Government & Communications

The fundamental right to seek and disseminate information through an independent press is under attack, and part of the assault has come from an unexpected source. Elected leaders in many democracies, who should be press freedom’s staunchest defenders, have made explicit attempts to silence critical media voices and strengthen outlets that serve up favorable coverage.

Many Americans say the creation and spread of made-up news and information is causing significant harm to the nation and needs to be stopped. Indeed, more Americans view made-up news as a very big problem for the country than identify terrorism, illegal immigration, racism and sexism that way.

President Donald Trump kicked off his state visit to the United Kingdom with a complaint about CNN, urging a boycott of the network’s new corporate owner, AT&T. He fired off a pair of tweets complaining that CNN, whose coverage the president often says is unfair to his administration, "is the primary source of news available from the US" in the UK.

President Trump's tweets don't pack the punch they did at the outset of his presidency. His Twitter interaction rate — a measure of the impact given how much he tweets and how many people follow him — has tumbled precipitously. It's a sign that his strongest communication tool may be losing its effectiveness and that the novelty has worn off. 

The New York Times Company is urging a judge to order the Federal Communications Commission to disclose information about network neutrality commenters, despite the agency's objections that doing so could compromise people's privacy. “The FCC’s claims dramatically overstate the potential for harm,” the Times writes in court papers filed May 23 with the US District Court in the Southern District of New York.

On April 2, 2019, a dozen Members of Congress wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai expressing concern that the FCC's draft 2019 Broadband Deployment Report "may contain serious data inaccuracies that would undermine the validity of its findings." "We note that the FCC has already issued an apparently erroneous press release, dated February 19, that seems to reflect these inaccuracies.

The Agency for Global Media is supposed to broadcast objective Spanish-language news programs into Cuba, but fails to meet basic standards of journalistic fairness and let an anchor describe Trump administration officials as the “dream team” for Cuba policy, according to an independent review. The review of Radio and Television Martí content, conducted by Spanish-speaking academics and former journalists, found the news organization routinely allows “almost any criticism of the Cuban government and its leaders” on the air.

President Donald Trump has a penchant for ganging up on the "mainstream media," but lately his attacks have spread to ganging up on any information gatekeeper — from Big Tech platforms to newscasters on his favorite network. His ire lately has turned toward Sunday political shows, specifically. Last weekend he tweeted multiple times about the "Fake News Sunday Political Shows," even calling out Fox's own Chris Wallace for interviewing Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

With few allies left in the West Wing, President Donald  Trump frequently leans on Dan Scavino, his unassuming social media guru (officially: senior adviser for digital strategy), for affirmation and advice about how his most sensitive policies will be received. To admirers, Scavino is a social media pioneer who fine-tunes Trump’s critical bond with his supporters. To critics, he is a yes-man and enabler who has no business working in the White House. Scavino routinely provides rationalizations or justifications for the president’s most controversial policy directives.