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Tuesday, January 20, 2026 |
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One year since President Trump's second inauguration, writers and activists are drawing attention to the authoritarian climate in the US, including the impacts on news media and culture.
"We still have independent media. But taking stock of how much the media landscape has changed is sobering," NYT opinion columnist M. Gessen wrote in this essay timed to the one-year mark, citing changes at the Washington Post, CBS and other media mainstays.
"Autocrats destroy the free press in at least two ways: by cracking down, as Trump has done through lawsuits and regulatory pressure, and by reapportioning access to information," Gessen wrote, arguing that "the media, like civil society, is much diminished compared with what it was a year ago."
Now, I'm a natural-born optimist. While talking on CNN about Trump's lawsuits against news outlets and the Pentagon's restrictions on reporting and last week's FBI seizure of a Washington Post reporter's devices, I always try to emphasize that the work is still getting done. The news is still getting out.
But glass-half-full guys sometimes wind up with an entirely empty glass if they don't listen to the more pessimistic people around them.
"Ask any people who have lived in a country that became an autocracy, and they will tell you some version of a story about walls closing in on them, about space getting smaller and smaller," Gessen wrote. "The space they are talking about is freedom."
Amnesty International warned of that "narrowing" in a new report this morning. "The attack on civic space and the rule of law and the erosion of human rights in the United States mirrors the global pattern Amnesty has seen and warned about for decades," said Paul O'Brien, the org's executive director.
He said the Trump administration's actions are "increasing the risk for journalists and people who speak out or dissent, including protestors, lawyers, students, and human rights defenders." And yet... like I said... the work continues!
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"One year into Trump's second term," the "increasingly repressive US president" is on track to join the ranks of the world's "worst press freedom predators," the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders stated last week. Your glass might look mostly empty after reading the group's assessment.
Over the weekend, James Warrington, the London-based media and telecoms editor for The Telegraph, asserted that "Trump may be winning his war on the media" by adopting "a dual-pronged approach that has seen him muzzle critical outlets in the mainstream media while also overwhelming the news cycle with a barrage of inflammatory comments and initiatives."
And here's one more column along these lines, from The Guardian's Nesrine Malik, who says "the abiding experience of living with authoritarianism is the sense not of imminent assault, but of the constant possibility that suddenly, you could be in trouble." That, she argues, is what Minnesotans are experiencing right now.
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DOJ threatens to charge Don Lemon |
Officials in Trump's DOJ are suggesting that former CNN anchor Don Lemon may be criminally charged in connection with the disruptive protest at a Sunday morning church service in the Twin Cities. Lemon was present at the protest and live-streamed it on YouTube, though he emphasized that he was there as a journalist, not an activist.
The First Amendment is meant to protect both Lemon's right to report and the congregation's right to worship, so this is thorny, to say the least.
The intrusion at the church was sincerely shocking, especially to Americans who were at church themselves on Sunday and then saw video of Lemon's coverage all over social media. Pro-Trump media outlets singled out Lemon for criticism, and some prominent MAGA influencers called for his arrest. The Assistant AG for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, feeling the pressure, said to Lemon, "You are on notice!"
>> Lemon's response: "It's notable that I've been cast as the face of a protest I was covering as a journalist — especially since I wasn't the only reporter there."
>> If you haven't watched Lemon's livestream yet, check it out here. The relevant parts start around the 41-minute mark. Lemon had several remarkable conversations with both protesters and worshippers.
>> Jennifer Welch taped a podcast episode with Lemon yesterday, and argued of the DOJ and MAGA media, "You are a prize for them. An independent, gay, black, happy, successful man, and this is an attempt to intimidate and beat you down."
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Netflix says it is now prepared to pay all cash for Warner Bros. and HBO, rather than a mix of cash and stock. The idea is that this amended all-cash offer will help fend off Paramount's hostile takeover bid for all of WBD. Here's my full story.
The all-cash offer is also likely to speed up the process. "Once we have cleared the SEC review process, we will schedule a special shareholder meeting to vote on the transaction, most likely sometime in the spring," WBD CEO David Zaslav wrote to employees this morning. And there's more...
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👀 Filing reveals CNN's financials |
This morning's SEC filing also outlined how WBD valued its cable business, "with calculations ranging from $1.33 to $6.86 a share," the NYT's Lauren Hirsch and Ben Mullin noted.
Paramount has argued that the cable assets have little to no equity value. WBD has opened up its financial books to refute that.
Thus, "for the first time, internal financial projections of CNN have been broken out," THR's Alex Weprin wrote.
>> "CNN is projected to have $1.8 billion in revenue in 2026, according to the filing," rising to $2.2 billion by 2030.
>> CNN's adjusted EBITDA, a measure of profit, is estimated to be around $600 million this year, "before falling to $500 million in 2027 and remaining flat at $600 million through 2030," Weprin wrote.
>> Context: Back in 2012, I reported in the NYT that CNN made roughly $600 million in annual profits. During the Jeff Zucker era, profits swelled past the $1-billion-a-year mark, partly due to Trump's election and other major news stories. But cord-cutting and other pressures dramatically reduced profits in recent years, essentially back to 2012 levels. This is why Mark Thompson has been investing in digital and streaming. Last year, CNBC said WBD was on track to invest "at least $100 million in the network so far," with plans for more this year.
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Its quarterly earnings report! Netflix will release #'s after the bell. THR's George Szalai has some thoughts on what you should expect here. |
A new Knight Press Freedom Fellow |
This morning, the Journalism Protection Initiative at CUNY's Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism will name its newest Knight Press Freedom Fellow: Palestinian writer Mohammed R. Mhawish.
Mhawish "produced extraordinary journalism under the most trying circumstances imaginable," Joel Simon said, pointing to years of work reporting from Gaza for outlets like The New Yorker.
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The 2026 World Economic Forum kicked off in Davos yesterday and runs through Friday. Trump speaks there tomorrow, but his presence is already palpable.
"The mood: trepidation, for those who are being honest," Andrew Ross Sorkin wrote this morning. "I attended several events last night, where some CEOs openly questioned the president, using words like 'wild' and 'bizarre.' Yet many of them are planning to attend a reception in his honor."
>> "As Davos Convenes, Deference to Trump Has Replaced Everything" is the stark headline on Peter S. Goodman's dispatch.
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Today's new nonfiction releases |
Happy book-pub day to CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams, who is out with "Five Bullets: The Story of Bernie Goetz, New York's Explosive '80s, and the Subway Vigilante Trial That Divided the Nation."
Also new today: Peter Schweizer's "The Invisible Coup: How American Elites and Foreign Powers Use Immigration as a Weapon," which is already #1 on Amazon due to right-wing media attention... Chuck Klosterman's "Football," which I am going to start reading today... and Alia Hanna Habib's "Take It from Me: An Agent's Guide to Building a Nonfiction Writing Career from Scratch."
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The CBS News controversies stem from a lack of trust |
This is the big point I wanted to make after breaking the news that the shelved "Inside CECOT" report was finally going to air Sunday night on "60 Minutes."
On the day Bari Weiss was installed as CBS News editor-in-chief, Paramount said CBS and The Free Press would pursue "a new standard for trusted journalism in America."
But trust is exactly what's missing. There's a serious lack of trust between Weiss and the rank-and-file staff at CBS News, many of whom resent her dearth of TV and news reporting experience; doubt her intentions for the news division; and feel disrespected by her early actions in the job.
With all that in mind, it's no wonder that her shock decision to hold the "Inside CECOT" report caused a crisis.
Correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi essentially prevailed on Sunday: Her report aired as-is, without any changes, except for a new beginning and a new ending, which were taped to appease Weiss. Rick Ellis compared the original and new versions in detail here.
The finished product had "more context for viewers," one of my CBS sources said. And "'60 Minutes' lives another day to fight," another source said.
>> Yes, but: CBS arguably "buried" the story, as Awful Announcing's Drew Lerner wrote, by airing it "on short notice against an NFL game that is sure to be one of the most-watched TV events of the year."
>> Writing for The New Republic, Felipe De La Hoz argues that "journalists have an inherent right and professional duty to defend their industry and its mission against those who want to derail it — even when those threats are coming from the inside."
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Weiss confidant says she needs more 'executive discipline' |
Clare Malone has a profile of Weiss in this week's edition of The New Yorker. What stood out to me was this admission toward the end, attributed to "sources close to Weiss and Ellison," which is the way reporters often describe PR execs and crisis comms consultants. The sources said Weiss "readily realizes and admits that she was not as knowledgeable as she should have been about the timing of the marketing and promo process at '60 Minutes.'"
Further, "she brings the sometimes chaotic energy and work ethic of a startup, but she also realizes she needs to work on having more executive discipline."
Malone followed up that admission by saying Weiss "also seemed to be struggling with the fact that, at a time when the Trump Administration is routinely lying to the public and straining to justify blatant abuses of executive power, often with violent or deadly consequences, she was still wedded to the idea of news coverage as a contest of ideas, in which both sides of the debate are equally valid."
>> This is perhaps the key graf: "
Privately, she has expressed alarm at many of the Administration's actions, a person close to Weiss told me. But, in her role as the editor-in-chief of CBS News, her main concern is being able to book its main players on her network's shows."
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🌎 Briefly, around the world… |
>> In Iran, "state television was hacked" over the weekend, "allowing opposition messages from exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi to be broadcast across the nation." (TheWrap)
>> In Germany, Jan Philipp Burgard, a top editor at Axel Springer's German paper Welt, "left the company after an investigation into inappropriate behavior," Ben Mullin reports. (NYT)
>> In the UK, Prince Harry was in court yesterday as he and six other prominent names take on "the publisher of the Daily Mail over phone hacking, tapping and a slew of alleged unlawful information gathering practices," Lauren Said-Moorhouse and Lauren Kent report. (CNN)
>> In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom's budget proposal "includes no money for a fund formed last year to boost the state’s local newsrooms, casting doubt on whether a heralded effort to help California journalists will amount to anything and how serious Newsom is about supporting the struggling industry," Yue Stella Yu reports. (LAT)
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>> Jon Stewart says calls for him to run for political office speak "to this desperation and dissatisfaction that we have with the status quo." (TheWrap)
>> After 30 years, Pitchfork, now under the Condé umbrella, is launching a subscription. (Pitchfork)
>> A report by Similarweb "suggests that Meta's Threads is now seeing more daily usage than Elon Musk's X on mobile devices." (TechCrunch)
>> "YouTube is close to reaching a tipping point in TV advertising," Lara O’Reilly explains. (Business Insider)
>> A second Sphere is coming to Maryland's National Harbor. (THR)
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There's a darkness on the edge of town |
Andrew Kirell writes: The Boss is at it again. During a surprise gig on Saturday in Jersey, Bruce Springsteen introduced his 1978 classic "The Promised Land" with a lengthy speech against ICE.
"If you believe in democracy, in liberty; if you believe that truth still matters, and that it’s worth speaking out, and it’s worth fighting for; if you believe in the power of the law and that no one stands above it; if you stand against heavily armed, masked, federal troops invading American cities, and using Gestapo tactics against our fellow citizens; if you believe you don’t deserve to be murdered for exercising your American right to protest, then send a message to this president," he said.
"And as the mayor of that city has said, ICE should get the fuck out of Minneapolis. So this song is for you, and the memory of the mother of three and American citizen Renee Good." Here's the full video...
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