Article in Slashdot by BeauHD, 4/23/26
Headline: “Warner Bros Shareholders Approve Paramount’s $81 Billion Takeover”
“Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders have approved Paramount Skydance’s takeover bid, moving the massive Hollywood merger a step closer to completion. It’s not a done deal quite yet, though, as it still faces regulatory scrutiny and fierce opposition from critics who warn it will further concentrate media power. The Associated Press reports. . .”
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Article in FAIR by Janine Jackson 4/22/26
Headline: “The Wayback Machine Has Been the Best Archive for Preserving Our Digital Lives”
Subhead: “CounterSpin interview with Lia Holland on the Internet Archive”
“Janine Jackson: A recent report by Wired‘s Kate Knibbs leads with the contradiction: USA Today published a story recently on how ICE is misinforming about its detainment policies, a case that the paper built on data from the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, a nonprofit digital library that preserves webpages.
“At the same time, USA Today bars the Wayback Machine from archiving its work. Along with outlets like the New York Times, the paper is trying to block the Internet Archive project from doing their job of preserving reporting. . .”
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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Riddhi Setty 4/22/26
Headline: “The Post Tries to Regroup”
Subhead: “After announcing major cuts, the paper is delaying layoffs and attempting to hire back former staffers.”
“When the Washington Post announced mass layoffs, in February, the company offered severance packages to the roughly three hundred and fifty staff members losing their jobs. To receive their severance, these employees would have to sign their packages by April 10; they would then begin receiving the payments after April 30. But after the terms were set, something strange happened. Editors who were overseeing the laid-off employees began contacting several of them, asking them to return—not as full-time staff, but to work under what their union called a ‘delayed layoff.’. . .”
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Article in The Nation by Nathan Robinson, 4/21/26
Headline: “The Bezos Post Editorial Page Has Become a Mouthpiece for Pro-Billionaire Propaganda”
Subhead: “Jeff Bezos said The Washington Post would no longer publish opinion pieces critical of free markets. Recent editorials show just how seriously the paper has taken this mandate.”
“During his first 10 years as the owner of The Washington Post, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos reportedly took a fairly hands-off approach to managing the paper, with the Columbia Journalism Review observing that he was ‘not inclined to spend his time on the phone haranguing Post editors about coverage decisions.’ But that was then. Last year, Bezos publicly announced that there would be ‘a change coming to our opinion pages,’ and that henceforth ‘we are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.’ Viewpoints critical of these ‘pillars,’ he said, would no longer be appearing in the Post. . .”
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Article in Daily Kos by Staff, 4/21/26
Headline: “Trump’s media hitman to rub elbows with his victims”
“Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr, known for using his power to suppress free speech, will be a guest at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner on April 25.
“Carr was asked to attend the event by Paramount, the parent company of CBS, which is headed by Republican donor David Ellison.
“CBS News also reportedly invited Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and senior White House adviser Stephen Miller. All three have frequently attacked dissenting speech throughout their careers, particularly since joining the Trump administration. . .”
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Article in FAIR by Caitlan Scialla, 4/17/26
Headline: “Paramount’s Purchase of CNN Heralds a New Trump-Friendly Media Empire”
“The ultra-wealthy have long leveraged their capital to build sprawling media empires that narrow our public range of debate (FAIR.org, 6/1/87). But Paramount Skydance‘s winning bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) marks a major milestone in media monopolization that, if successful, will further expand Trump-allied tech moguls Larry and David Ellison’s burgeoning power over US news and entertainment media. . .”
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https://fair.org/home/paramounts-purchase-of-cnn-heralds-a-new-trump-friendly-media-empire/
Article in The Nation by Staff, 4/16/26
Headline: “A Burning House, a Quiet Media, a Silenced Majority”
Subhead: “A white paper from Covering Climate Now on the state of climate journalism.”
“All parts of the media—news media, social media, entertainment media—play a decisive role in how humanity confronts the climate challenge. These media are largely responsible for what people know and feel about that challenge, and what people know and feel in turn shapes what they say and do: whether and how they vote, what products they buy or don’t buy, how they talk with friends and family, whether they act or not.
“News media play a particularly important role, both because huge numbers of people still read, watch, or listen to their reporting and because that reporting shapes the narrative that politicians, social media, and the public engage with. . .”
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https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/covering-climate-now-white-paper/
Article in Poynter by Kelly McBride, 4/16/26
Headline: “Opinion | The White House Correspondents’ Dinner has always been a cringefest. Trump just makes it obvious.”
Subhead: “This year’s disaster has been decades in the making”
“The certain awkwardness of President Donald Trump gloating about his presidency in front of a silent press corps at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner — a gala intended to celebrate both free speech and the work of the watchdogs who hold the president accountable — is a trainwreck that should have been averted years ago. . .”
“Journalists and their corporate bosses are going to dress up in gowns and tuxes on Saturday, April 25, and sit down at the Washington Hilton with a man who not only says he despises them, but who repeatedly has used his power to undermine their credibility. . .”
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https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2026/white-house-correspondents-dinner-trump-criticism/
Article in Forbes by Anisha Sircar, 4/13/26
Headline: “Why Major News Sites Are Blocking The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine”
“For nearly three decades, the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine has served as a go-to for anyone looking to access its vast treasure trove of archived internet pages.
“Its mission of crawling and preserving the public web has made it an indispensable resource for journalists, historians, researchers, courts and beyond. As of October 2025, the Wayback Machine contained more than one trillion archived web pages.
“Now, that mission is facing a threat that could make it harder to access digital history.. . .”
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Article in Media Matters by Jason Campbell, 4/14/26
Headline: “Even some in right-wing media are now asking questions about Trump’s age and mental acuity”
“In the past few days, some right-wing media pundits have criticized 79-year-old President Donald Trump over concerns about his age and mental acuity, describing him as an ‘old man.’ The New York Times recently scrutinized Trump’s potentially diminished mental and physical capacities to serve as president, and polls indicate that a majority of the American people are growing increasingly concerned that Trump’s advanced age is causing him to be more erratic.
“Over the past two months, a growing chorus of dissident voices in right-wing media have broken with Trump over his war with the Islamic Republic of Iran. . .”
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