News and Social Media 1 March 2026

Press Freedom Week 2026
An excellent introduction by Heather Cox Richardson Letters from an American April 25, 2026 leading off with the eventful White House Correspondents Dinner 2026
AP to host Press Freedom Week highlighting importance of independent journalism
The Associated Press next week will convene reporters, editors and leaders from AP and across the news industry for a series of online conversations about the essential role of a free and independent press.
Beginning Monday, April 27, 2026, Press Freedom Week will take audiences behind the scenes of how independent journalism works, from securing access and reporting on the ground to holding powerful institutions accountable.
The week-long series will examine contemporary challenges in newsgathering, the pressures experienced by journalists worldwide and the implications of threats to global press freedom.

World Press Freedom Day 3 May
According to UNESCO’s World Trends Report 2022–2025, press freedom has experienced its steepest decline since 2012. This decline is comparable to that seen during the most unstable periods of the 20th century – the two world wars and the Cold War.
Information manipulation, including the use of AI by malicious actors, is weakening trust and national security. At the same time, independent media face growing economic fragility.
Self-censorship has grown by more than 60%, driven by fear of reprisals, online harassment, judicial intimidation, and economic pressure.
4 May
Pulitzer Prizes: 2026 Winners List
Here is the full list of winners and finalists.
(NYT) PUBLIC SERVICE – The Washington Post
The Pulitzer committee honored The Washington Post for, as it put it, “piercing the veil of secrecy around the Trump administration’s chaotic overhaul of federal agencies and chronicling in rich detail the human impacts of the cuts and the consequences for the country.”
Finalists The Chicago Tribune; Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo of The Wall Street Journal …
The 2026 Pulitzer Prize Announcement
For more information on this year’s Prize Winners and Nominated Finalists in Journalism, Books, Drama and Music,  visit the Prize Winners section of Pulitzer.org to find biographical information and read winning & nominated work in Journalism.

12 July
States Prepare Lawsuit to Block Paramount’s Merger With Warner Bros.
State attorneys general are said to be getting ready to file a lawsuit as soon as this week to halt the $111 billion deal, a potential major obstacle.
(NYT) The lawsuit would disrupt efforts by the billionaire Larry Ellison and his son, David Ellison, to create a Hollywood colossus. The combined company would include two major movie studios, multiple streaming services and the news networks CNN and CBS News, expanding the father-son duo’s influence over the flagging entertainment and media industries.
… The deal has renewed scrutiny of the relationship between the Ellisons and Mr. Trump. In April, during the week of festivities in Washington for the White House Correspondents’ Association annual dinner, CBS News hosted a large dinner where Mr. Trump sat at a table with David Ellison and Makan Delrahim, Paramount’s chief legal officer. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche also attended the dinner, which was billed as an occasion “honoring the Trump White House” and took place while the Justice Department was still reviewing the deal.

27 June
Chaos Came to CBS News. What’s in Store for CNN?
The tech scion David Ellison is close to completing a merger that would put the legacy broadcaster and the 24-hour cable news network under the same roof.
(NYT) Over nearly five decades, CNN has survived multiple owners, ratings ups and downs, and attacks by President Trump.
Now, its journalists are bracing for its most dramatic transformation yet: a corporate merger that would put the 24-hour cable network under the same ownership as CBS News.
David Ellison, the technology heir who controls Paramount, the owner of CBS, is poised to complete a $111 billion purchase of CNN’s parent company as soon as next month.
Mr. Ellison has not publicly detailed what he has in store for CNN. But the network’s newsroom is wary of his conspicuous coziness with Mr. Trump and the prospect that he may assign some oversight of CNN to Bari Weiss, his pick to run CBS News after he bought Paramount last year.

1-2 June
CBS News Fires Scott Pelley of ‘60 Minutes’; former “CBS Evening News” anchor was ousted after months of tensions between staff and Bari Weiss, the network’s editor in chief.
At a staff meeting on Monday, he accused the network’s editor in chief, Bari Weiss, of “murdering ‘60 Minutes,’” citing the ouster last week of the program’s leadership team and two on-air correspondents.
Scott Pelley Accuses CBS News Boss of ‘Murdering’ ‘60 Minutes’
In an explosive staff meeting, Mr. Pelley, a correspondent for the long-running Sunday news show, blasted Bari Weiss, the CBS editor in chief, and Nick Bilton, the show’s new executive producer.
… The 10 a.m. gathering, held at the program’s Midtown Manhattan headquarters, was intended as a formal introduction to Mr. Bilton, a tech journalist and filmmaker who was appointed last week as part of a major shake-up at “60 Minutes.” CBS fired Tanya Simon, the previous executive producer, and her deputy, along with Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, two of the show’s correspondents — an event that Mr. Pelley referred to as “Black Thursday.”
The meeting quickly turned tense — not a surprise after months of strain between veteran journalists at “60 Minutes” and Ms. Weiss, an opinion journalist who was a longtime critic of legacy media institutions before she became the head of one last year.
CNN Bosses Watching Anderson Cooper ‘Like a Hawk’ After ’60 Minutes’ Exit: ‘He Seems So Burnt Out’
Correspondent Anderson Cooper has signed off for good from 60 Minutes after nearly two decades at the CBS mainstay as he expressed a desire to spend more time with his two young kids — but sources say his departure is a classic case of him jumping before he was pushed as network honcho Bari Weiss revamps the news division.
What’s more, insiders say the clock’s ticking for Cooper at CNN, too, even though he inked a new contract with the beleaguered network in late 2025.

26-29 May
Disney is calling Trump’s FCC ‘unconstitutional.’ It paid him $15 million 2 years ago
By Steven Sloan and The Associated Press
(Fortune) Local TV stations owned by ABC across the United States blasted the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday for launching an “unlawful, arbitrary and unconstitutional” early review of their broadcast licenses as a dispute between the network and the Trump-controlled agency intensifies.
The reviews are part of a mounting confrontation between the FCC and one of America’s most prominent broadcast networks. Under Carr, an ally of President Donald Trump, the agency has launched probes of ABC touching on everything from its diversity practices to the network’s moderation of a 2024 presidential debate to guests booked on “The View.”
But the FCC’s move in April to begin early reviews of the broadcast licenses of ABC-owned stations in eight local markets attracted particularly close attention. The licenses for stations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, New York, Chicago and Philadelphia as well as Fresno, California, and Durham, North Carolina, were initially slated to come up for renewal between 2028 and 2031.
Commissioner Anna Gomez, the FCC’s sole Democrat, has called the reviews an “egregious assault on the First Amendment.” She has encouraged major media companies to take a stronger stand against the agency, predicting they would prevail in court if a case made it that far.
Anna Gomez is the sole Democrat on the FCC. She has a warning for big media companies
(AP) In an extraordinary four-page letter earlier this month to Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro, Gomez outlined what she described as the FCC’s “sustained, coordinated campaign of censorship and control” against the company. She noted probes touching on everything from diversity practices to ABC’s moderation of a 2024 presidential debate and the guests booked on “The View” along with the administration’s calls for late-night host Jimmy Kimmel to be fired.
In an interview from her Washington office, Gomez said she was heartened by Disney’s response and encouraged other broadcasters to prepare for similar fights. She’s an exceedingly rare figure in the nation’s capital, one of just a few Democrats who have held onto their seats at federal agencies after Trump fired most of them in a bid to bend the bureaucracy to his will.

26 May
The creation of a new Murdoch empire
James Murdoch is taking over New York magazine and Vox building a different media company than his father’s.
(WaPo) On Wednesday, James Murdoch announced a deal to buy New York magazine from Vox Media, alongside its namesake news site Vox.com and its podcast network. In a statement, Murdoch said the deal cements his company Lupa Systems’s “interest in the forward edge of culture” and its “deep commitment to ambitious journalism and agenda-setting conversations.”

15-22  May
We mourn the passing of Stephen Colbert’s unique late-night presence as the final curtain falls on “The Late Show”. SHAME on CBS.
There’s Nothing Special About Stephen Colbert’s Final Monologue At “The Late Show”
Every episode of “The Late Show” is special, so Stephen Colbert thought it would be best to begin his series finale with a regular monologue focused on the national conversation, free from forced celebrity cameos.
End of a Colbert-a
Stephen Colbert’s “Colbert Report” satirized politics. Then his “Late Show” confronted a moment when politics became self-satirizing.
James Poniewozik has written about the connection between TV and politics since the 1990s. His first piece as chief television critic for The New York Times was a review of Stephen Colbert’s premiere on “The Late Show.”
Stephen Colbert’s Last Show: Laughing Well Is the Best Revenge
The “Late Show” cancellation was a disappointment. But a surreally lovely final episode turned it into a cancellebration.
(NYT Critic’s Notebook) He didn’t land the pope, but he got a Beatle. He didn’t have a new project to announce, but he left us with a song (in fact two). He didn’t choose to end his show, but he ended it his own weird, wonderful way.
Stephen Colbert hosted his final “Late Show” on Thursday night, completing the story of the TV year’s most notorious and rancorous cancellation. But his final hour-plus — an emotional and delightfully bizarre wake for a comedy institution — turned it into a cancellebration.

Robert Reich: The Comedy Comedown
It’s a LONG way down from Stephen Colbert to his replacement
… To add insult to this corrupt injury, CBS is putting Byron Allen into Colbert’s 11:35 pm time slot. Never heard of Byron Allen? Well, besides being a self-described comic, Allen is also a billionaire media mogul who owns the Weather Channel, BuzzFeed, and the HuffPost.
… CBS executives claim the deal will provide “immediate profitability” for the network.* Well, duh. That’s because CBS won’t be paying Allen. Allen will ignominiously be paying CBS for Colbert’s time slot; CBS will “lease” Colbert’s time slot to Allen, and Allen will pocket whatever advertising revenue the show brings in.
Why Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ mattered
As the final curtain falls on “The Late Show,” a brief history of the evolution of the late-night tradition and Stephen Colbert’s satire.
How Colbert crushed on Canada — from roasting Canadian bacon to making Windsor the butt of the joke
Late Show host’s affection for Canadian culture was fodder for a long-running bit set to come to a close
David Byrne Welcomes Stephen Colbert for “Burning Down the House” in Third-to-Last ‘The Late Show’ Episode

21 May
The New York Times and Our Freedom
A lesson from one week, and two attacks
Richard J. Tofel
…the center of independent journalism at the national level remains the New York Times, and two events last week reminded me of how much we all owe the Times for keeping the journalistic faith, and for having the institutional courage to resist the threats of the would-be autocrat and his cronies at home and abroad.
On May 11, Nick Kristof, a Times opinion columnist who has worked for the paper for 40 years and won two Pulitzer Prizes (one each as reporter and opinionator), wrote a horrifying piece on rapes of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers, security service interrogators, prison guards and West Bank settlers. If you have not read the article yourself, you need to do so, even at 3700 words, and as unpleasant as that will be.
Kristof’s column cited a number of human rights reports, but he also spoke personally to 14 people who told him of their own sexual assaults. At least two of these were themselves journalists. …
In response to this devastating account, Netanyahu accused Kristof and the Times of a “blood libel” and threatened to sue for defamation. (These allegations, by the way, are not what constitutes “blood libel,” and the Israeli government devalues that historically significant phrase when they deploy it so recklessly.) Netanyahu made a similar threat last year, over reporting about Gaza, and did not follow through.
Where would a foreign head of government get the idea to sue the New York Times for defamation? From the head of our own government.
… My point here is that it is most often the New York Times these days which is being accused of blood libel and treason by the authoritarians. The rest of us need to continue our occasional efforts to hold the Times to highest standards, and to call it out when it falls short. But week in and week out, we need also to rally around the Times, to justly celebrate it as the jewel of our industry, and to recognize that its adversaries are our own.

The Most Surprising Part of Stephen Colbert’s Late-Night Run
The Late Show host has been a calming counterbalance to his peers.
By David Sims
(The Atlantic) The Late Show eventually became late night’s ratings leader—a throne that CBS is now voluntarily abdicating. But although Colbert’s performance frequently involved taking jabs at Trump and making pleas for common decency in America’s politics, to me, these weren’t what defined his tenure on the show. The clips I revisit the most speak to his empathetic nature, which revealed itself more and more as The Late Show went on. Take his exchange with Keanu Reeves, in which he asked the actor, “What do you think happens when we die?” (as part of a rapid-fire series), and Reeves pondered and replied, “I know that the ones who love us will miss us.” This moment of sweet profundity would have felt more jarring on Letterman’s or O’Brien’s show, but Colbert expanded it as a recurring feature: an existential questionnaire to pose to other celebrity guests, searching for an insightful peek into their brain; it’s a much more tender version of a viral segment.

12 May
A warning to the news industry: act now or the Joe Rogan/Piers Morgan ecosystem will leave you far behind
Deborah Turness
There is a revolution reshaping how people want and get their information. News brands can and must react, but the time is now
This is an extract from the Sir David Nicholas memorial lecture that Deborah Turness delivered in London
(The Guardian) No one can dispute that, today, the news industry is once again experiencing a revolution; a revolution that is reshaping news for a new generation of consumers. The disruption transcends all news brands. It impacts all journalists and all journalism, everywhere.
I am an optimist. I believe there are very good reasons to believe in a bright future for what I call the established news providers. So I am determined, having spoken to many people for this dispatch from the frontline, to set out a positive way forward.
I’ve spoken to people across the industry in the UK and in the US, because the tidal wave of disruption that hits us here often begins across the Atlantic. This moment of disruption is so potent because it goes to the heart of how the relationship between news provider and consumer is shifting. From institutions to individuals, from big media brands to personalities, from public service broadcasters to independent journalists: all with dramatic consequences for where news consumption is collapsing and where it is growing at speed. …

7 May
The Oligarchs Are Starting to Lose Their Grip on Power
By Mark Ruffalo and Matt Stoller
Mr. Ruffalo is an actor. Mr. Stoller is the director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project.
(NYT) When Warner Bros. Discovery investors approved Paramount’s $111 billion acquisition offer last month, it seemed like the latest chapter in a story of corporate consolidation in Hollywood and the American media that’s been in full force since the 1980s. This chapter includes the potential end of one of the great movie studios, as well as putting CNN under the same roof as the now imperiled CBS News. But despite appearances, the end of this story hasn’t been written. This time, there’s real opposition to this kind of corporate consolidation — and a blueprint for how to win. …
It is straightforward: Persuade state attorneys general to do what President Trump’s antitrust enforcers most likely will not, and block the merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. on antitrust grounds.
After that? Go on the offensive and work to break up the studio streaming system that is stultifying Hollywood.
This plan is already in motion. Within weeks of Paramount winning the bidding war for Warner Bros., we helped bring together a loose coalition of civil society groups, unions and actors, and this coalition enlisted over 1,000 artists to sign an open letter indicating our support of state attorneys general efforts to block the takeover. Many more subsequently added their voices, and the letter now has nearly 5,000 signatories.
But the most revealing thing about that letter wasn’t the people who signed. It was the people who didn’t. Not because they disagreed — because they were afraid. …
David Ellison, the leader of Paramount, has said that if this merger is allowed, he will provide artists with more avenues for work. But we should know better than to trust promises by the ultrarich. After Disney bought Fox in 2019, the combined entity released far fewer movies than it did before the companies merged. Time Warner has been sold twice in just the last 10 years — once to AT&T and once to Discovery — and each deal was followed by layoffs and price increases. If this deal goes through, the consequences for the entertainment industry could be catastrophic, with thousands more workers laid off. Employment in film and TV in Los Angeles has already dropped by 30 percent over the past four years. …

6 May
Amnesty Media Awards 2026: Winners Announced

The annual Media Awards, which are now in their 34th year, highlight excellence in human rights journalism, as well as the bravery of journalists who risk their lives to uncover human rights abuses around the world and hold power to account. Staggeringly, 2025 marked the deadliest year for journalism with a record 129 journalists and media workers killed worldwide, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The 11 categories commended the most outstanding human rights journalism of the last year. The BBC’s Surviving Syria’s Prisons won best Broadcast Feature; Basement Films Channel 4’s Gaza: Doctors Under Attack took home best Broadcast Investigation; Channel 4 News How a Palestinian Farmer Was Shot Defending His Home received the Broadcast News award and The Sunday Times’ Syria Returns To Bloodshed: ‘I’m a mother who saw her sons killed’ won the award for best Written News. Al Jazeera’s Caolán Magee won The Gaby Rado Award for New Journalist.

How Ted Turner Changed the World (And also my life)
Mark Leon Goldberg
(Global Dispatches) … There are many great obituaries. But if you want the richest biography of the man, I cannot recommend more highly the six-part documentary on MAX about Ted Turner. Call Me Ted delves deeply into both his personal history and business ventures, including the founding of CNN. But for me, the most intriguing part of the documentary is its exploration of Ted Turner’s deep commitment to philanthropy.
Ted Turner’s $1 billion pledge in 1997 was the single largest act of philanthropy at the time and inspired many of the other mega-donors in philanthropy today. What makes his commitment even more remarkable was that not long after his pledge, he lost a huge fortune in the AOL-Time Warner merger but still followed through on his pledge.
He was fond of saying “You can’t take it with you,” when discussing why he’d given away so much of his wealth to causes that benefit humanity. Now that he’s gone, it’s worth taking a moment to remember what a difference he made—from the founding of the UN Foundation, The Goodwill Games, the Nuclear Threat Initiative and so many other causes to benefit the global good.
CNN founder Ted Turner, a brash and outspoken television pioneer, has died at age 87
(AP) Turner was the force behind Cartoon Network, TNT and Turner Classic Movies. But his interests expanded far beyond media — owning professional sports teams in Atlanta and huge chunks of the American West, fueling conservation efforts through habitat restoration and endangered species work.
He donated a stunning $1 billion to United Nations charities and raced yachts too, winning the America’s Cup in 1977.
His garrulous personality sometimes overshadowed a driven, risk-taking business acumen. By the time he sold his Turner Broadcasting System to Time Warner Inc. in a 1996 media megadeal, Turner had turned his late father’s billboard company into a global conglomerate that included seven major cable networks, three professional sports teams and a pair of hit movie studios.
Turner’s signature achievement was creating CNN, the first 24-hour, all-news television network in 1980. At a time when news is instantly available, it’s hard to recall that the idea of letting consumers decide when they choose to learn what’s going on in the world was once revolutionary.
CNN’s breakthrough came during the Gulf War with Iraq in 1991. Most television journalists had fled Baghdad. CNN stayed, capturing images of a war’s outbreak, with anti-aircraft tracers streaking across the sky and correspondents flinching from the concussion of bombs.
“His first love was family and he had five children. But very close behind, he’s always told me that his greatest achievement was CNN, but he had so many over the years,” Tom Johnson, CNN’s president from 1990 to 2001, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Turner was promised a continued role in CNN after his company’s sale to Time Warner for $7.3 billion in stock but was gradually pushed out, much to his regret.
“I made a mistake,” he later said. “The mistake I made was losing control of the company.”
CNN founder Ted Turner, a pioneer of cable TV news, dies at 87
(CNN) Turner was harshly critical of broadcast TV and establishment news judgments. “Part of the reason America had so many problems, he believed, was because his fellow Americans were so ill-informed,” former CNN journalist Lisa Napoli wrote in “Up All Night,” a book about the creation of CNN. Turner recognized “there was no better place to promote a variety of opinions than on allmighty television. With a news channel, he could quite possibly help save the world.”
Turner wanted to dramatically widen the aperture of television news, envisioning shows about business, health, sports and other subject matter. He admitted he knew “diddley-squat” about the news business, but he recruited the right people who did, like Reese Schonfeld, CNN’s founding president.

How the Trump administration celebrates Press Freedom
A Dangerous New Attack on Press Freedom
According to MS NOW, the FBI has launched an investigation into an Atlantic reporter.
By David A. Graham
According to a report this morning from MS NOW, the FBI has opened a criminal investigation focusing on my Atlantic colleague Sarah Fitzpatrick, related to an article she published last month about Director Kash Patel. Drawing on some two dozen sources, Fitzpatrick reported that people inside the administration and the bureau are deeply concerned about what they described as Patel’s unexplained absences and excessive drinking.

3-5 May
World Press Freedom Day
Shaping a Future at Peace
By fostering access to reliable information, accountability, dialogue, and trust, press freedom and independent journalism are key to peace, economic recovery, sustainable development, and human rights.
According to UNESCO’s World Trends Report 2022–2025, press freedom has experienced its steepest decline since 2012. This decline is comparable to that seen during the most unstable periods of the 20th century – the two world wars and the Cold War.
Information manipulation, including the use of AI by malicious actors, is weakening trust and national security. At the same time, independent media face growing economic fragility.
Self-censorship has grown by more than 60%, driven by fear of reprisals, online harassment, judicial intimidation, and economic pressure.
World Press Freedom Day (WPFD) 2026 offers a critical moment to reaffirm freedom of expression and to align journalism, technology (including AI), and human rights actors around practical ways to strengthen information ecosystems for the future.
World Press Freedom Day 2026 conference “Shaping a Future at Peace”
4-5 May 2026
Lusaka, Zambia
The World Press Freedom Day 2026 Conference happens at a time when the boundaries between journalism, technology, civic space, and human rights are increasingly intertwined. It enables cross-fertilization of ideas, solutions and approaches – including gender-responsive perspectives – between journalists, digital rights advocates, technologists, policy makers, regulators, civil society organizations, academia, researchers, educators, youth leaders and content creators. This convergence offers a platform to move beyond diagnosis toward coordinated action, aligning journalism, technology (including AI), and human rights actors around practical ways to strengthen information ecosystems for the future.

4 May
2026 Pulitzer Prizes
Here are the 2026 Pulitzer Prize winners
(NPR) The 2026 Pulitzer Prizes were announced Monday afternoon, celebrating two dozen winners across journalism and the arts.
Author Daniel Kraus won in the fiction category for his book Angel Down, a story of World War I soldiers who find a fallen angel amongst the dead in No Man’s Land – a tale Kraus relates entirely within one sentence. Among other winners in the books categories were historian Jill Lepore for We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution and Brian Goldstone for There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America.
The Pulitzer board gave out two prizes in the local reporting category, a nod to the dynamism of both local journalism and relatively new newsrooms. One award was given to reporters from The Connecticut Mirror, a local news website, and reporters from ProPublica, who were recognized for their series on unscrupulous car-towing companies. The other was given to the staff of The Chicago Tribune for their chronicles of ICE sweeps of their city.

29 April
Jimmy Kimmel Mocks Trump Again After FCC Opens Review of ABC TV Licenses
(WSJ) President Trump called for Kimmel to be fired for a joke he made last week about Melania Trump

27 April
Argentina’s leader bars journalists from government HQ, raising concerns about press freedom
(AP) — The president blocked accredited reporters from entering the government’s headquarters. He took to social media, in all caps, to insult the country’s news media as “filthy scum that claims to be journalists.” He posted an AI-generated image that showed a local TV journalist in an orange prison jumpsuit.
The president in question was not the one you might think. It was Argentina’s radical libertarian Javier Milei.

31 March
Federal judge finds Trump violated free speech by ordering NPR defunded
(NPR) A federal judge has knocked down the core of President Trump’s executive order barring federal funding for NPR and PBS, saying it violated the broadcasters’ First Amendment rights on its face.
A District Court judge has found that a Trump White House executive order to defund NPR and PBS violated the First Amendment and is therefore “unlawful and unenforceable.” It wasn’t immediately clear what the decision, which could be appealed by the administration, would mean for the future of federal funding of public broadcasting.
NPR, Aspen Public Radio, Colorado Public Radio, and KSUT Public Radio in Ignacio, Colo., were all plaintiffs in the suit.
Moss said the president’s executive order, “Ending Taxpayer Subsidies for Bias Media” issued in May of last year “crosses that line.”

20 March
Striking Down Pentagon Press Limits, Judge Vindicates Independent Journalism
The ruling cut deeper than left-versus-right politics, declaring that the policy imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is unconstitutional.
(NYT) “A primary purpose of the First Amendment is to enable the press to publish what it will and the public to read what it chooses, free of any official proscription,” wrote Judge Paul L. Friedman of the Federal District Court in Washington.
“Those who drafted the First Amendment believed that the nation’s security requires a free press and an informed people and that such security is endangered by governmental suppression of political speech,” he continued. “That principle has preserved the nation’s security for almost 250 years. It must not be abandoned now.”
In his 40-page ruling, Judge Friedman dissected the policy imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has made Pentagon press passes available since October only to people who signed agreements not to solicit information the Trump administration has not approved for release.
CBS News shutters its storied radio news service after nearly a century, ending an era
(AP) — CBS News said Friday it will shut down its storied radio news service after nearly 100 years of operation, ending an era and blaming challenging economic times as the world moves on to digital sources and podcasts. Said longtime CBS News anchor Dan Rather: “It’s another piece of America that is gone.”
When it went on the air in September 1927, the service was the precursor to the entire network, giving a youthful William S. Paley a start in the business. Famed broadcaster Edward R. Murrow’s rooftop reports during the Nazi bombing of London during World War II kept Americans listening anxiously.
Today, CBS News Radio provides material to an estimated 700 stations across the country and is known best for its top-of-the-hour news roundups. The service will end on May 22, the network said Friday.
It’s not the end of turmoil at the network, as parent company Paramount Global is likely to absorb CNN as part of its announced purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery.

14 March
MAGA-friendly ‘CBS Evening News’ sees viewership plummet to alarming levels: report
“CBS Evening News” crashed back below the dreaded 4 million viewer threshold following it’s MAGA-friendly makeover, a red line that previously triggered major shake-ups at the network, Variety reported Tuesday.

12 March|
‘Like Humpty Dumpty’: It won’t be easy to put VOA back together again
By BEN JOHANSEN and SOPHIA CAI
(Politico West Wing Playbook) A federal judge this weekend ruled that KARI LAKE’s tenure as acting CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media was unlawful, effectively voiding many of her orders and dictates.
But many current and former employees say the court order is too little, too late.
Lake overhauled the agency that oversees Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and other U.S.-funded outlets, laying off nearly 1,400 journalists and support staff, a roughly 85 percent cut. She shook up leadership, sidelined career officials and pushed an editorial posture aligned with President Trump’s worldview. The agency ceased broadcasting to its more than 4,000 affiliates last March. Two months later, a court ordered VOA to recall staff and resume broadcasting. At least some affiliates are back online, but it’s not clear how many.
This afternoon, at the request of U.S. District Judge ROYCE LAMBERTH, USAGM announced that SARAH B. ROGERS, under secretary of State for diplomacy and public affairs, will be Trump’s nominee for the position. Until she is confirmed by the Senate, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources MICHAEL RIGAS will serve as acting CEO.
7 March
Judge says Kari Lake’s tenure atop US media agency was improper, voids actions as ‘acting CEO’
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth concluded that Lake was ineligible to serve as USAGM’s acting CEO when she was formally elevated to the position on July 31 in an “acting capacity” and without Senate confirmation. She relinquished that position on Nov. 19.
Lamberth said any actions Lake took in that four-month timeframe must be treated as “void,” including an Aug. 29 reduction in USAGM’s workforce. Lamberth also invalidated actions Lake took when the agency’s previous acting CEO, Victor Morales, delegated nearly the entirety of his responsibilities to her, concluding that this was also an illegal end-run around the Senate’s advice and consent role.

10-11 March
Press freedom declines in Americas, with US seeing sharpest drop: Report
A press freedom index has given the Americas its lowest average ranking since it started recording results six years ago
(Al Jazeera) The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) released its latest press freedom index on Tuesday, ranking last year as the lowest point for freedom of expression since the report began in 2020.
Researchers found that the Americas have experienced a “dramatic deterioration” in unrestricted speech, according to the report.
“This is one of the worst years for journalism in the region, marked by murders, arbitrary arrests, exile, and rampant impunity in countries such as Mexico, Honduras, Ecuador, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, Cuba, and Venezuela,” the report said.
It added that enhanced restrictions on free speech have occurred in countries of various ideological persuasions, whether right-wing or left-wing.
The US, however, was singled out as an area of “alarming decline”. In a ranking of 23 countries across the hemisphere, the US dropped from fourth place to 11th, indicating that journalists operate with increased restrictions.

Ottawa drops TikTok ban, will now let platform stay in Canada with conditions
(Canadian Press via Bloomberg) Industry Minister Melanie Joly said Monday in a media statement the decision to let TikTok remain in Canada hinges on several conditions, aligned with a similar approach taken by the European Union.
The decision followed “a thorough assessment of the information and evidence gathered during the review process, including advice from Canada’s security and intelligence community” and other government partners, Joly said.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service had no immediate comment Tuesday.
TikTok will implement stronger protections for Canadians’ personal information, including new security gateways and privacy-enhancing technologies to reduce the risk of unauthorized or prohibited access to Canadians’ data, Joly said.

1-6 March
Robert Reich: The Biggest Pro-Trump Mega-Media Monopoly Ever (it’s already distorting war coverage)
But this mega-media monopoly can be stopped. Here’s how.

Robert Reich: Suddenly, a New Pro-Trump Mega Media Monopoly
Trump and Larry Ellison have built it
(Substack) When the dark history of this sordid era is written, among the shameful culprits will be multi-billionaire Larry Ellison, his son David, Shari Redstone, former owner of Paramount, and David Zaslav, the current CEO of Warner Bros Discovery.
Today, Zaslav is being lauded by the business community as a genius for selling Warner Bros Discovery to the Ellisons’ Paramount for $111 billion, more than double its valuation in September.
Why would the Ellisons spend their billions to buy Warner Bros Discovery?
Wealth and power. Assuming the deal closes, they’ll own CBS News, Comedy Central (home of John Stewart), HBO (John Oliver), and CNN. And with Trump’s help, Larry Ellison is also the lead investor in TikTok.
Pause for a moment and think how huge and sudden is this emergence of a new media giant — and its profound potential for silencing criticism of Trump.
I don’t mean to suggest that John Stewart or John Oliver will be silenced. But their contracts may not be renewed (look what happened to Stephen Colbert). The algorithm on TikTok may be ever-so-slightly adjusted to reduce Trump criticism. And a small army of producers and correspondents on CNN may be more careful about what they report, or stories critical of Trump may be axed, as is now happening on CBS News.
… Trump cares more about TV news than he does about his presidency. In fact, TV news is his presidency.
He’s repeatedly blasted CNN as “fake news” and publicly demanded it be turned over to new owners.
Trump was instrumental in the Ellison’s takeover of CBS (along with Comedy Central), and of TikTok.
Last summer, as Shari Redstone and other of Paramount’s previous owners sought federal approval to sell the company to the Ellisons, they announced the end of late night host Stephen Colbert’s CBS show — which will end its run in May.
David Ellison promised to end diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at CBS. He has added a rightwing ombudsman, Kenneth Weinstein, the former head of a conservative think tank, and named Bari Weiss, founder of the center-right opinion and news site The Free Press, editor-in-chief of CBS News.
Since Weiss took over, at least six out of 20 “CBS Evening News” producers have left. She named a bunch of new contributors, including the anti-aging influencer Peter Attia (who has subsequently resigned over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein). She declared “We love America” a guiding principle. And replaced “Evening News” anchors John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois with Tony Dokoupil — best known for hassling the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates for his “extremist” belief that apartheid is morally wrong.

3 March
OpenAI amends Pentagon deal as Sam Altman admits it looks ‘sloppy’
ChatGPT owner’s CEO says it will bar its technology being used for mass surveillance or by intelligence services
(The Guardian) OpenAI is amending its hastily arranged deal to supply artificial intelligence to the US Department of War (DoW) after the ChatGPT owner’s chief executive admitted it looked “opportunistic and sloppy”.
The contract prompted fears the San Francisco startup’s AI could be used for domestic mass surveillance but its boss, Sam Altman, said on Monday night the startup would explicitly bar its technology from being used for that purpose or being deployed by defence department intelligence agencies such as the National Security Agency (NSA).
OpenAI, which has more than 900 million users of ChatGPT, made the deal almost immediately after the Pentagon’s existing AI contractor, Anthropic, was dropped.
OpenAI said in a blogpost announcing the DoW deal that one of its red lines was “no use of OpenAI technology to direct autonomous weapons systems”.
However, observers including OpenAI’s former head of policy research, Miles Brundage, have queried how OpenAI has managed to secure a deal that assuages ethical concerns Anthropic believed were insurmountable. Posting on X, he wrote: “OpenAI employees’ default assumption here should unfortunately be that OpenAI caved + framed it as not caving, and screwed Anthropic while framing it as helping them.” …
Meanwhile, three more US cabinet-level agencies – the departments of state, Treasury and health and human services – have moved to cease use of Anthropic’s AI products after the DoW’s declaration of the company as a supply chain risk. Trump has ordered all US government agencies to phase out their use of Anthropic after secretary of defence Pete Hegseth’s decision.
28 February
OpenAI to work with Pentagon after Anthropic dropped by Trump over company’s ethics concerns
CEO Sam Altman claims military will not use AI product for autonomous killing systems or mass surveillance

1 March
Netflix’s Co-CEO Explains Why He Quit the Warner Bros. Fight
Takeaways by Bloomberg AI
Netflix dropped out of the bidding for Warner Bros. Discovery after a rival bidder made a superior offer.
The decision to drop out was made based on various bidding scenarios Netflix had worked out in advance, and co-CEO Ted Sarandos said they knew exactly what to do when they received notice of the superior offer.
Sarandos believes the Paramount deal will lead to cost-cutting, including $16 billion in cuts and thousands of job eliminations, and says Netflix will continue to invest in its business and find new ways to work with theater owners.

BARI WEISS AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF CONSENT
(Raw Story) Weiss was installed as CBS News editor-in-chief by Paramount CEO David Ellison, who bought her outlet The Free Press for $150 million. Some reports alleged she was given that position to appease Trump. Her tenure has been beset by controversy. She postponed a “60 Minutes” segment — a decision correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi called a “political” move — and Anderson Cooper announced he was leaving the program.
CNN may be next. Netflix walked away from its bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery on February 26, clearing the path for Paramount Skydance — led by David Ellison — to take over Warner Bros., including CNN. Once the deal closes, CNN is widely expected to come under Weiss’s control. CNN staffers described the mood inside as “shaken” and “depressing,” with journalists saying they expected colleagues to head for the exits. “No one wants to work for the Ellisons,” one on-air journalist said. “And if Bari is going to be running CNN, expect people to leave.”
The new combined company would carry substantial debt and have Saudi and Emirati backing — the same Gulf states now absorbing Iranian missile strikes, in the same region where American service members died yesterday. David Ellison previously told Trump administration officials he’d make sweeping changes to CNN if he acquired it. …
This is how it works. You don’t need state censorship when billionaires buy the networks, install the editors, and reshape the coverage. CBS. CNN. The Washington Post. Each sale described in the language of modernization. Each sale moving the Overton window a few inches closer to whatever the man in the golden tie needs it to be. A new war has just begun, and the people who are supposed to cover it honestly are, one by one, landing in the hands of those who benefit from it going unchallenged.