Media

Subterms

    More stories

    • 88 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Pam Bondi rescinds Biden-era protections for journalists

      by

      Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, has revoked a Biden administration-era policy that restricted subpoenas of reporters’ phone records in criminal investigations.An internal memo, first reported by ABC News, shows Bondi rescinding protections issued by her predecessor, Merrick Garland, for members of the media from having their records seized or being forced to testify in the course of leak investigations.The memo says federal employees who leak sensitive information to the media “for the purposes of personal enrichment and undermining our foreign policy, national security, and government effectiveness” are engaging in conduct that could be characterized as “treasonous”.“This conduct is illegal and wrong, and it must stop,” the memo states. The justice department “will not tolerate disclosures that undermine President Trump’s policies, victimize government agencies, and cause harm to the American people”.Bondi’s memo states that she has concluded that “it is necessary to rescind Merrick Garland’s policies precluding the Department of Justice from seeking records and compelling testimony from members of the news media in order to identify and punish the source of improper leaks”.But, she said, the department would continue to employ procedural protections to “limit the use of compulsory legal process” to obtain journalists’ records, acknowledging that a “free and independent press is vital to the functioning of our democracy”.Under the new policy, Bondi wrote, the attorney general “must also approve efforts to question or arrest members of the news media”.The move comes after Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, said she had made multiple criminal referrals to the justice department related to alleged leaks in the intelligence community.One of the leaks included information leaked to the Washington Post, Gabbard told Fox News on Wednesday. She went on to describe the leakers as “deep-state criminals” with “partisan political purposes to undermine President Trump’s agenda”.In 2022, Garland issued regulations to restrict how federal prosecutors could pursue leak investigations, following revelations that justice department officials under the previous Trump administration had secretly obtained the phone records of reporters at the Washington Post, CNN and the New York Times.Bondi’s memo comes as Donald Trump, who has frequently branded journalists “the enemy of the people”, has escalated his attacks on the US media landscape since returning to the White House in January.The new Trump administration’s war on the press has included seizing control of the White House press pool from news organisations, engaging in a highly publicized dispute with the Associated Press over the wire agency’s decision not to adopt the name Gulf of America instead of Gulf of Mexico into its stylebook, and moving to dismantle Voice of America (VoA).The justice department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. More

    • 250 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      In a world full of wedgies, are you a wedger like Trump, or a wedgee like me? | Adrian Chiles

      by

      Sir Ed Davey has made more than one significant contribution to the tone of political discourse over the past year. Obviously, there’s all the surfing, rollercoasting, bungee jumping and so on. There’s also his use of the word “wedgie” in relation to trade tariffs. That’s some trick to pull off. Respect. Here’s what he said earlier this month: “Despite backing the US in every major conflict this century – and offering to water down our tax on US tech billionaires – we’ve been rewarded with the same tariffs as Iran. It’s like we’re meant to be grateful Trump gave our friends a black eye and left us with just a wedgie.”This was quoted on The World at One on BBC Radio 4, which involved the presenter Sarah Montague using the word wedgie, too. Something else I never thought I’d hear. Even over where I work on BBC Radio 5 Live, where we’re less squeamish about using the vernacular, Davey’s wedgie-bomb came as a bit of a shock. But we soon gathered ourselves enough to hatch a plan on where we should go with the idea. My editor suggested it may be profitable to consider how mankind – and I believe we are talking about a largely male pursuit – can be divided into wedgees and wedgers. That is, those who have been wedgied and those who have done the wedging.I should explain to those unfamiliar with this ghastly practice – one generally but not exclusively experienced in our schooldays – that a wedgie is when you come up behind someone and, unbidden, take hold of the elastic of their underpants and … Actually, let’s leave it at that. If you know, you know. If you don’t, be grateful.My editor – who is called Tom Green, by the way, if you want to complain about any of this on taste grounds – is, like me, very much a wedgee. It’s why we get on. The current president of the United States is plainly a wedger. I use the present tense there, not because I think President Trump is an active wedger, but because it’s not a label you can shed. Once a wedger, always a wedger. Our prime minister, equally obviously, is a wedgee, and this is greatly to his credit. His predecessor, Mr Sunak, is a wedgee too. Liz Truss? Let’s not go there. Boris Johnson? Most definitely a wedger.To be clear, not all wedgers are bad. Some of my best friends are wedgers. But it’s the rest of us who are on the side of the angels. Hard though it is to believe just now, it’s the wedgees who will inherit the Earth. More

    • 175 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘A new golden age’: how rightwing media stuck by Trump as global markets collapsed

      by

      While Donald Trump recently instituted and paused hefty tariffs, sparking a trade war and chaos in financial markets, most of the country’s conservative media either applauded the US president or critiqued the policy but not the person behind it, according to journalists and observers of conservative media.Meanwhile, economists, business leaders, Democrats and even some Republicans warned that the tariffs, which prompted the largest American stock market drop since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, could cause a recession.“News is what impacts the greatest number of people,” like tariffs and “the evaporation of wealth and the ripple effect on not just the US economy, but the global economy”, said Howard Polskin, president of The Righting, a newsletter and website that monitors conservative media. “By any stretch of imagination, that should be a lead story.”But the chaos of last week posed a serious challenge to many aspects of rightwing US media, which often acts as a largely unquestioning cheerleader for Trump and his Maga movement. The story was sometimes played down, sometimes cheered but rarely seriously questioned – even amid warnings of price rises, recession and cratering investments, especially precious 401(k) retirement accounts.The most popular conservative news source in the United States is Fox News, which has a much larger audience than CNN and the leftwing MSNBC network. Its hosts, such as Sean Hannity and Jesse Watters, consistently praise Trump and bolster his inaccurate claims.But Fox News has faced new competition from Newsmax and One American News Network (OANN), networks that positioned themselves as even more reliable Trump supporters. The Wall Street Journal, which has the same owner as Fox News, features a right-leaning opinion section, but also has done lengthy investigations into Trump and Joe Biden and is a favorite among people in the financial sector.Rightwing commentators such as Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro also command a large audience through podcasts and social media.After Trump declared 2 April “liberation day” and announced that the country would on 5 April institute a 10% universal tariff on all imported goods and on 9 April start “reciprocal tariffs” on some of its largest trading partners, including a 34% tariff on imports from China and a 20% tariff on goods from the European Union, Hannity described it as “a day that will be remembered as a turning point and the start, I hope for every American, of a new golden age”.China retaliated with a 34% tariff. Global stock markets fell sharply; the Dow Jones industrial average declined more than 2,000 points over the next two days.Economists and leaders of financial institutions said that the tariffs increased the likelihood of a recession and inflation. Most Republican lawmakers stood behind the president; a minority, like Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, expressed opposition and said the tariffs amounted to a tax increase for Americans.While Fox Business, a sibling network, had guests who criticized the tariffs, Fox News personalities told viewers nervous about their investments that everything would work out well. A Fox News spokesperson did not respond to the Guardian’s requests for an interview.“I don’t really care about my 401(k) today,” Jeanine Pirro said on 3 April on the show The Five. “We’ve got to have manufacturing in this country … and Donald Trump is the only one who could do it because he’s got the biggest consumer base in the world. He’s not afraid of anybody.”Despite the market upheaval, the Fox News commentators were “in too deep” to break with Trump, said Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a leftwing advocacy group.“They have, for nearly a decade now, sold their audience on the sense that Donald Trump would be a good president,” Gertz said 7 April. “Now he is single-handedly causing a worldwide market collapse,” but “they can’t abandon him”.Other conservative news organizations opted to focus on other issues. At one point on 8 April, the only story on tariffs on the OANN frontpage concerned the former speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and her comments on tariffs in 1996.The network did interview Arthur Laffer, a conservative economist who Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Laffer said that if Trump kept the tariffs, he didn’t see how the country could avoid a recession, but he still “could not think of one person on Earth that I would prefer more to be president”.On 9 April at Newsmax, the headline of their main story read, “Trump: Tariffs Bring in $2 Billion a Day.”The actual number this month was about $200m, Reuters reported.“A lot of times it feels more like propaganda,” Polskin said of the cable networks’ coverage. “I find it all extremely alarming, the stock market and that consumers of rightwing media could be misled so egregiously.”Newsmax did not respond to the Guardian’s request for an interview.There are exceptions in the conservative media sphere. The Journal has criticized Trump and his tariff policy.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Trump Owns the Economy Now. He can try to blame the Fed, but the tariff blunder is his alone,” was the headline of a recent editorial.Their editorial pages have been “characterized through the years as sort of the bastion of conservatism”, said Rick Edmonds, media business analyst for the Poynter Institute. “They are not at all sympathetic to the tariff actions.”Shapiro, the rightwing pundit and a founder of the Daily Wire, devoted much of his podcasts after “liberation day” to scrutinizing the tariffs and questioned whether they could actually bring manufacturers back to the United States.But Shapiro reassured listeners that he supported the president.“What exactly is this designed to do?” Shapiro said of the tariffs during a 3 April episode of his podcast. “It is predicated on a bad idea of how international trade works. I’ve said this a thousand times: this is not coming from a place of I want Trump to fail.”Shapiro called for Trump to fire Peter Navarro, the White House trade adviser who reportedly shaped the tariffs strategy. But, of course, it was Trump who instituted them.“In general, the rightwing media, they are like Republican politicians. They don’t want to cross Trump,” Edmonds said.Still, Aaron Rupar, a journalist who tracks speeches and interviews Trump and his officials give to conservative media, thought their coverage of the tariffs was “a little more honest” than their coverage of events like the January 6 attack on the Capitol or the trials Trump faced when he was out of office.“With financial data, it’s a little harder to gaslight people,” he said.Ultimately, hours after the reciprocal tariffs took effect, Trump announced a 90-day pause on them, except for China, whose tariff he increased to 125%.“Many of you in the media clearly missed The Art of the Deal,” the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said afterwards, referring to Trump’s book. “You clearly failed to see what President Trump is doing here.”A day later, with stocks still down significantly from before “liberation day”, Ainsley Earhardt, a Fox News host, reiterated Leavitt’s point.“This is the art of the deal,” she said. “This shows how strong our president is.” More

    • 188 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      The AP’s win against Trump shows principles still have power in America | Margaret Sullivan

      by

      Given the constant flow of bad news – recession nearing, markets tanking, federal agencies run amok – a victory in court for a news wire service might seem trivial.But the Associated Press’s win against the Trump administration this week is meaningful for two reasons. It underscores the judiciary’s commitment to the first amendment, and it suggests that standing up for one’s principles may not be just a gesture made in vain.Here’s what the US district court judge Trevor McFadden – a Trump appointee – had to say about the AP’s being denied access to White House news events because of the organization’s editorial decision to continue using the term Gulf of Mexico instead of Gulf of America:“The Court simply holds that under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists – be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere, it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints. The Constitution requires no less.”The Trump administration is appealing the ruling. It is not clear that a higher court will not overrule McFadden.But what is clear is that Julie Pace, the AP’s top editor, was right when she made the argument in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that more was at stake here than the name of a body of water. “It’s really about whether the government can control what you say,” Pace wrote.This administration wants to do that – and it is willing to punish those who don’t fall in line.Yet, courageous voices are out there. And sometimes, they make a difference.When Jaime Cook, the school principal in Sackets Harbor, New York, put out a heartfelt public statement about three students and their mother being abruptly taken to a Texas detention facility by federal agents, her words required the same kind of guts.“Our 3 students who were taken away by ICE were doing everything right,” Cook wrote. “They had declared themselves to immigration judges, attended court on their assigned dates, and were following the legal process. They are not criminals.”Others found their voices, too. In this tiny town of fewer than 1,400 people – which happens to be a vacation residence of the US “border czar”, Tom Homan – nearly 1,000 people came out to protest last weekend. This week, the mother and three children were on their way back home.Courage mattered.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionConsider, too, the words of the Princeton University president, Christopher Eisgruber, in an NPR interview about how that university plans to navigate the suspension of federal funding: “We make our decisions at Princeton based on our values and our principles.” When asked by a reporter whether that meant no concessions, as other universities have made to the Trump administration, Eisgruber responded with strength.“We believe it’s important to defend academic freedom, and that’s not something that can be compromised,” he said.Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia University, which took a far different approach by capitulating to Trump administration demands, compared the universities to two law firms, one of which has capitulated to Donald Trump’s bullying while the other has refused to do so.“Princeton is making us [Columbia] look like Paul Weiss to their Wilmer Hale,” Wu wrote.These cases have something in common: a line in the sand and the courage to defend it.The same was true of the former Department of Justice prosecutor Ryan Crosswell, testifying before Congress, as he explained why he felt compelled to resign recently after federal corruption charges against the New York City mayor, Eric Adams, were abruptly dropped. Too many lines had been crossed, he said; he had no choice.“The day after I resigned,” Crosswell testified, “my sister had her first daughter and I want my niece to know the same democracy that I’ve known. That’s worth any cost.”None of this is easy. After all, Trump and those around him are famously vindictive. It’s not hard to understand why law firms, universities, school officials, news organizations and so many others have decided to avoid the fight and to rationalize the decision to give in or remain silent.But those mentioned here chose to act on principle. In so doing, they have the power to inspire the rest of us, which is likely to be important in the long run.Do brave words or principled resignations or expensive, possibly fruitless lawsuits really accomplish anything? Will they keep America’s teetering democracy from falling off a cliff?Maybe not. But everyone who cares about fairness, freedom and the rule of law ought to be grateful nonetheless for these demonstrations of integrity. Amid the darkness, they cast some faint light along our treacherous path.

      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Judge orders Trump White House to lift access restrictions on Associated Press

      by

      A US judge on Tuesday ordered Donald Trump’s White House to lift access restrictions imposed on the Associated Press over the news agency’s decision to continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico in its coverage.The order from US district judge Trevor McFadden, who Trump appointed during his first term, requires the White House to allow the AP’s journalists to access the Oval Office, Air Force One and events held at the White House while the AP’s lawsuit moves forward.The AP sued three senior Trump aides in February, alleging the restrictions were an attempt to coerce the press into using the administration’s preferred language. The lawsuit alleged the restrictions violated protections under the US constitution for free speech and due process, since the AP was unable to challenge the ban.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLawyers for the Trump administration have argued that the AP does not have a right to what the White House has called “special access” to the president. More

    • 200 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      The Guardian view on online safety: don’t let Trump dictate the terms of debate | Editorial

      by

      In 1858, when London could no longer tolerate the stench of raw effluent in the Thames, city authorities commissioned a system of sewers that operates to this day. A century later, when noxious fog choked the capital, parliament passed the first Clean Air Act, limiting coal fire emissions.When a dangerous toxin assails the senses, polluting public space to the detriment of all that use it, the case for legislation is self-evident. The argument is more complex when the poison has no chemical properties; when it exists in a virtual realm. This is the conceptual challenge for regulation of digital content. It is made all the more complex by conflation with arguments about free speech and censorship.The UK has a law that grapples with these questions. The 2023 Online Safety Act makes social media companies, websites and search engines responsible for harmful content published via their services. Offending material named in the statute is uncontroversially horrible – violent pornography, incitement to violence and terrorism. Such things are commonly proscribed even in very liberal jurisdictions on the basis that, with some types of communication, the state’s duty of public protection is paramount. No one argues that child abuse images, for example, are a legitimate expression of free speech.Yet implementation of the Online Safety Act is now in question because Donald Trump’s government has identified it as a symptom of wider European infringement of free expression. As the Guardian revealed this week, US state department officials expressed their concern in a meeting with Ofcom, the regulator responsible for enforcing new digital regulations.That intervention should be seen in the context of an aggressive trade policy that cannot tolerate any foreign restriction on the extension of American economic interests overseas. That explicitly includes regulation that “incentivises US companies to develop or use products and technology in ways that undermine free speech or foster censorship”.The invocation of liberal principle here is cynical and ideological. The Trump administration defines freedom of speech as the right to propagandise for the president. Any effort to correct wilful misinformation or conduct public discourse on a foundation of verifiable fact is liable to be denounced as censorship.Mr Trump’s power is bolstered by alliance with tech industry oligarchs. The unwritten deal is that the president’s cause is boosted on social media and the platforms’ commercial interests are driven by the president. That is why US trade policy is being deployed against European regulators that have tried to make the internet – or the part of it over which they have legal jurisdiction – less lawless.Yielding to that pressure would cede control of the digital information space to people who actively subvert it for the cause of American ultranationalism. It would mean accepting that a vital part of the digital infrastructure for a free society operates according to rules set by companies that are poisoning the wells of public discourse.There is a legitimate debate to be had about the boundary between safety online and censorship. The two issues are entangled because regulation of information space involves a distinction between permitted and intolerable content. But no European democracy can conduct that debate on terms dictated by a US administration that sees all digital space as its sovereign domain, and that holds tenets of liberal democracy in contempt. More

    • 175 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Americans are beginning to fear dissent. That’s exactly what Trump wants | Robert Reich

      by

      I was talking recently to a friend who’s a professor at Columbia University about what’s been happening there. He had a lot to say.When he needed to run off to an appointment, I asked him if he’d text or email me the rest of his thoughts.His response worried me. “No,” he said. “I better not. They may be reviewing it.”“Who’s ‘they’?” I asked.“They! The university. The government. Gotta go!” He was off.My friend has never shown signs of paranoia.I relay this to you because the Donald Trump regime is starting to have a chilling effect on what and how Americans communicate with each other. It is beginning to deter open dissent, which is exactly what the US president intends.The chill affects all five major pillars of civil society – universities, science, the media, the law and the arts.In Columbia University’s capitulation to Trump, it agreed to require demonstrators to identify themselves when asked and put its department of Middle Eastern studies under “receivership”, lest it lose $400m in government funding.The agreement is already chilling dissent there, as my conversation with my friend revealed.The Trump regime also “detained” a Columbia University graduate student and green card holder who participated in protests at the school. The administration’s agents have also entered dorms with search warrants and targeted two other students who participated in such protests.On Tuesday, an international student in a graduate program at Tufts University was taken into custody outside her off-campus apartment building by plainclothes homeland security agents, handcuffed and whisked away to a prison in Louisiana. She has a valid student visa. Her apparent offense? Putting her name to an opinion piece in the Tufts student newspaper that was critical of how the Tufts administration handled protests.Scores of other major universities are on Trump’s target list.Trump’s attack on science has involved threats to three of the largest funders of American science – the Centers for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation.Tens of thousands of researchers are worried about how to continue their research. Many have decided to hunker down and not criticize the Trump administration for fear of losing their funding.Philippe Baptiste, the French minister for higher education, has charged that a French scientist traveling to a conference near Houston earlier this month was denied entry into the US because his phone contained message exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he gave a negative “personal opinion” about Trump’s scientific and research policies. The US Department of Homeland Security denies this was the reason the scientist wasn’t admitted into the country.Meanwhile, America’s major media fear more lawsuits from Trump and his political allies in the wake of ABC’s surrender to Trump in December, agreeing to pay him $15m to settle a defamation suit he filed against the network.Journalists who cover the White House are reeling from Trump’s decision to bar those he deems unfriendly from major events where space is limited.The media chill is palpable. Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, has openly restricted the kinds of op-eds appearing in its editorial pages.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe latest example of Trump’s use of executive orders to target powerful law firms that have challenged him came on Tuesday, against Jenner & Block.The firm employed the attorney Andrew Weissmann after he worked as a prosecutor in the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Trump during his first term.The White House charged that the firm “participated in the weaponization of the legal system against American principles and values”, and an official specifically called out Weissmann.Last month, Trump removed the security clearances of lawyers at Covington & Burling who represented the former special counsel Jack Smith following his investigation of Trump’s role in the January 6 Capitol attack.Trump has also targeted Perkins Coie, a firm linked to opposition research against Trump in 2016. His order banned Perkins Coie lawyers from federal buildings and halted its federal contracts.Another executive order took aim at Paul Weiss, who employed the lawyer Mark Pomerantz before he helped prosecute Trump over hush money payments to Stormy Daniels.Last Thursday, Trump withdrew the executive order against Paul Weiss because, he said, the firm had “acknowledged the wrongdoing” of Pomerantz and pledged $40m in free legal work to support the Trump administration.Non-profits tell the Washington Post that law firms that once might have helped them fight Trump’s orders now fear Trump will pursue them if they do.Trump is even intimidating the arts by taking over the Kennedy Center, firing board members, ousting its president and making himself chairman.The comedian Nikki Glaser, one of the few celebrities to walk the red carpet at this year’s Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prizes, now thinks twice before doing political jokes directed at Trump.“Like, you just are scared that you’re gonna get doxxed and death threats or who knows where this leads, like, detained. Honestly, that’s not even like a joke. It’s like a real fear,” she told Deadline.Every tyrant in history has sought to stifle criticism of himself and his regime.But America was founded on criticism. American democracy was built on dissent. We conducted a revolution against tyranny.This moment calls for courage and collective action rather than capitulation – resolve by universities, researchers, journalists, the legal community, and the arts to stand up to Trump.Anyone holding responsible positions in these five pillars of civil society must reject Trump’s attempts at intimidation and condemn what he is trying to do.Those who surrender to Trump’s tyranny invite more of it.

      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Advertising giant WPP cuts diversity references from annual report

      by

      The British advertising giant WPP has become the latest company to cut the phrase “diversity, equity and inclusion” from its annual report as the policies come under attack from the Trump administration.The agency, which counts the US as by far its largest market, boasts the storied “Madison Avenue” agencies J Walter Thompson, Ogilvy and Grey among its top brands.In WPP’s annual report, which was released on Friday, the chief executive, Mark Read, told shareholders that “much has changed over the last year” due to political events.“In today’s complex world, a pressing question for brands and organisations is whether to engage on social issues in a more contested public arena, and how to navigate the expectations of different audiences with competing views on sensitive topics,” he wrote.The same document axed all references of “diversity, equity and inclusion”, “DE&I” and “DEI”. The policy attracted 20 mentions in the previous year’s report. The earlier document mentioned three times that the company was seen as a “diversity leader”.The omissions, which were first reported by the Sunday Times, included changes to how the company reports on measuring top executives’ non-financial performance, which contributes to the size of their short-term bonuses. In the new report, the phrasing has switched to “people and culture”.WPP declined to comment on whether the new wording was a response to anti-DEI policy moves by the Trump administration. The company said that, while the phrasing in its annual report had changed, the way in which executives’ short-term bonuses are calculated was unaltered.Within his first few days in office, Donald Trump instructed US government agencies to shut down their DEI programmes and federal employees working in diversity offices were immediately put on paid leave.Trump signed two executive orders targeting DEI programmes within the federal government. The first executive order largely scrapped the DEI efforts that took place under Joe Biden, who had ordered all federal agencies to come up with equity plans.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionA second executive order effectively ended any DEI activities within the federal government. This order overturned a handful of executive orders from past presidents, including one from Lyndon B Johnson that was signed during the civil rights era that required federal contractors to adopt equal opportunity measures.The Financial Times recently reported that more than 200 US companies have removed references to “diversity, equity and inclusion” from their annual reports since Trump’s election. More