As goes the Washington Post: US democracy takes another hit under Trump; The Guardian, February 8, 2026

Ed Pilkington and Jeremy Barr, The Guardian; As goes the Washington Post: US democracy takes another hit under Trump

Jeff Bezos’s axing of more than 300 jobs at the storied newspaper has renewed fears about the resilience of America’s democracy to withstand Trump’s attacks

"The email landed in Lizzie Johnson’s in-tray in Ukraine just before 4pm local time. It came at a tough time for the reporter: Russia had been repeatedly striking the country’s power grid, and just days before she had been forced to work out of her car without heat, power or running water, writing in pencil because pen ink freezes too readily.

“Difficult news,” was the subject line. The body text said: “Your position is eliminated as part of today’s organizational changes,” explaining that it was necessary to get rid of her to meet the “evolving needs of our business”.

Johnson’s response may go down in the annals of American media history. “I was just laid off by The Washington Post in the middle of a warzone,” she wrote on X. “I have no words.”

The Washington Post’s Ukraine correspondent may have been rendered speechless over Wednesday’s move by Jeff Bezos, the Amazon billionaire and Post owner, to cut more than 300 newsroom jobs. The bloodletting, which has raised renewed fears about the resilience of America’s democracy to withstand Donald Trump’s attacks, swept away the paper’s entire sports department, much of its culture and local staff and all of its journalists in such arid news zones as Ukraine and the Middle East.

Others, though, managed to find their tongues. “It’s a bad day,” said Don Graham, son of the Post’s legendary Watergate-era owner Katharine Graham, breaking the silence he has maintained since selling the paper to Bezos for $250m in 2013.

“I am crushed,” was the lament of Bob Woodward, one-half of the paper’s double act with Carl Bernstein that exposed Watergate.

“This ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the world’s greatest news organizations,” said Marty Baron, the Post’s lionised former executive editor. Not one to mince his words, Baron castigated Bezos for his “sickening efforts to curry favor with President Trump”, saying it left an especially “ugly stain” on the paper’s standing...

The cumulative malaise that is descending over US media leaves the country’s democratic institutions vulnerable to attack. It can’t be exclusively blamed for Trump’s excesses.

There are plenty of other willing accomplices and capitulators, including universities like Columbia, corporate law firms and the gung-ho conservative activists who now control the supreme court.

But from Trump’s perspective, a media on its knees surely helps. The results are present everywhere you look.

Trump is unleashed, unchained. He feels so comfortable in his regal skin that he can berate a respected female CNN reporter questioning him on the Epstein files for never smiling.

He can peddle unashamedly in racism, posting a video depicting the first Black president and his first lady as monkeys.

He can send a masked paramilitary into the streets of Minneapolis, resulting in Americans getting killed for exercising their first amendment rights. And when the polls for November’s midterm elections look challenging for him, he can prepare for another blitzkrieg on the very foundations of American democracy: the ballot box.

There’s a paradox in all this. Many of the democratic norms that Trump is obliterating – take for example his destruction of the norm of Department of Justice independence in his persecution of his political opponents – were laid down in the 1970s in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

That’s the same Watergate scandal that was brought into the light by that pair of courageous reporters at a newspaper called the Washington Post."

The world heard JD Vance being booed at the Olympics. Except for viewers in the US; The Guardian, February 7, 2026

Bryan Armen Graham  , The Guardian; The world heard JD Vance being booed at the Olympics. Except for viewers in the US

"The modern Olympics sell themselves on a simple premise: the whole world, watching the same moment, at the same time. On Friday night in Milan, that illusion fractured in real time.

When Team USA entered the San Siro during the parade of nations, the speed skater Erin Jackson led the delegation into a wall of cheers. Moments later, when cameras cut to US vice-president JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance, large sections of the crowd responded with boos. Not subtle ones, but audible and sustained ones. Canadian viewers heard them. Journalists seated in the press tribunes in the upper deck, myself included, clearly heard them. But as I quickly realized from a groupchat with friends back home, American viewers watching NBC did not.

On its own, the situation might once have passed unnoticed. But the defining feature of the modern sports media landscape is that no single broadcaster controls the moment any more. CBC carried it. The BBC liveblogged it. Fans clipped it. Within minutes, multiple versions of the same happening were circulating online – some with boos, some without – turning what might once have been a routine production call into a case study in information asymmetry.

For its part, NBC has denied editing the crowd audio, although it is difficult to resolve why the boos so audible in the stadium and on other broadcasts were absent for US viewers. But in a broader sense, it is becoming harder, not easier, to curate reality when the rest of the world is holding up its own camera angles. And that raises an uncomfortable question as the United States moves toward hosting two of the largest sporting events on the planet: the 2026 men’s World Cup and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

If a US administration figure is booed at the Olympics in Los Angeles, or a World Cup match in New Jersey or Dallas, will American domestic broadcasts simply mute or avoid mentioning the crowd audio? If so, what happens when the world feed, or a foreign broadcaster, shows something else entirely? What happens when 40,000 phones in the stadium upload their own version in real time?

The risk is not just that viewers will see through it. It is that attempts to manage the narrative will make American broadcasters look less credible, not more. Because the audience now assumes there is always another angle. Every time a broadcaster makes that trade – credibility for insulation – it is a trade audiences eventually notice."

NBC appears to cut crowd’s booing of JD Vance from Winter Olympics broadcast; The Guardian, February 6, 2026

Tom Lutz , The Guardian; NBC appears to cut crowd’s booing of JD Vance from Winter Olympics broadcast

[Kip Currier: NBC's decision to edit out booing of JD Vance during the Winter Olympics' Opening Ceremony is not surprising, given prior instances of U.S. media editing of similar occurrences, as noted in this Guardian article. But it is nevertheless troubling. NBC is distorting and altering what actually happened, without informing viewers and listeners of its editorial decision-making.

The Opening Ceremony isn't a fictional movie: it's an historical, newsworthy event. As such, alterations to the historical record should not have been made.

Additionally, if a news organization like NBC decides to make changes to news reporting, like removing or suppressing sound for non-technical reasons, it should be transparent about having done so and explain the reasons for such alterations. Trust in news organizations is vital. Actions like sanitization and alterations of news reporting diminish public trust in the accuracy and integrity of news sources and disseminators.

NBCU Academy's website provides information on ethics in journalism. Its first principle "Seek the truth and be truthful in your reporting." is relevant to the editorial decision to edit out the booing of JD Vance:

What are journalism ethics?

Ethics are the guiding values, standards and responsibilities of journalism. At NBCU News Group, the following principles act as the foundation of ethical journalism:

Seek the truth and be truthful in your reporting. Your reporting should be accurate and fair. Ensure that the facts you gathered are verified, sources are attributed and context is provided. Journalists should be bold in seeking and presenting truths to the public, serving as watchdogs over public officials and holding the powerful accountable.

https://nbcuacademy.com/journalism-ethics/

The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) also maintains a Code of Ethics. One of its four guiding principles addresses transparency and accountability:

BE ACCOUNTABLE AND TRANSPARENT

Ethical journalism means taking responsibility for one's work and explaining one’s decisions to the public.

Journalists should:

 

Explain ethical choices and processes to audiences. Encourage a civil dialogue with the public about journalistic practices, coverage and news content.

 

Respond quickly to questions about accuracy, clarity and fairness.

 

Acknowledge mistakes and correct them promptly and prominently.

 

Explain corrections and clarifications carefully and clearly.

 

Expose unethical conduct in journalism, including within their organizations.

 

Abide by the same high standards they expect of others.

https://www.spj.org/pdf/spj-code-of-ethics.pdf] 

[Excerpt]

"The US vice-president, JD Vance, was greeted by a chorus of boos when he appeared at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Milan on Friday, although American viewers watching NBC’s coverage would have been unaware of the reception.

As speedskater Erin Jackson led Team USA into the San Siro stadium she was greeted by cheers. But when the TV cameras cut to Vance and his wife, Usha, there were boos, jeers and a smattering of applause from the crowd. The reaction was shown on Canadian broadcaster CBC’s feed, with one commentator saying: “There is the vice-president JD Vance and his wife Usha – oops, those are not … uh … those are a lot of boos for him. Whistling, jeering, some applause.”

The Guardian’s Sean Ingle was also at the ceremony and noted the boos, as did USA Today’s Christine Brennan. However, on the NBC broadcast the boos were not heard or remarked upon when Vance appeared on screen, with the commentary team simply saying “JD Vance”. That didn’t stop footage of the boos being circulated and shared on social media in the US. The White House posted a clip of Vance applauding on NBC’s broadcast without any boos.

Friday was not the first time there have been moves to stop US viewers from witnessing dissent against the Trump administration. At September’s US Open, tournament organizers asked broadcasters not to show the crowd’s reaction to Donald Trump, who attended the men’s final. Part of the message read: “We ask all broadcasters to refrain from showing any disruptions or reactions in response to the president’s attendance in any capacity.”

Earlier on Friday in Milan, hundreds of people protested against the presence of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at this year’s Olympics. The US state department has said that several federal agencies, including ICE, will be at the Games to help protect visiting Americans. The state department said the ICE unit in Italy is separate from those involved in the immigration crackdown in the United States."

TRUMP’S STIFLING OF DISSENT REACHES A NEW LEVEL; The New York Times, February 5, 2026

The Editorial Board , The New York Times; TRUMP’S STIFLING OF DISSENT REACHES A NEW LEVEL

"THE CRACKDOWN ON dissent and speech in Minnesota this winter follows a pattern that is common in countries that slide from democracy to autocracy: A leader enacts a legally dubious policy. Citizens protest that policy. The government responds with intimidation and force. When people are hurt, the government blames them and lies about what happened.

The New York Times editorial board published an index in October tracking 12 categories of democratic erosion, based on historical patterns and interviews with experts. Our index places the United States on a scale of 0 to 10 for each category. Zero represents the United States before President Trump began his second term — not perfect, surely, but one of the world’s healthiest democracies. Ten represents the condition in a true autocracy, such as China, Iran or Russia.

Based on recent events, we are moving our assessment of one of the categories — stifling speech and dissent — up one notch, to level four:.."

America Is Losing the Facts That Hold It Together; The Atlantic, February 5, 2026

David A. Graham, The Atlantic; America Is Losing the Facts That Hold It Together

"The CIA World Factbook occupies a special place in the memories of elder Millennials like me. It was an enormous compendium of essential facts about every country around the world, carefully collected from across the federal government. This felt especially precious when the World Factbook went online in 1997 (it had previously been a classified internal publication printed on paper, then a declassified print resource), a time when the internet still felt new and unsettled. Unlike many other pages on the World Wide Web, it was reliable enough that you could even get away with citing it in schoolwork. And there was a special thrill in the idea that the CIA, a famously secretive organization, was the one providing it to you.

Memories are now the only place the World Factbook resides. In a post onlineyesterday, the agency noted that the site “has sunset,” though it provided no explanation for why. (The agency did not immediately reply to my inquiry about why, nor has it replied to other outlets.) The Associated Press noted that the move “follows a vow from Director John Ratcliffe to end programs that don’t advance the agency’s core missions.”

The demise of the World Factbook is part of a broad war on information being waged by the Trump administration. This is different from the administration’s assault on truth, in which the president and the White House lie prolifically or deny reality. This is something more fundamental: It’s a series of steps that by design or in effect block access to data, and in doing so erode the concept of a shared frame for all Americans. “Though the World Factbook is gone, in the spirit of its global reach and legacy, we hope you will stay curious about the world and find ways to explore it … in person or virtually,” the CIA wrote in the valedictory post. Left unsaid: You’re on your own to figure it out now.

If the World Factbook was indeed shut down because it didn’t meet Ratcliffe’s standard for core CIA functions, that reflects the Trump administration’s impoverished view of the government’s role. The World Factbook was a public service that helped Americans and others around the globe be informed, created a positive association with a shadowy agency, and spread U.S. soft power by providing a useful service free to all. I’ve been unable to determine how much it cost the government to maintain, but there’s no reason to think it would be substantive."

The Murder of The Washington Post Today’s layoffs are the latest attempt to kill what makes the paper special.; The Atlantic, February 4, 2026

Ashley Parker, The Atlantic ; The Murder of The Washington Post Today’s layoffs are the latest attempt to kill what makes the paper special.

"We’re witnessing a murder.

Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of The Washington Post, and Will Lewis, the publisher he appointed at the end of 2023, are embarking on the latest step of their plan to kill everything that makes the paper special. The Post has survived for nearly 150 years, evolving from a hometown family newspaper into an indispensable national institution, and a pillar of the democratic system. But if Bezos and Lewis continue down their present path, it may not survive much longer.

Over recent years, they’ve repeatedly cut the newsroom—killing its Sunday magazine, reducing the staff by several hundred, nearly halving the Metro desk—without acknowledging the poor business decisions that led to this moment or providing a clear vision for the future. This morning, executive editor Matt Murray and HR chief Wayne Connell told the newsroom staff in an early-morning virtual meeting that it was closing the Sports department and Books section, ending its signature podcast, and dramatically gutting the International and Metro departments, in addition to staggering cuts across all teams. Post leadership—which did not even have the courage to address their staff in person—then left everyone to wait for an email letting them know whether or not they had a job. (Lewis, who has already earned a reputation for showing up late to work when he showed up at all, did not join the Zoom.)

The Post may yet rise, but this will be their enduring legacy."

Trump Would Have Slim Chance in Court Against Trevor Noah, Experts Say; The New York Times, February 2, 2026

Benjamin Mullin, The New York Times ; Trump Would Have Slim Chance in Court Against Trevor Noah, Experts Say

Legal experts said that jokes like the one told by Mr. Noah at the Grammys on Sunday were protected by the First Amendment.

"President Trump early on Monday added Trevor Noah to the long list of high-profile individuals and institutions in his legal cross hairs after the comedian made a joke while hosting the Grammys about Mr. Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

But legal experts say that Mr. Trump’s threat to sue Mr. Noah, whom he called a “poor, pathetic, talentless, dope of an M.C.” on social media, has very little chance of succeeding in a courtroom.

“Trevor Noah is pretty clearly protected by the First Amendment,” said Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “The fact that Noah was hosting the Grammys and not writing a news story in The Washington Post has constitutional significance,” he added.

Mr. Noah said on Sunday evening’s broadcast, which was aired on CBS, that Mr. Trump’s pursuit of Greenland made sense “because Epstein’s island is gone, he needs a new one to hang out with Bill Clinton.” Though Mr. Trump had been a friend of Mr. Epstein’s until the early 2000s, there is no evidence that he visited Mr. Epstein’s private island."

Trump, in an Escalation, Calls for Republicans to ‘Nationalize’ Elections; The New York Times, February 2, 2026

 Reid J. Epstein and Nick Corasaniti, The New York Times; Trump, in an Escalation, Calls for Republicans to ‘Nationalize’ Elections

"President Trump called in a new interview for the Republican Party to “nationalize” voting in the United States, an aggressive rhetorical step that was likely to raise new worries about his administration’s efforts to involve itself in election matters as he and his allies continue to make false claims about his 2020 defeat.

During an extended monologue about immigration on a podcast released on Monday by Dan Bongino, his former deputy F.B.I. director, Mr. Trump called for Republican officials to “take over” voting procedures in 15 states, though he did not name them.

“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over,’” he said. “We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many — 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

Under the Constitution, American elections are governed primarily by state law, leading to a decentralized process in which voting is administered by county and municipal officials in thousands of precincts across the country. Mr. Trump, however, has long been fixated on the false claims that U.S. elections are rife with fraud and that Democrats are perpetrating a vast conspiracy to have undocumented immigrants vote and lift the party’s turnout."

How the Supreme Court Secretly Made Itself Even More Secretive; The New York Times, February 2, 2026

Jodi Kantor, The New York Times ; How the Supreme Court Secretly Made Itself Even More Secretive

Amid calls to increase transparency and revelations about the court’s inner workings, the chief justice imposed nondisclosure agreements on clerks and employees.

"n November of 2024, two weeks after voters returned President Donald Trump to office, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. summoned employees of the U.S. Supreme Court for an unusual announcement. Facing them in a grand conference room beneath ornate chandeliers, he requested they each sign a nondisclosure agreement promising to keep the court’s inner workings secret.

The chief justice acted after a series of unusual leaks of internal court documents, most notably of the decision overturning the right to abortion, and news reports about ethical lapses by the justices. Trust in the institution was languishing at a historic low. Debate was intensifying over whether the black box institution should be more transparent.

Instead, the chief justice tightened the court’s hold on information.Its employees have long been expected to stay silent about what they witness behind the scenes. But starting that autumn, in a move that has not been previously reported, the chief justice converted what was once a norm into a formal contract, according to five people familiar with the shift."

How Trump’s 2020 Election Claims Have Been Debunked Again and Again; The New York Times, January 30, 2026

 Reid J. Epstein and Nick Corasaniti, The New York Times; How Trump’s 2020 Election Claims Have Been Debunked Again and Again

"More than five years after President Trump lost the 2020 election, he and his administration are still pursuing baseless conspiracy theories in an attempt to prove otherwise.

Though scores of lawsuits aiming to overturn the results were dismissed by judges in 2020 and 2021, Mr. Trump’s relentless false arguments that he won the election have led many of his supporters to believe him. And now that he is back in the White House, some of those falsehoods have become official stances of the U.S. government.

On Wednesday, F.B.I. agents in Georgia searched an election center in Fulton County, Ga., which includes Atlanta, for ballots and other voting records from the 2020 contest. The move appeared to be a significant escalation of Mr. Trump’s effort to rewrite the history of the 2020 election and his defeat to Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Here’s the reality of what happened."

Georgia lawmakers express alarm to see Tulsi Gabbard at FBI elections office raid; The Guardian, January 29, 2026

George Chidi , The Guardian ; Georgia lawmakers express alarm to see Tulsi Gabbard at FBI elections office raid

"Democratic lawmakers are raising questions about why Tulsi Gabbard, the president’s director of national intelligence, was “lurking” in Fulton county on Wednesday while FBI agents carted off boxes of 2020 election documents.

Gabbard visited an elections hub in Fulton county, home to Atlanta, on Wednesday as the FBI executed a search warrant for records related to the 2020 election. The warrant sought all ballots from the 2020 election in the county, tabulator tapes, ballot images and voter rolls, according to a warrant obtained by the Guardian.

“My constituents in Georgia – and I think much of the American public – are quite reasonably alarmed and asking questions, after the director of national intelligence was spotted bizarrely and personally lurking in an FBI evidence truck in Fulton county, Georgia, yesterday,” said the senator Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat. “I encourage all of us on a bipartisan basis to pursue the facts as quickly as possible to understand whether the office of the director of national intelligence is straying far outside of its lane.”

In a statement released on Wednesday, the senator Mark Warner, of Virginia, described Gabbard, a former representative and army veteran known for adhering to widely debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, as “totally unqualified” to be one of the nation’s spymasters, citing her presence in Georgia during “a federal raid tied to Donald Trump’s obsession with losing the 2020 election” as evidence.

Gabbard only had two reasons to be there, Warner said: either she “believes there was a legitimate foreign intelligence nexus – in which case she is in clear violation of her obligation under the law to keep the intelligence committees ‘fully and currently informed’ of relevant national security concerns – or she is once again demonstrating her utter lack of fitness for office that she holds by injecting the nonpartisan intelligence community she is supposed to be leading into a domestic political stunt designed to legitimize conspiracy theories that undermine our democracy”."