Journalism

A pastor in Alabama said he received a voice mail Nov 14 from a man falsely claiming to be a reporter with The Washington Post and seeking women “willing to make damaging remarks” about Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore in exchange for money.  The call came days after The Post reported on allegations that Moore initiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl nearly four decades ago, sparking calls by leading Republicans for him to abandon his campaign for the U.S. Senate in a special election to be held Dec. 12.

President Donald Trump bashed CNN upon his return from a 12-day Asia trip, calling it "fake" in an early morning tweet on Nov 15. The president said he was forced to watch the "loser" network it during his stay in the Philippines. "While in the Philippines I was forced to watch @CNN, which I have not done in months, and again realized how bad, and FAKE, it is." Trump wrote. "Loser!"  President Trump by contrast tweeted that "Fox and Friends" would be showing more footage of his "successful" trip overseas.

A dispute between The Los Angeles Times and the Walt Disney Company has ignited a battle between the paper’s employees and its new top management. On the morning of Nov. 3, the newspaper published a note to readers revealing that Disney had barred its journalists from attending advance film screenings in response to a Times investigation into the entertainment company’s business ties with Anaheim (CA). Outrage over Disney’s move was soon rocketing around social media.

[Commentary] Some supporters of U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore have come right out and said they do not believe four women who claim the Alabama Republican pursued them when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s.

[Commentary] Much has been written about the challenges facing the news business in the Internet and social media age. But recent research helps explain why local news outlets have struggled so mightily — and what that means for citizen engagement in local politics and elections. 1) Local news isn’t popular; 2) Audiences have shifted to national sources; 3) Local newsrooms are shrinking their staffs and their coverage; and 4) As local news declines, Americans stay away from local elections — even for members of Congress.

President Donald Trump appeared to stress that he had not intervened in AT&T’s bid to buy Time Warner — nor did he seek to require that the companies sell CNN in order to obtain the US government’s approval of the deal.

President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner is still upset with CNN. Kushner met with Gary Ginsberg, a top executive at Time Warner, CNN’s parent company. In the meeting, Kushner told Ginsberg CNN should fire 20 percent of its staff because of its coverage of the 2016 presidential election. A White House official said that Kushner’s remark wasn’t serious, and that he “was simply trying to make a point.” It seems like the Trump administration’s feud with CNN isn’t going away.

[Commentary] For over four decades, the Federal Communications Commission has restricted the ability of broadcast media outlets to also own newspapers, and vice versa, in the same market, under what is known as the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule. This rule was established in 1975 with the stated purpose of preserving and promoting a diversity of viewpoints. Arguably, it made sense at the time. But with the internet now dominating the news landscape, the rule is no longer needed, and may actually be undermining the diversity of viewpoints it was intended to foster.

We demonstrate that exposure to the news media causes Americans to take public stands on specific issues, join national policy conversations, and express themselves publicly—all key components of democratic politics—more often than they would otherwise. After recruiting 48 mostly small media outlets, we chose groups of these outlets to write and publish articles on subjects we approved, on dates we randomly assigned.

President Donald Trump and his team understand that for the political press, the only thing that matters is what’s happening right now, not yesterday. And whether through his tweets or his surrogates in the briefing room, the president has been largely able to bait reporters into playing his game, because he knows what makes them tick.