Kelsey Sutton

In August 2021, AMC+ landed what has become every streaming service’s holy grail: a coveted Verizon partnership. As part of a deal between the two companies, certain customers of Verizon’s broadband and unlimited phone plans are entitled to a free year of the AMC Networks streamer, featuring ad-free programming across its entertainment networks and early access to original shows. The giveaway offered a major marketing boost to the streaming service, which aims to clear 9 million subscribers by the end of 2021.

Sen Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) is introducing a bill that would give the Justice Department additional authority to investigate Russia's English-language news outlet RT America for possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The bill, called the Foreign Agents Registration Modernization and Enforcement Act, would increase the Department of Justice’s power to compel organizations to produce information about their foreign connections and the sources of their funding.

Sen Shaheen said the bill comes in response to a report from the director of national intelligence about Russian influence in the 2016 election, part of which examined RT America. That report stated that RT News was skirting disclosure requirements by using a nonprofit structure and that RT's programming intended to advance stories that benefited Russian interests. “We have good reason to believe that RT News is coordinating with the Russian government to spread misinformation and undermine our democratic process,” Shaheen said in a statement. “The American public has a right to know if this is the case.”

ABC News President James Goldston has pledged to “stand with our colleagues who cover the White House" and "protest” if the White House does not operate with transparency, he said in response to a petition imploring the broadcasting company to take a stand over the White House’s decision to exclude news organizations from a press gaggle Feb 27. “We’ve expressed our concerns to the White House that it operates in a way that’s open, transparent and fair,” Goldston said. “And we will continue to stand with our colleagues who cover the White House and to protest when any government official fails to live up to those standards.”

Earlier, Goldston received a petition signed by more than 230 former ABC News executives, correspondents, producers and other former staffers calling on him to refuse to take part in White House briefings if news organizations are barred from attending.

A Maryland blogger has settled a defamation lawsuit filed by first lady Melania Trump. Webster Griffin Tarpley, who runs the blog Tarpley.net, has agreed to pay a “substantial sum” and issued a statement apologizing to the first lady and her family, according to a statement from Trump's attorneys. In August, Tarpley published unsubstantiated rumors that the first lady had previously been an “escort” and that she was suffering a “nervous breakdown” because of the presidential campaign. “I posted an article on August 2, 2016 about Melania Trump that was replete with false and defamatory statements about her,” reads Tarpley’s statement. “I had no legitimate factual basis to make these false statements and I fully retract them. I acknowledge that these false statements were very harmful and hurtful to Mrs. Trump and her family, and therefore I sincerely apologize to Mrs. Trump, her son, her husband and her parents for making these false statements.”

Seeking to prevent another live-streaming "viral video moment" from taking place on the floor of the US House of Representatives, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) has introduced a rules package that would fine and punish lawmakers for recording photos and video from the floor. Lawmakers would be fined $500 for the first offense and $2,500 for each subsequent violation. The fines would be deducted from members’ paychecks.

The move comes in response to Democratic lawmakers, who in June live-streamed a sit-in on the House floor over gun control legislation. Democrats organized the sit-in to protest Republican lawmakers’ decision not to bring to the floor a gun-control bill, which if passed would have broadened background checks and prevented people on no-fly lists from buying guns.

Around half of self-identified Donald Trump voters said in a survey that courts should make it easier for public figures to sue the media.

In the Glover Park Group poll, conducted by Morning Consult, 49 percent of respondents said that courts should make it easier for public figures to sue the news media for unfavorable or false coverage. Twenty-nine percent of respondents said they were opposed to the idea, and 22 percent said they were unsure. Asked about federal spending on public media, 38 percent of respondents said that the current amount should be cut, while 30 percent of respondents said federal spending for public media should remain the same. Twenty-three percent said it should increase, and 8 percent said they were unsure. The survey asked 2,000 self-identified Trump voters to discuss their policy views on a range of issues, including views on the news media.

Nonprofit newsrooms around the country are using the results of the presidential election as a fundraising pitch, promising to hold a new administration accountable if readers donate. “All of us are still absorbing the full implications of this week’s election,” wrote Bill Keller, the editor in chief of The Marshall Project.” “We’re wondering what will happen on a wide range of issues we care deeply about … Good public policy must be based on facts. Institutions that gather those facts in a careful and nonpartisan manner need public support more than ever.” The Center for Public Integrity and ProPublica sent similar fundraising pitches recently. CPI told supporters that “now more than ever, independent, fact-based investigative journalism is needed most.” ProPublica asked readers, in the wake of the election, to donate so the newsroom can “hold those in power to account, and to call out abuses.”

ProPublica and The Marshall Project have stepped forward to assume control over several data tools from The Sunlight Foundation’s data tools division in an effort to maintain and update the research and analytical tools that Sunlight, an open government advocacy group, can no longer afford to preserve.

ProPublica, the independent investigative newsroom, is taking on five federal legislative tools from Sunlight Labs, including Politiwoops, which tracks deleted tweets from politicians. The Marshall Project, another nonprofit news outlet, will assume control over the Hall of Justice, which contains datasets and research about criminal justice. The Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics, has also stepped forward to take over two campaign finance data tool, as have The Department of Commerce and Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute. ProPublica will assume control over the five tools immediately, ProPublica deputy managing editor Scott Klein said in a post about the changes. Come Election Day, the nonprofit news site will implement a series of larger changes to the tools, and will integrate them into existing ProPublica datasets and tools, he said. The other transfers will be completed on a rolling basis through November 10, Sunlight Labs director Kat Duffy said in a post about the changes. None of the organizations will receive financial assistance from Sunlight in order to take over these projects.

New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet took aim at CNN and Fox News for their coverage of the presidential race, calling the cable news channels' coverage of this election cycle “ridiculous” and “bad for democracy and those institutions.” “This mix of entertainment and news, and news masquerading as entertainment, is kind of funny except that we now have a guy who is a product of that world nominated as Republican presidential nominee,” Baquet said. Baquet called CNN’s decision to hire Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski “outrageous,” and criticized Fox News for what Baquet said was pandering to a partisan audience.

“Fox News at its heart is not a journalistic institution,” he said. “Megyn Kelly is a great journalist, Chris Wallace is a great journalist, but it is some weird mix of a little bit of journalism, a little bit of entertainment, a little bit of pandering to a particular audience … I don’t think Roger Ailes will go down as one of the great journalists of his time.” Baquet also defended the Times’ coverage of Trump. The Times raised eyebrows earlier this election cycle when it flatly called Trump’s statements about President Barack Obama’s birthplace a “lie," and the Republican candidate has regularly criticized the Times' political coverage, and even threatened to sue. “I am not opposed to his presidency, that is not my job,” Baquet said. “But my job is not to beat around the bush when a candidate lies.”

In July 2015, Hillary Clinton ally Neera Tanden, who is head of the progressive think tank the Center for American Progress, passed along advice that Hillary Clinton should try to set up a meeting with The New York Times publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., to get more favorable coverage from the newspaper.

In the e-mail, which was released Oct 26 as part of the WikiLeaks’ ongoing release of e-mails from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, Tanden said that former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg used the tactic to “[change] the coverage moderately.” Tanden said in the e-mail that the advice came from “Howard,” presumably a reference to former New York City Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson, a longtime Democratic strategist who is now a senior adviser to Bloomberg. “[W]hen Bloomberg was having problems w the times he called Arthur Schulzberger (sic) and asked for coffee,” Tanden wrote in an e-mail to Podesta, dated July 9, 2015 and labeled as “Howard’s advice” in the subject line. “He made the case that they were treating him like a billionaire dilettante instead of Third term mayor. It changed the coverage moderately but also aired the issues in the newsroom so people were more conscious of it." Tanden added this caveat: “But Arthur is a pretty big wuss so he’s not going to do a lot more than that.”