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:.."

DOI cracks down on stickers covering Trump's face on national park passes; SF Gate, January 5, 2026

Sam Hill, SF Gate; DOI cracks down on stickers covering Trump's face on national park passes

[Kip Currier: It's still hard to believe this news story is real -- the Department of the Interior is voiding people's U.S. National Parks passes if Donald Trump's face (yes -- his face is on the entrance passes!) is covered up by anything -- and not from The Onion.]

[Excerpt]

"Covering up Donald Trump’s face on an America the Beautiful pass may come with an extra cost at national park entrance gates this year.

The Department of the Interior recently updated its “Void if Altered” rules for 2026, explicitly flagging stickers and other coverings as alterations that could invalidate the pass. The move appears to respond to visitors preparing to cover the image of Trump, which was set to begin appearing on passes Jan. 1 despite legal challenges.

An internal email from department business specialists Allison Christofis and Jeff Beauchamp to regional National Park Service staff shared updated guidelines for passes this year, highlighting changes to the department’s altered pass policy. The email was provided to SFGATE by a Park Service employee who requested anonymity to protect their job, which was granted in accordance with Hearst’s ethics policy."

‘Indecency has become a new hallmark’: writer and historian Jelani Cobb on race in Donald Trump’s America; The Guardian, October 18, 2025

David Smith, The Guardian; ‘Indecency has become a new hallmark’: writer and historian Jelani Cobb on race in Donald Trump’s America

"It is now fashionable on the left to bemoan the rise of US authoritarianism as a novel concept, a betrayal of constitutional ideals envied by the world. Cobb has a more complex take, suggesting that the US’s claim to moral primacy, rooted in the idea of exceptionalism, is based on a false premise.

He argues: “America has been autocratic previously. We just don’t think about it. It’s never been useful … to actually grapple with what America was, and America had no interest in grappling with these questions itself. Who has ever managed personal growth while constantly screaming to the world about how special and amazing they are?”

Cobb’s book maps an arc of the moral universe that is crooked and uneven, pointing out that, between the end of reconstruction and 1965, 11 states in the south effectively nullified the protections of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments of the constitution, imposing Jim Crow laws, voter suppression and violence to disenfranchise Black citizens...

It is therefore hardly unexpected that business leaders and institutions would capitulate, as they have in the past, he says: “We might hope that they would react differently but it’s not a shock when they don’t. Go back to the McCarthy era. We see that in more instances than not, McCarthy and other similar kinds of red-baiting forces were able to exert their will on American institutions.”...

He is unwavering, however, in his critique of Trump’s attack on the university sector: “What’s happening is people emulating Viktor Orbán [the leader of Hungary] to try to crush any independent centres of dissent and to utilise the full weight of the government to do it, and also to do it in hypocritical fashion...

Spencer Cox, the governor of Utah and a rare voice urging civil discourse, wondered whether this was the end of a dark chapter of US history – or the beginning. What does Cobb think? “There’s a strong possibility that it will get worse before it gets better,” he says frankly.

“We’re at a point where we navigated the volatile moment of the 1950s, the 1960s, because we were able to build a social consensus around what we thought was decent and what we thought was right, and we’re now seeing that undone. Indecency has become a new hallmark.

“But we should take some solace in the fact that people have done the thing that we need to do now previously. The situation we’re in I don’t think is impossible.”"

Trump’s Attendance At U.S. Open Men’s Final On Sunday Takes Center Court As Organizers Demand Broadcasters Not Air Boos & Protests; Deadline, September 6, 2025

Dominic Patten, Deadline; Trump’s Attendance At U.S. Open Men’s Final On Sunday Takes Center Court As Organizers Demand Broadcasters Not Air Boos & Protests

"Reaction to Donald Trump‘s attendance at the U.S. Open Men’s Final on Sunday just stepped into Center Court. 

A memo sent to the likes of ESPN and Sky Sports this afternoon from the United States Tennis Association asks “all broadcasters to refrain from showcasing any disruptions or reactions in response to the President’s attendance in any capacity.” 

Whether censorship, a very heavy handed request for civility amidst political division, both or an unintentional shooting of their own foort [sic], the USTA entreaty Saturday has had the immediate effect now of putting an added spotlight on Trump’s appearance at the prestigious match."

We are witnessing the silencing of American media; The Guardian, July 30, 2025

Robert Reich, The Guardian; We are witnessing the silencing of American media

"It’s the same with American universities, whose professors have often criticized Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional actions and whose research has often yielded conclusions that contradict Trump’s lies (such as that climate change is a “hoax”).

Columbia University and a handful of others have gone out of their way to “cooperate” with the Trump regime in order to avoid Trump’s wrath.

What does “cooperation” entail? Silencing Trump’s potential critics.

Columbia has just agreed to allow the regime to review its admissions and hiring practices in order to receive the federal research grants that the regime had held back.

Friends, this is how democracy dies.

The silencing is happening across America because Trump cannot stand criticism, because he’s vindictive as hell, and because he’s willing and able to use every department and agency of the federal government to punish any media corporations or universities that allow criticism of him.

Shame on any media outlet or university that allows Trump to silence it.

Trump is a dangerous despot. America needs its Eduardo Porters, Stephen Colberts, and all others in the media and in academia who have helped the nation understand just how truly dangerous Trump is."

I was going to be brave but; The Ink, May 21, 2025

ANAND GIRIDHARADAS , The Ink; I was going to be brave but

THE DARK AGES ARE BACK; The Atlantic, April 30, 2025

Alan Lightman, The Atlantic ; THE DARK AGES ARE BACK: Americans must insist on academic freedom, or risk losing what makes our nation great.

"The surrender of academic freedom in America and, in fact, freedom of all kinds may happen gradually, little by little. First with the disproportionate power of money and the wealthy who have it, then with attacks on the free press, the control of information, the weakening of checks and balances, the suppression of dissent, the surveillance of the population, and finally the normalization of repression. In George Orwell’s novel 1984, a superstate called Oceania is ruled by a dictator called Big Brother, who is supported by his personality cult and the Thought Police. The protagonist of the novel, Winston Smith, works for the state, at the Ministry of Truth, but he secretly hates the ruling regime. He joins what he thinks is a resistance group called the Brotherhood but which turns out to be part of the state apparatus. Smith is then arrested and subjected to months of brainwashing. Eventually, he is released and comes to believe that he loves Big Brother after all. This is what happens when darkness replaces light, when the freedom to think, dream, and invent is squashed. We cannot let that happen to us in America."

Trump Suggests Using National Guard Against ‘Enemy from Within’ on Election Day; Wall Street Journal, October 14, 2024

C. Ryan Barber and Jimmy Vielkind, Wall Street Journal; Trump Suggests Using National Guard Against ‘Enemy from Within’ on Election Day

"Donald Trump suggested deploying the National Guard or military to respond to what he termed the “enemy from within” on Election Day, saying in an interview that aired Sunday that he was concerned about the chaos wrought by "radical left lunatics".

Russia shuts down human rights group that preserved the legacy of Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov; AP, August 18, 2023

 JIM HEINTZ, AP; Russia shuts down human rights group that preserved the legacy of Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov

"Separate Russian courts on Friday ordered the liquidation of a human rights organization that preserved the legacy of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov and the arrest of a prominent election monitor, in the latest moves in a widespread crackdown on dissent. 

Sakharov, who died in 1989, was a key figure in developing the Soviet Union’s hydrogen bomb program but later become renowned for his activism in promoting human rights and freedom of conscience. He was awarded the Nobel prize in 1975 but was not allowed to travel to Norway to receive it. In 1980 he was sent into internal exile, which lasted six years.

The organization founded in his honor operated the Sakharov Center museum and archives in Moscow. Authorities declared it a “foreign agent” in 2014 and this year ordered the eviction of the center from its premises."

Russia sentences Kara-Murza, Putin critic and Post contributor, to 25 years; The Washington Post, April 17, 2023

Robyn Dixon, The Washington Post ; Russia sentences Kara-Murza, Putin critic and Post contributor, to 25 years

"In earlier comments on social media, Kara-Murza said he did not understand how criticizing the government could qualify as treason.

“It is incomprehensible to me how obvious and confirmed facts about the crimes committed during the aggression of Putin’s regime against Ukraine can be presented as ‘deliberately false information’ and the obvious lie — on the contrary, as the only truth.”"

It wasn’t just the National Archives. The Library of Congress also balked at a Women’s March photo.; The Washington Post, January 31, 2020

Joe Heim , The Washington Post; It wasn’t just the National Archives. The Library of Congress also balked at a Women’s March photo.

 

"The Library of Congress abandoned plans last year to showcase a mural-size photograph of demonstrators at the 2017 Women’s March in Washington because of concerns it would be perceived as critical of President Trump, according to emails obtained by The Washington Post...

 

Slayton said the decision to remove the photograph was made by leadership of the library’s Center for Exhibits and Interpretation. “No outside entities reviewed this exhibition’s content before it opened or opined on its content,” the spokeswoman wrote.

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden was informed of the decision soon after and supported it, Slayton said. Hayden, who is in the fourth year of her 10-year term, was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2016 and confirmed by the Senate."

 

TikTok’s Beijing roots fuel censorship suspicion as it builds a huge U.S. audience; The Washington Post, September 15, 2019

Drew Harwell and Tony Romm, The Washington Post; TikTok’s Beijing roots fuel censorship suspicion as it builds a huge U.S. audience

"TikTok’s surging popularity spotlights the tension between the Web’s global powers: the United States, where free speech and competing ideologies are held as (sometimes messy) societal bedrocks, and China, where political criticism is forbidden as troublemaking."

Do You Have Concerns about Plan S? Then You Must be an Irresponsible, Privileged, Conspiratorial Hypocrite; The Scholarly Kitchen, November 26, 2018

Rick Anderson, The Scholarly Kitchen; Do You Have Concerns about Plan S? Then You Must be an Irresponsible, Privileged, Conspiratorial Hypocrite

"Ultimately, though, what is most concerning about Plan S is not the behavior of those hell-bent on defending it by any means necessary. That’s just par for the course. More important is the way in which researchers themselves — the people whose work and whose freedom to choose will be directly affected by its implementation — seem to have been excluded from the process of formulating it. This shouldn’t be surprising, I guess, given the disdain in which authors and researchers are apparently held by Plan S’s creators. After all, as Science Europe’s Robert-Jan Smits puts it: “Why do we need Plan S? Because researchers are irresponsible.”

There you have it. The freedom to choose how to publish isn’t for everyone; it’s only for those who are “responsible” — which is to say, those who agree with Plan S."

Jamal Khashoggi chose to tell the truth. It’s part of the reason he’s beloved.; The Washington Post, October 7, 2018

David Ignatius, The Washington Post; Jamal Khashoggi chose to tell the truth. It’s part of the reason he’s beloved.

[Kip Currier: As I've mentioned to a few people lately--including my book editor, as I finish up a chapter on truth for my ethics textbook--this is a particularly challenging time to tackle the topics of truth, facts, news, and information assessment. The example of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi--"disappeared" and presumed killed--painfully demonstrates both the importance of and potentially deadly stakes for those committed to promoting freedom of expression and truth telling, in the furtherance of human rights, equality, and democratic values.]

"George Orwell titled a regular column he wrote for a British newspaper in the mid-1940s “As I Please.” Meaning that he would write exactly what he believed. My Saudi colleague Jamal Khashoggi has always had that same insistent passion for telling the truth about his country, no matter what.

Khashoggi’s fate is unknown as I write, but his colleagues at The Post and friends around the world fear that he was murdered after he visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last Tuesday...

Khashogggi [sic] understood that he could keep his mouth shut and stay safe, because he had so many friends in the royal family. But it simply wasn’t in him.

Khashoggi wrote a column for the Post last year in which he described seeing some of his friends arrested and struggling with his conscience. “I said nothing. I didn’t want to lose my job or my freedom. I worried about my family. I have made a different choice now,” he wrote. He had made a decisive break with Mohammed bin Salman , choosing exile and honesty in his writings. His simple four-word explanation: “We Saudis deserve better.”"

China’s Great Leap Backward; The Atlantic, December 2016

James Fallows, The Atlantic; China’s Great Leap Backward:

"China’s internet, always censored and firewalled, is now even more strictly separated from the rest of the world’s than ever before, and becoming more so. China’s own internet companies (Baidu as a search engine rather than Google, WeChat for Twitter) are more heavily censored. Virtual private networks and other work-arounds, tolerated a decade ago—the academic who invented China’s “Great Firewall” system of censorship even bragged about the six VPNs he used to keep up on foreign developments—are now under governmental assault. When you find a network that works, you dare not mention its name on social media or on a website that could alert the government to its existence. “It’s an endless cat-and-mouse,” the founder of a California-based VPN company, which I’m deliberately not identifying, recently told me. “We figure out a new route or patch, and then they notice that people are using us and they figure out how to block it. Eventually they wear most users down.” On a multiweek visit to China early last year, I switched among three VPNs and was able to reach most international sites using my hotel-room Wi-Fi. On a several-day visit last December, the hassle of making connections was not worth it, and I just did without Western news sources.

China’s print and broadcast media have always been state-controlled and pro-government. But a decade ago I heard from academics and party officials that “reasonable” criticism from the press actually had an important safety-valve function, as did online commentary, in alerting the government to emerging problem spots.

Those days are gone. Every week or two the Chinese press carries warnings, more and more explicit, by President Xi Jinping and his colleagues that dissent is not permissible and the party’s interests come first."

Free speech is flunking out on college campuses; Washington Post, 10/22/15

Catherine Rampell, Washington Post; Free speech is flunking out on college campuses:

"Crippling the delivery of unpopular views is a terrible lesson to send to impressionable minds and future leaders, at Wesleyan and elsewhere. It teaches students that dissent will be punished, that rather than pipe up they should nod along. It also teaches them they might be too fragile to tolerate words that make them uncomfortable; rather than rebut, they should instead shut down, defund, shred, disinvite.

But the solution to speech that offends should always be more speech, not less."