In his second term, President Donald Trump is waging a new war against the media, scuffles the White House press conference, and even attempts to shut off federal funding for some news outlets.
The Politico pay dispute, however, is only one of many efforts made by the Trump administration to combat large sections of the news media, the company claims the money was used to pay for subscriptions to its” Pro” solution.
Conservatives have much decried the national media as a fortress of left-wing stereotyping, dating back at least to Vice President Spiro Agnew’s 1969 talk blasting “quarrelous condemnation” of his employer, Richard Nixon, by the appointed news media.
Trump has a lot of the Republican Party in his favor, which is standard of him.
The right-wing Media Research Center released a report Monday alleging that Wikipedia has effectively blocked 100 % of right-leaning news outlets from being used in its citations, while blocking just 15 % of left-leaning sources, saying it’s another example of bias in the press.
Additionally, on Monday, the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency ( DGO ) invited former Wikimedia Foundation CEO Katherine Maher to testify before the committee about” systemically biased news coverage.”
According to committees president Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA ),” this reading is an opportunity for you to reveal to Congress and the American people why federal money should be used for public television, especially the type of material produced by NPR.” PBS is also in the subcommittee’s bullseye.
A second front in the conversation, and another that involves federal funding of information, is the Trump administration’s dramatic overhaul of the U. S. Agency for International Development.
Reporters Without Borders claims that Trump’s funding freeze includes more than$ 68 million that Congress has allocated to support independent media in more than 30 foreign nations. Nine out of 10 media outlets in Ukraine rely on USAID funding, per RWB’s release.
” The American aid funding freeze is sowing chaos around the world, including in journalism”, said Clayton Weimers, executive director of the group’s U. S. operations. ” The programs that have been frozen provide vital support to projects that strengthen media, transparency, and democracy”.
Trump had success suing media outlets during the 2024 campaign, with CBS News releasing the untranslated 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris amid a federal investigation and ABC News paying out a$ 15 million defamation settlement.
He’s built up relationships with media moguls, including billionaire Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, and found alliances with Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and X’s Elon Musk, whom Trump empowered with a far-reaching government job to shrink the bureaucracy.
Democrats are decrying Trump’s actions and promising to fight back for the next four years along with journalism advocacy groups.
At Wednesday night’s Washington Press Club Foundation’s annual congressional dinner, two different elected Democrats made that argument.
Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA ) argued that” the public needs a free press at this time to rise to the occasion, to do the best, to tell the truth, and to report the news without fear or favor.”
Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) took things a step further, comparing Trump’s anti-media actions to the work of “authoritarian regimes”.
Because you are uniquely positioned to speak uncomfortable truth to extraordinary power, she said,” there’s a reason authoritarian regimes always come after journalists.” ” I’m not asking you to take sides in the fight between Democrats and Republicans, but I am asking you to take sides in the fight between democracy and authoritarianism”.
” The truth must matter”, Smith added. ” Democracy must prevail, and in order for that to happen, the free press must endure”.
The Trump administration, however, insists that it opens up new opportunities for non-traditional media to have their voices heard, despite the fact that they don’t believe in that view.
Leavitt has set up a rotating “new media” seat in the White House press briefing room, provided credentials to dozens of nontraditional content creators, and made it a habit to call reporters who are seated in the room’s first two rows, which are dominated by network news and major newspapers.
On Wednesday, Leavitt addressed to every reporter in the back row of the room, stating loudly that the press team’s former president had ignored those smaller outlets.
Trump has also purposefully chosen a TV-friendly Cabinet, including one member, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was a Fox News host prior to joining the administration.
Under Hegseth’s leadership at the Defense Department, the New York Times, NBC News, NPR, and Politico were given notice to vacate their office space at the Pentagon, allowing more Trump-friendly outlets to come in, including Breitbart News.
Reporters from other news outlets have frequently been able to catch them returning to the West Wing from interviews at Fox News ‘ booth outside the White House, despite the fact that many of Trump’s top officials have only given a large portion of their access to Fox News.
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Trump has also gotten questions from reporters much more frequently than Biden, which his deputies are happy to mention when asked about how the media is treated.
” All of you, once again, have access to the most transparent and accessible president in American history”, Leavitt said last week. There has never been a president who has spoken with the American people and the press corps as openly and authentically as the 45th and now 47th president of the United States.”
