Journalism

Nexstar Media Group has ordered most of its 160-plus local television stations to air segments during local newscasts that ultimately encourage viewers to contact the Federal Communications Commission with demands for broadcast ownership deregulation. The stories highlight efforts by the FCC and its Chairman, Brendan Carr, to introduce deregulation effo

Robert Waterman McChesney passed away on March 25 at age 72. He was a globally respected communications scholar who was wholly welcome in the halls of academia, yet he was never satisfied working within an ivory tower. He was a rigorous researcher into the worst abuse of corporate and political establishments.

Congressional Republicans laced into PBS and NPR, accusing the country’s biggest public media networks of institutional bias in a fiery hearing that represented the latest salvo against the American press by close allies of the Trump administration. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who organized the hearing which she called “Anti-American Airwaves,” opened her remarks by deriding PBS and NPR as “radical left-wing echo chambers” that published skewed news reports and indoctrinated children with L.G.B.T.Q. programming.

U.S. adults who regularly get news and information from influencers or content creators are as, if not more, dedicated to staying informed as other Americans. In fact, they turn to organizations more than to individuals and recognize journalism as something distinct from news.

CBS has asked the Federal Communications Commission to end its investigation into edits of its “60 Minutes” Kamala Harris interview, arguing that the federal government risks becoming “a roving censor” trampling on free speech rights.President Trump was furious over October 2024's “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Harris in the closing weeks of the campaign. The president and other conservatives chided CBS after it was revealed that “60 Minutes” producers had edited Harris’ jumbled response to a question about the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war.

Chair Brendan Carr of the Federal Communications Commission, President Donald Trump’s “censure-in-chief,” is waging a war on the First Amendment and freedom of the press by investigating all of the president's perceived enemies and the major media networks, while letting Fox News and Rupert Murdoch off the hook. The selective weaponization of the FCC against media outlets that President Trump dislikes by threatening to revoke their licenses is not only unprecedented and dangerous but also beyond hypocritical.

As it has with other government agencies, the Trump administration is moving swiftly to assert its vision at the Voice of America. As it does so, a question hangs in the air: Is the news organization’s journalistic mission, which dates to World War II, in for some fundamental changes?

President Trump, in small and unprecedented ways, is punishing media companies more than any leader since America's founding. Once considered a bastion for free expression, America's record on press freedoms has fallen to a historic low, according to Reporters Without Borders. Under Trump's second presidency, the press is "under siege," the group argues. American trust in media has hit an all-time low. Most U.S. counties have little to no local news sources anymore. Trump is targeting traditional media sources at a moment of tremendous vulnerability for the industry.

President Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr is boasting to friends that he is having “the time of his life” after launching an all-out attack on the media. Chairman Carr has spread dread through top-ranked media executives since taking office at the same time as President Trump.

On October 16, 2024, the Center for American Rights (CAR) filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requesting an investigation into WCBS, New York, NY, for “news distortion” in the airing of a “60 Minutes” interview with then Vice President Kamala Harris. On February 3, 2025, in response to a request from the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau, the WCBS licensee provided the Commission with an unedited transcript and video of the 60 Minutes interview in question.