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Thursday, January 15, 2026 |
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TGIT. Here's the latest on the Washington Post, Media Matters, Stars & Stripes, Paramount, Elon Musk, the WSJ, Pete Davidson, and much more... |
If you see ICE, 'hit record' |
Around the same time of the latest ICE shooting in Minneapolis last night, Gov. Tim Walz was imploring Minnesotans to help each other amid the Trump administration's "campaign of organized brutality."
One of the ways to help, Walz said in his televised address, was to bear witness. "You have an absolute right to peacefully film ICE agents as they conduct their activities," he said.
"So carry your phone with you at all times. And if you see ICE in your neighborhood, take out that phone and hit record. Help us create a database of the atrocities against Minnesotans — not just to establish a record for posterity, but to bank evidence for future prosecution."
Walz's comments underscored what we can all see: It's all about the video, in Minneapolis and beyond. The city looks like it's under military occupation. Every time I refresh The Drudge Report, there's another headline like "SHOCK VIDEO: ICE TERRORIZES ANOTHER WOMAN."
Almost every TV segment features viral video footage of ICE. Almost every written article cites the footage too. When CNN's Whitney Wild interviewed a protester who showed up to the scene of last night's shooting, the woman said, "I found out what happened throughout Facebook Live. It was getting posted everywhere." (The injured man allegedly assaulted an agent, and you can read CNN's live updates about the aftermath here.)
Many news outlets have reported on ICE's formidable video production machine in the past year, with some likening it to propaganda. "We're all just content for ICE," Garbage Media's Ryan Broderick wrote after four days observing "America's slow-moving civil war" in Minnesota.
Now, it seems, residents are rebutting ICE's flashy, militaristic videos with their own TikToks and Reels. Pointing the camera at ICE agents, they document arrests and heated clashes. Talking straight to camera, they describe what it feels like to live in Minneapolis right now. They force everyone else to pay attention.
"Hit record," as Walz said, is the default. The shooting of Renee Nicole Good was captured from multiple directions last week. Bellingcat used five different videos for this new reconstruction of the incident. Of course, one was filmed by the ICE agent on his own phone.
>> And let's remember that the surge of federal resources to Minnesota was partly due to Nick Shirley's viral video about alleged fraud last month.
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Competing video realities |
Depending on which video from Minnesota your algorithm surfaces, you might side with the ICE agents who are enduring verbal abuse, or with the residents whose words are no match for the federal officers' weapons.
Furthermore, as we saw in the aftermath of Good's killing, "we now have parallel information systems that interpret the same images differently," Steven Rosenbaum wrote for MediaPost.
"In one system, newsrooms slow down to verify," while in "the other system, political figures and partisan outlets rush to present video clips through the lens of ideology and demand that followers treat those interpretations as truth." These two systems "are not arguing over facts. They are building incompatible realities."
True, but a raft of recent polls suggests that the video evidence is having an impact.
"At this point, it seems rather obvious that viral videos are inflicting enormous damage on ICE's standing with the public," Peter Hamby wrote for Puck earlier this week. "Americans are bearing witness — almost in real time — to their behavior and the human anguish on the other end."
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Cutting through the Trumpy noise |
This morning, President Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minneapolis, claiming "corrupt politicians" in Minnesota are failing to stop "professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E."
The president is surely being kept abreast of developments in Minnesota by his advisers, but his rhetoric also very closely mirrors the framing of his favorite TV channel. Fox News hosts — from Harris Faulkner to Jesse Watters — constantly talk about Minnesota being overrun by "liberal agitators." Watters said last night that "they want a civil war."
I know it's too much to ask, but I'd like the loudest voices to be Minnesotans and those who report from there for a living. "Real journalism matters," Star Tribune CEO Steve Grove wrote on X, "and when you see it, you'll be able to make your own conclusions on what's taking place in our community."
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Inside the Post: 'Keep reporting' |
"The best thing to do when people are trying to intimidate you is to not be intimidated — and that's what we did yesterday," Washington Post editor Matt Murray said in this morning's editorial meeting, per a source who attended.
Murray praised reporter Hannah Natanson, whose home was raided by the FBI, and said "every corner of The Post and the company did everything they could to help Hannah and help understand the challenging situation."
After Natanson woke up to the FBI agents at her door, she did what she usually does — she went to the office. In the afternoon, after Natanson met with Post lawyers and security experts, colleagues gathered around her desk in the newsroom, asking what they could do to help.
Natanson exhorted them to get back to work, especially because she can't right now, with her phone and computers in the government’s hands. "The best thing you can for me," she told a group of colleagues, is "keep reporting."
This morning, Post reporters Sarah Ellison, Patrick Marley and Colby Itkowitz have a great follow-up story, "Journalists confront new reality in reporting after FBI raid."
If you aren't up to speed, here's what we know about why the FBI executed the search warrant and seized her devices. Now let's take a look at the bigger picture here...
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'Tip of the iceberg' for the press? |
Until now, Gabe Rottman of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press said, the Justice Department had "never executed a search warrant at the home of a reporter in a national security leak case."
But last May, A.G. Pam Bondi scrapped her predecessor Merrick Garland's policy that banned the DOJ from pursuing reporters' phone records and notes while investigating leakers. The message was unmistakable: Trump-era investigators would welcome a confrontation. As one law enforcement reporter said to me, Trump's allies have been "itching to do this."
And now that the line has been crossed, some journalists and media lawyers expect it will happen again. "In modern times, everything about the Espionage Act when it comes to treatment of the press has been based on norms and policy, not law," national security attorney Mark Zaid told me overnight.
Since the Trump admin has "discarded policy norms previously set in place by prior administrations... there is every reason to believe that what was just experienced by a Washington Post reporter was just the tip of the iceberg of things to come."
🔌 Here's my new CNN.com piece all about this...
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Legal fight(s) take shape |
>> I asked, and a Post rep declined to comment on whether the Post is taking legal action to limit the government's ability to access the work materials on Natanson's devices.
>> The Reporters Committee has filed a brief asking a federal court to unseal documents relating to the search, per NPR's David Folkenflik.
>> First Amendment attorney Ted Boutrous told TheWrap's Michael Calderone that the raid was a "truly an over-the-top intrusion on newsgathering and freedom of the press."
>> The Post editorial board weighed in last night with a reminder that "leaks frustrate every president, but efforts to intimidate or neutralize reporters always fail in the end."
>> Post owner Jeff Bezos has yet to say anything in defense of the newsroom, which has angered some staffers, Natalie Korach reported in a Status column titled "Bezos Abandons His Post."
>> This morning, Murray told staffers, "Up and down, from the very top, the whole company is working in a myriad of ways on what happened to Hannah."
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Media Matters for America announced it will no longer post on X after the Elon Musk-owned platform updated its terms of service to require all lawsuits involving the company to be filed in an especially conservative-friendly North Texas district.
Those new terms, which went into effect at midnight, "seem specifically designed to hurt Media Matters’ chances in their legal battle" with Musk, The Bulwark's Andrew Egger wrote, noting the change highlights "the lengths to which Musk will sometimes go to punish his critics." Egger has more here…
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Pentagon previews changes to Stars & Stripes newspaper |
"Applicants for positions at the U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes are being asked how they would support the president’s policy priorities, raising concerns among some staffers and media watchers about the prospects for the historic outlet's editorial independence," WaPo's Liam Scott reported yesterday.
That editorial independence was mandated by Congress. But this morning Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell foreshadowed future changes to the paper, writing on X, "We will modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members."
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Paramount asks court to expedite lawsuit |
Please hurry! Paramount is appearing before the Delaware Court of Chancery this morning to press for expedited proceedings in its lawsuit against WBD. In a legal response yesterday, WBD said it's just an "exercise in urgency theatre — ringing a fire alarm in the absence of any flames or even smoke." TheWrap's Lucas Manfredi has more here.
>> Reps from both Paramount and Netflix met with the European Commission on Tuesday, Semafor's Rohan Goswami reports.
>> Back in the US, Netflix "has also begun to engage with state attorneys general, according to people familiar with the matter," he adds.
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>> FCC chair Brendan Carr was back on Capitol Hill yesterday. John Handel says House Republicans gave Carr "a free pass… over the threatening comments he made last year about Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show." (Politico)
>> The WSJ editor overseeing features and WSJ Weekend, Mike Miller, is departing the Journal "after an incredible 42-year career," Emma Tucker announced yesterday. Katie Robertson has details about the features restructuring here. (X)
>> Disney is promoting "content marketing whiz Asad Ayaz to the newly created role of Chief Marketing and Brand Officer." (Variety)
>> Dennis Cinelli is stepping away from Paramount's board to become the company's chief financial officer. He'll be replaced on the board by Andrew Campion. (THR)
>> Fox News is promoting six executives. (Variety)
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Evidently, the political pressure worked: Musk's Grok "will no longer edit 'images of real people in revealing clothing' on the X platform," CNN's Hadas Gold reports.
"We have implemented technological measures to prevent the Grok account from allowing the editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis," X's Safety account posted yesterday.
>> But researchers at AI Forensics told Gold they observed "'inconsistencies in the treatment of pornographic content generation' between public interactions with Grok on X and private chat on Grok.com."
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More of today's tech talk |
>> YouTube "will now let parents limit the amount of time their teens can spend scrolling through its short-form video feature, Shorts, or block them all together,” Clare Duffy reports. (CNN)
>> Meta "laid off roughly 10% of staff, about 1,500 people, from its Reality Labs division, the unit that houses its virtual and augmented reality efforts." (WSJ)
>> Spotify "is raising the price of its premium subscription service by 8%." (Bloomberg)
>> Reddit rival Digg is "back under the ownership of its original founder, Kevin Rose, along with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian," and an open beta is now underway. (TechCrunch)
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…the more they stay the same. Netflix says Pete Davidson "will host a brand new original video podcast" for the platform starting January 30," that will have him "sitting down with his famous friends for revealing conversations from the comfort of his garage." Video podcast, eh? You know, we used to just call this a "talk show" 😉
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