fighting racism and saving democracy.”

“. . .And while the media changes are more subtle, the racial retrenchment is obvious. Republican appointees on the Supreme Court and lower-level courts and now the Trump administration have essentially outlawed any program that seeks to address racial disparities.

“Put these retrenchments together, and you have a very hostile environment for Black journalists. The political right is trying to basically outlaw any discussion of racial inequality—and news organizations are trying to appease the political right. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://newrepublic.com/article/200462/karen-attiah-black-voices-firing

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Article in Status by Oliver Darcy, 9/15/25

Headline:  “Fired by The Post”

Subhead:  “The Washington Post said it fired Karen Attiah over comments she made about white men in the wake of Charle Kirk’s death, Status has learned”

Read the article at:

https://www.status.news/p/karen-attiah-fired-washington-post-charlie-kirk

Berg, Kirk & Violence

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Jon Alsop, 9/15/25

Headline:  “Alan Berg and Charlie Kirk; the Old Media and the New”

Subhead:  “The long string of anti-media violence in America.”

“. . .After sickening attacks like the assassination of Kirk, it can be tempting for media observers to declare, as the Times editorial board promptly did, that ‘such violence is antithetical to America,’ or that this is not who we are. As a philosophical aspiration, this is noble, but as a matter of fact, it is patently incorrect—America has a long history of violent attacks on politicians, commentators, and journalists, some of which jump immediately to mind at times like this, others of which have been lost to the mists of history. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/charlie-kirk-alan-berg-new-old-media-political-violence.php

Falling Media, Not Just in U.S.

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Article in The Guardian by Jason Burke, 9/10/25

Headline:  “Global press freedom suffers sharpest fall in 50 years, report finds”

Subhead: “The International IDEA’s survey of democratic markers finds US is offering ‘encouragement’ to populist leaders”

“The International IDEA’s survey – the Global State of Democracy Report 2025 – is published every five years and considered the most comprehensive of its kind, covering 174 countries and measuring democratic performance from 1975.

“The survey found that the freedom of the press had worsened in a quarter of the countries, marking the broadest deterioration since the beginning of the dataset. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/sep/11/global-press-freedom-suffers-sharpest-fall-in-50-years-report-finds

Closing the Window to the World

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Article in The Hill bySarah Fortinsky, 9/14/25

Headline:  “TV Academy chair scolds Congress for shuttering Corporation for Public Broadcasting”

“Television Academy Chairman Cris Abrego criticized Congress for voting to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), in a speech paying tribute to the organization at the Emmy Awards on Sunday evening.

“ ‘For more than 50 years, CPB has been the backbone of American Public Media, bringing us everything from ‘Sesame Street’ to ‘Mr. Rogers Neighborhood’ to ‘Finding Your Roots’ and keeping free local stations alive across the nation,’ Abrego said in his speech.

“ ‘And in many small towns, those stations weren’t just a cultural lifeline, they were the only emergency alert system families could count on,’ he continued. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5503327-corporation-public-broadcasting-emmys-congress/

Media Rhetoric Causes Violence

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Article in Raw Story by Tom Hartmann, 9/14/25

Headline:  “Opinion | This abject media cowardice only makes violent GOP rhetoric worse”

“As a guy who regularly gets death threats because of my media presence, I shouldn’t have to say that killing people — or even threatening them — for their politics is wrong. But here it is, for the record: nobody in America should die for their politics.

“. . .These are indeed very, very dangerous times. And the political rhetoric coming out of 1500 rightwing hate-radio stations, Republican politicians, and billionaire-funded hard-right-biased-social-media-algorithms is at the center of the crisis. . .”

Read the full story at:

https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/2673989140/?utm_source=opinion

Scoffing at Legacy Media

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Article in Poynter by Stephanie Edgerly & Tim Franklin, 9/15/25

Headline: “A survey of Chicago news consumers shows Gen Z is tuning out local news”

Subhead: “Medill’s annual survey finds audiences drifting from TV and print, wary of AI, and turning to independent content creators.”

“The relationship between the news business and consumers of news is breaking down and reforming at a dizzying pace as digital technology gives audiences new ways to engage with information. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/local-news/2025/chicago-survey-gen-z-local-news-trends-2025/

Media Not Scoping it Out Right?

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Article in The New Republic by Perry Bacon, 9/12/25

Headline:  “The Media Is Totally Blowing Its Coverage of Charlie Kirk”

Subhead:  “Some pundits are arguing that Charlie Kirk practiced politics ‘the right way.’ This only serves to whitewash the ideas that he promulgated. “

“. . .TNR contributors Ana Marie Cox and Meredith Shiner say that the press is largely whitewashing Kirk’s actual politics, citing a column by The New York Times’ Ezra Klein as a prime example. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://newrepublic.com/article/200411/media-blowing-coverage-charlie-kirk

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Yona TR Golding, 9/12/25

Headline:  “How News Streamers Covered the Killing of Charlie Kirk”

Subhead:  “The hugely popular world of online news and commentary offers a window into how young people consume current events.”

“. . .network television was struggling to find the right words to respond to the horrific events, falling into predictable patterns. Fox News held Kirk up as a martyr. . .”

“. . .The streamers carry none of that burden. Their audiences know Kirk well—Kirk, too, was a product of this world, with a popular podcast and a social media presence wherein he posted prolifically, offering often extreme right-wing takes on political hot topics . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/analysis/charlie-kirk-twitch-streamers-reaction.php

Silencing Reporters Silences Us

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Article in The Guardian by Edward Helmore, 9/14/25

Headline:  “How the US right wing is taking over news media and choking press freedom”

Subhead:  “Takeover of broadcast companies by Donald Trump’s allies is harbinger of media capitulation to authoritarian leanings”

“The US right has appeared to increase its influence on mainstream media in America in recent weeks, especially in television news which has been a major target of the Donald Trump administration. . .”

“The moves deepened concerns among many US media critics and observers of authoritarianism that press freedoms in the US were undergoing capitulation to the Trump administration’s rightwing authoritarian leanings. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/14/rightwing-news-media-journalism