Hadas Gold

Donald Trump has slashed his regular cable television appearances and is largely restricting himself to "friendlier terrain" on Fox News, according to Howard Kurtz, the channel's media analyst and host of "Mediabuzz." According to Kurtz's report, Trump's staff is not notifying him of every interview request. It's part of an effort to tamp down on the "risk of the candidate making mistakes or fanning minor controversies."

"Several weeks ago, high-level staffers concluded at a meeting that the boss should be limited to no more than three interviews a week, print reporters included. He wound up meeting that quota in just half a day. But aides now vet whether certain reporters can ride on his plane, which used to be a snap decision by Trump," Kurtz reports. Trump's last interview with CNN was June 13. =The presumptive Republican nominee's last interview with MSNBC was in May with "Morning Joe".

The line between news reporting and opinion is blurring in Ferguson (MO) as some national journalists inject their perspective and even themselves into the story.

The conduct of a few prominent members of the press on the ground has drawn the attention of media observers and prompted the wrath of conservatives who see an anti-law enforcement bias in the Fourth Estate.

[Commentary] As Dean Baquet takes over as executive editor of the New York Times, a looming question hovers beyond the scandal surrounding Jill Abramson’s bloody ousting: How will Baquet handle the necessary digital transformation facing “All the news that’s fit to print”?

Baquet sent a memo to staff ensuring them that he will "move with urgency" on the recommendations of a recent internal "innovation" report, which was submitted in late March and warned that the Times' "journalism advantage is shrinking" as it is surpassed by new digital competitors.

But Baquet, while widely admired throughout the newsroom, is not known for his digital savvy. He's described as "print-forward," "page-one obsessed." Younger staff members note that he's never even written a tweet.

So the most important indication of Baquet's commitment to digital will be who he selects as his number-two, staffers said. If he taps a digital-forward managing editor, it will signal that he is serious about the need to grow in the online and mobile spaces, which will be essential to the Times' future success.

“If he hires the right deputy maybe it will work. But the signals he is sending are so much business as usual it’s very hard for me to imagine he’s capable of leading that type of change," a former staffer said.

The number of journalists identifying themselves as Republican has experienced a significant drop since 2003, a new survey found.

The percentage of full-time US journalists who claim to be Republican dropped from 18 percent in 2002 to 7.1 percent in 2013, according to a study by Indiana University professors Lars Willnat and David H. Weaver.

Former CIA and NSA director Gen. Michael Hayden will write a bimonthly column called "Inside Intelligence" for the Washington Times.

“Gen Hayden is known as a broad-minded and independent thinker on military and intelligence matters. His columns will be must-reads inside and outside the Beltway,” Washington Times Editor John Solomon said. “We’re thrilled to have him as part of our growing team of columnists. His topics go to the heart of our mission as a newspaper.”

A new directive issued by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper prohibits employees of certain government agencies from discussing any intelligence-related matter with the media, classified or not.

“[Intelligence Community] employees … must obtain authorization for contacts with the media” on intelligence-related matters, and “must also report… unplanned or unintentional contact with the media on covered matters,” the directive says.

DNI spokesperson Shawn Turner said that after the "damaging leaks in 2012," Clapper ordered a review to determine if there were a "consistent baseline requirement" for the intelligence community for engaging the media.

"The review demonstrated that baseline requirements were not consistent across the IC, but that there were best practices within the Community that could inform a consistent approach. That approach took shape as IC Directive 119," Turner wrote in an email. "This policy is being issued together with IC Directive 120 to ensure that members of the Intelligence Community are made aware of the protections provided them as whistleblowers who make protected disclosures. As with ICD 119, ICD 120 was initiated before Edward Snowden stole NSA property and leaked it to the media.”

The main US Spanish-language nightly news programs skew liberal on domestic issues and spent most of their air times in the last few months covering the new health care law, immigration reform, and immigration law enforcement, the conservative-leaning media watchdog group Media Research Center found in a new study.

Ken Oliver-Méndez, Director of MRC’s new Spanish-language watchdog group MRC Latino, said in an interview that of the newscasts of Noticiero Univision and Noticiero Telemundo from November through February, 45 percent of stories on US domestic policy issues tilted liberal, 49 percent were balanced or neutral and 6 percent skewed conservative.

According to the study, Univision’s stories tilted left 50 percent of the time, were balanced 43 percent and were perceived as conservative 7 percent of the time, while Telemundo’s stories tilted left 54 percent of the time, were balanced 40 percent of the time and tilted conservative 5 percent of the time. The study also found that Democratic surrogates and liberal-leaning groups were featured on both networks more frequently than Republicans or conservative groups, but the group also faulted conservatives for not reaching out more to Latino media.