Media Freedom USA

This is not international broadcasting, which provides independent news as an alternative to state-controlled media.

It's not public diplomacy, explaining and advocating US policies.

It's the historical Propaganda for War

x.com/VOAfarsi/sta...

Trump outlines vague ambitions at first Board of Peace meeting US President Donald Trump on Thursday said the US was pledging $10 billion for his inaugural Board of Peace, a new body aimed at consolidating progress in Gaza while signalling broader ambitions to re...

"'I have offered and Indonesia has accepted the position of deputy commander for the ISF,' Major General Jasper Jeffers announced at the inaugural meeting of President Donald Trump's 'Board of Peace'"

So the Department of War was represented at the Board of Peace.

www.france24.com/en/middle-ea...

Opinion | A Lament for the Washington Post The most powerful capital in the world has no major fully functioning newspaper. That’s a huge absence.

"losing the one major newspaper left in the great nation’s capital—and during the Trump administration no less"

Peggy Noonan in the WSJ ...

www.wsj.com/opinion/a-la...

What the end of US foreign assistance to independent media has wrought For decades, American taxpayers helped promote democracy around the world. Then the US switched teams.

"In the battle for press freedom, 'the US switched sides,' the report notes, backing dictators and autocrats who were cracking down on the rights of journalists worldwide."

www.cjr.org/analysis/dis...

Lessons from China’s Delicate Dance of Censorship and Expression The parallels between state censorship in the China and the US are increasingly striking.

"The American version is not wholesale erasure but an escalating speech war, where the consequences increasingly include defunding, firing, prosecution, and even deportation."

newrepublic.com/article/2058...

This January 29 tweet from VOA Farsi (Persian) has it all:

1) An opinion poll using a very biased base

2) Saber-rattling aimed at three countries

3) Photo of a vainglorious saluting Trump

x.com/VOAfarsi/sta...

Media makes the democracy, as Putin (and Trump) well know If/when the three branches of government fail us, the free press is our last pillar of hope. No wonder autocrats go after it.

"The White House isn’t trying to save money by canceling public media. Instead, it only hopes to draw closed the iron curtain hiding its dismantling of our democracy."
forwardky.com/media-makes-...

These public radio stations have built online audiences that’ll help them survive federal cuts They may have been born on the airwaves, but these public media stations compete on the web as well. Here's our first monthly ranking of the top 25 local public media websites in the United States.

"it’s the stations that aren’t on this list that are in the most peril, the ones not lucky enough to be in a major metro area with a high population of college graduates and lots of civic capital."

www.niemanlab.org/2025/08/thes...

Is the US Media Captured? The phenomenon comes in many forms. Experts believe it’s already here.

"The concept of media capture has taken hold among scholars, press freedom advocates [etc] because it explains why media may not truly be free even in places around the world where journalists are not being hauled off to jail or gunned down in the streets. "
www.cjr.org/analysis/par...

Opinion | ‘1984’ Hasn’t Changed, but America Has

"some of the very same titles and authors the C.I.A. sent East during the Cold War — including '1984'— are now deemed objectionable by a network of conservative groups across the United States."
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/o...

Stephen Colbert’s Cancellation Is Exactly What It Looks Like Mock a Trump bribe on Monday, get canceled by Thursday. The Late Show’s death reveals how billionaires and presidents are reshaping American media.

"This is how media freedom dies. ... It dies with mergers and acquisitions, with regulatory pressure and financial settlements, with billionaires who see news organizations as just another business asset to be leveraged."
newrepublic.com/article/1981...

Six months of Trump’s war on the press: importing and exporting authoritarian tendencies Six months into US President Donald Trump’s second term, his administration has become increasingly hostile towards the press, both mimicking and inspiring authoritarian and quasi-authoritarian regime...

#USA: Six months into his second term, President Trump’s hostility towards the press is snowballing, mimicking and inspiring other anti-press regimes around the world. RSF warns of this shared authoritarian playbook and calls on the White House to halt its war on journalism.
rsf.org/en/six-month...

Stations like Marfa Public Radio are absolutely vital during crises, like wildfires, as @onthemedia.bsky.social examined in this recent episode.

Trump files libel lawsuit over Wall Street Journal report on Jeffrey Epstein’s birthday letters | CNN Politics President Donald Trump filed a libel lawsuit against the publisher of the Wall Street Journal and reporters who wrote a story about a collection of letters gifted to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birth...

"University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias: “'his attacks on the media undermine the First Amendment by making the media and others more cautious in covering Trump, his administration and other federal and state politicians'”
www.cnn.com/2025/07/18/p...

Indiana Public Broadcasting statewide reporting team eliminated • Indiana Capital Chronicle Indiana Public Broadcasting is eliminating its statewide team of reporters and editors after the General Assembly defunded the organization.

Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations will be eliminating its entire statewide team of reporters and editors at the end of the year after the Indiana General Assembly defunded the organization.

"The Trump administration's assault on public broadcasting is ... a test of the First Amendment's durability in an era of executive overreach. For investors, the message is stark: media firms with editorial independence are now high-risk assets."
www.ainvest.com/news/media-f...

A Secret Program Allowed VOA to Broadcast Television into North Korea. Now It’s Gone. How the Trump administration undermined its own strategic position.

A Secret Program Allowed VOA to Broadcast Television into North Korea. Now It’s Gone. By joelsimonsays.bsky.social.
www.cjr.org/news/trump-l...

Gavin Newsom’s Lawsuit Against Fox News Is Petty, Petulant — and Pretty Damn Perfect Gavin Newsom’s lawsuit against Fox News won’t win in court—but it brilliantly flips the MAGA playbook and puts Fox on defense over its own smear tactic.

"If you think this seems small and unserious, you are right. But it’s no less absurd than Trump’s legal actions against any number of media outlets he disagrees with, and far more substantive than the crackpot $20 billion suit against 60 Minutes."
www.mediaite.com/opinion/gavi...

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Combatting Terrorism Through Common Sense Security “The recent terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come here a...

The June 9 VOA Editorial (currently VOA's only English output) quotes President Trump, with a swipe at President Biden, and has an interesting illustration ...

“''thanks to Biden's open door policies, today there are millions and millions of these illegals'"

editorials.voa.gov/a/combatting...

Trump Can Restrict A.P. Journalists’ Access, Appeals Court Rules

Appeals court rules that the president can punish a news outlet based on the content of its coverage by denying it access that it has had for generations. If the decision stands, it represents a major blow to press freedom @zjmontague.bsky.social @minhokim.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/06/06/u...

USA: RSF decries Trump administration’s illegal USAGM firings On June 3, 2025, US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) Senior Advisor Kari Lake sent a letter informing Congress of plans to dramatically slash the USAGM workforce from 1,033 to just 81 employees. The mo...

#USA: RSF is outraged by the Trump administration's illegal attempt to slash the US Agency for Global Media to just 81 employees. There are still several legal cases against the agency’s dismantling — including one brought by RSF.
rsf.org/en/usa-rsf-d...

Q&A: Tamara Bralo on Fighting to Protect Radio Free Asia’s Journalists “It’s difficult to remain calm when you’re dealing with this much trauma.”

Q&A: Tamara Bralo on Fighting to Protect Radio Free Asia’s Journalists, with Liam Scott. www.cjr.org/the_media_to...

We’re tracking the rising threats to press freedom - Poynter Because the warning signs are no longer subtle

"If the press is the immune system of democracy, we’re in a fever dream."
www.poynter.org/commentary/2...

Beating the Press In a time of eroding journalistic freedoms, a new book chronicles the deliberate effort to use libel law to bankrupt the independent media we have left.

"in the country that truly pioneered the free press as the Fourth Estate, the independent press is looking less like an estate and more like a small ragtag crew of intrepid reporters"
prospect.org/culture/book...

"The Anti-Press Playbook, in Charts: Let us count the ways the news media is under attack."

katiecouric.com/news/opinion...

We plan to sue if Paramount settles with Trump over CBS lawsuit Freedom of the Press Foundation notifies Paramount executives of liability and demands preservation of records

"FPF ... plans to file a shareholder’s derivative lawsuit should Paramount settle with Trump, and to demand that Paramount preserve all records that may be relevant to its claims. FPF is a Paramount Global shareholder."
freedom.press/issues/we-pl...

When the Free Press Falters: What America Can Learn from Russia’s Descent The unraveling of press freedom in the United States mirrors Putin's capture of the Russian media, write two experts who know both terrains.

"We are already seeing open threats to journalists, media ownership changes, and deepening alignment between power and profit. But the most dangerous moment is the one in which everyone still tells themselves, 'It can’t happen here.'"
www.justsecurity.org/113471/us-pr...

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