Journalism

For two days in a row, since returning from President Trump's trip abroad, the White House press secretary has held uncharacteristically short press briefings in which he claimed not to know the answer to questions, outsourced questions to other officials or dismissed the premise of questions entirely. Both briefings included less than 20 minutes for questions -- far less than most prior briefings -- and ended with Spicer abruptly exiting the room to the consternation of reporters. At May 31's briefing, which was off-camera, one reporter could be heard shouting after the departing press secretary, "How short are these gonna be!?"

The Freedom of Information Act, often known as FOIA, has been used by journalists, activists, and private citizens to get access to federal government records since it went into effect in 1967. And every state has passed similar laws that allow the public to get access to state and local records, generally with exemptions for files like records of ongoing investigations or personal medical records. (Florida’s are called the Sunshine Law.) The trouble, say transparency advocates and people who rely on open records laws for their day-to-day work, is that in an era when files can be searched, copied, and transmitted in minutes at minimal cost, many agencies still respond to requests with excessive delays, claims of high processing costs, and files produced in difficult-to-handle formats like scans of printed versions of digital documents.

The New York Times offered buyouts to its newsroom employees, aiming to reduce layers of editing and requiring more of the editors who remain. In a memo to the newsroom, Dean Baquet, the executive editor, and Joseph Kahn, the managing editor, said the current system of “backfielders” and copy editors — two separate groups who have different tasks before a story is published — would be replaced with a single group of editors who would be responsible for all aspects of a story. Another editor would be “looking over their shoulders before publication.”

In a separate memo, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher, said The Times would be eliminating the position of public editor. Liz Spayd, the current public editor, will leave The Times on June 2. The buyouts are aimed primarily at editors, but reporters and others in the newsroom would be free to apply as well, the memo said. Baquet and Kahn said that the savings would be used to hire as many as 100 more journalists.

[Commentary] Montana GOP congressional candidate Greg Gianforte said of a Guardian reporter, “The last guy did the same damn thing.” From the looks of things, “the same damn thing” appears to boil down to asking questions of the candidate. Polite and relevant questions: Are they what had made Gianforte so “sick and tired”? Are polite and relevant questions what he was bemoaning when he talked about “the same damn thing”? Speaking of the news media as the people’s enemy and singling out reporters in menacing fashion at public events are both aspects of Trump’s trickle-down authoritarianism. He has done both. For decades, Republican candidates talked and talked and talked about the ravages of the so-called liberal media. Historians may look back at recent events — the manhandling of reporter Michelle Fields by a Trump campaign aide last year; the Jacobs confrontation — as the beginning of an action phase.

For those concerned about press freedom, the first months of the Trump administration have been troubling. Journalists have been yelled at, pepper-sprayed, pinned by security, and even arrested on the job. Now, one reporter has accused a Republican candidate of assault. Joel Simon, the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said the recent episodes were not enough to make any sweeping statements about the way journalists are being treated since President Trump took office. “But what’s certainly unprecedented in modern American history is the rhetoric: the way that Trump talks about the media, the constant verbal attacks and the framing of journalists as enemies and purveyors of fake news,” he said. Simon said the committee was gathering data to identify trends and patterns. He said the assault case was particularly alarming.

For years, studies have shown Americans’ trust in the news media is steadily declining. In recent months, the rise of so-called fake news and the rhetoric of President Donald Trump about journalists being “the enemy of the people” have made the question of trust in a free press an even more prominent issue facing the country. At the same time, data show that over the past decade, people have been consuming more news than ever. How are we to explain the apparent paradox?

New research suggests public attitudes about the news media are more complex and nuanced than many traditional studies indicate, with attitudes varying markedly depending on what media people are asked about. The findings show that on many fronts, Americans are skeptical of “the news media” in the abstract, but generally trust the news they themselves rely on. And most people mention traditional or mainstream news sources as the ones they turn to.

Sen John McCain (R-AZ) says the media is frequently "ambushing" lawmakers, decrying the “30-second news cycles” created by social media.

"We are in almost a media frenzy. There are large numbers of reporters, cameras, microphones waiting as you go to vote," Sen McCain said. He added that reporters "are all waiting and ambushing for something that’s quotable." Sen McCain said he's "not a critic of the media," though he does “hate them." He said he sometimes gets himself into trouble because he is not careful when speaking to the press. Sen McCain also warned internet users to beware of fake online news stories, referring to a conspiracy theory about a DC-based pizza shop running a child sex trafficking ring. “Don’t believe everything you see on the internet. Check it out before you believe it,” Sen McCain added.

Cable news, as a medium, is careening toward a defining moment that could transform it significantly or return it to the status quo of the past decade.

Several key questions could be answered in the near future. Will Fox News stabilize and return to dominance, or will a conservative rival snag Bill O'Reilly and maybe even Sean Hannity and become a viable competitor? Hannity has said on Twitter that he is under contract for the next four years, but he, like other Fox News stars, is widely reported to have a “key man clause” in the deal. That would allow him to leave early in the event of an exit by a “key man,” such as Shine or former chairman Roger Ailes. Could a Fox News disrupter come from the left instead of the right? Networks and the big-name personalities that fill their air have some major decisions to make — ones that will go a long way toward determining whether the future of cable news looks familiar or radically different.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO and the Washington Post’s owner, is giving $1 million to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

The gift, announced at the Freedom of the Press Awards Dinner, is the largest personal contribution in the RCFP’s history. “It’s an institution-changing gift for us,” said Bruce Brown, the RCFP’s executive director. “We’re always generating new ideas of what we could be doing to support and serve journalists, but financial constraints can get in the way—and this gift opens up the breadth of the work we could do.” In the past year, the RCFP has announced, among other gifts and grants, $300,000 from the Ford Foundation, $300,000 from the Heising-Simons Foundation, $150,000 from the Barr Foundation, $800,000 from the Democracy Fund, and $450,000 from the MacArthur Foundation. All of them came after the election of President Donald Trump, who has spent much of his time in office (and before that as a candidate) growling at the press. The Bezos gift will enable the RCFP to expand its efforts to help state and local journalists and news organizations, hard hit by the industry’s changing economics.