Trump’s lawsuit against The New York Times is meritless, First Amendment experts say; CNN, September 17, 2025

Brian Stelter, Liam Reilly, CNN ; Trump’s lawsuit against The New York Times is meritless, First Amendment experts say

"President Trump’s defamation lawsuit against The New York Times is meritless, according to half a dozen lawyers and First Amendment scholars who spoke with CNN.

But Trump’s chances in court are almost beside the point, some of the experts said, because the president seems to want a political rather than legal or financial victory.

Rebecca Tushnet, the Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard Law School, said the 85-page suit “is a statement of contempt for truth, the American public, the judicial process, and everything that deserves our respect in the American tradition.”

However, Tushnet said, “to pick through its legal defects, such as the complaints about statements about Fred Trump — a deceased man who cannot be defamed — is to ignore its purpose: to threaten any criticism of Trump.”

Atlantic Settles Writer’s Suit Over Article It Retracted; The New York Times, September 12, 2025

 Katie Robertson, The New York Times; Atlantic Settles Writer’s Suit Over Article It Retracted

"The Atlantic quietly agreed to pay more than $1 million early this summer to settle a lawsuit by the writer Ruth Shalit Barrett, who had accused the magazine of defamation after it took the rare step of retracting an article she had written and replacing it with an editor’s note, according to a person with knowledge of the settlement.

Ms. Barrett, who wrote an article about youth sports in wealthy areas as a freelancer for The Atlantic in 2020, sued the publication and one of its editors in January 2022. She said the outlet had smeared her reputation and asked for $1 million in damages.

Both sides agreed to resolve their dispute in mediation in April and asked for the suit to be voluntarily dismissed on June 27 when they reached a settlement, according to court documents. The Atlantic made updates to the editor’s note on the online version of the article on June 26."

Inside Syria’s Most Fearsome Prison Tens of thousands of Syrians were thrown into Sednaya during the Assad regime. The New York Times created a 3-D model of the prison.; The New York Times, August 29, 2025

Christina Goldbaum, Charlie Smart, Helmuth Rosales, Anjali Singhvi and Reham Mourshed, The New York Times; Inside Syria’s Most Fearsome Prison: Tens of thousands of Syrians were thrown into Sednaya during the Assad regime. The New York Times created a 3-D model of the prison. 

[Kip Currier: This story about Syria's brutal Sednaya prison is a difficult one to read and view. It's shocking to see how monstrously the people -- activists, artists, politicians, writers, citizens of all kinds -- warehoused to languish and die in this savage place were mistreated, tortured, and murdered.

But it's also an important one to digest and contemplate and not look away from. To think about all of the human beings who were impacted by this horrific prison. And to reflect on the human beings -- the leaders with power and privilege -- who sanctioned the existence of such a barbaric place and system for so long.

The sermon of an Episcopal priest I was fortunate to hear yesterday encouraged the parishioners to pray for individuals who are in prisons, as well as for humane treatment of the imprisoned by those who are charged with looking after them during their incarceration. We were reminded by the priest that some people are also imprisoned unjustly. Just as the 1st century Apostle Paul was imprisoned by the Roman Empire, merely for speaking and evangelizing.

Specifically, too, we were asked to pray for detainees in an ICE facility in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania.

We mustn't become indifferent to the injustices and suffering that people in this world experience. Or to the dignity, respect, due process, and rule of law to which every person is entitled, no matter their economic circumstances or legal status.]

[Excerpt]

"NO PLACE IN SYRIA was more feared than Sednaya prison during the Assad family’s decades-long, iron-fisted rule.

Situated on a barren hilltop on the outskirts of Damascus, the capital, Sednaya was at the heart of the Assads’ extensive system of torture prisons and arbitrary arrests used to crush all dissent.

By the end of the nearly 14-year civil war that culminated in December with the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, it had become a haunting symbol of the dictator’s ruthlessness.

Over the years, the regime’s security apparatus swallowed up hundreds of thousands of activists, journalists, students and dissidents from all over Syria — many never to be heard from again.

Most prisoners did not expect to make it out of Sednaya alive. They watched as men detained with them withered away or simply lost the will to live. Tens of thousands of others were executed, according to rights groups."

Thirteen Journalists on How They Are Rethinking Ethics; Columbia Journalism Review, August 21, 2025

JULIE GERSTEIN AND MARGARET SULLIVAN, Columbia Journalism Review; Thirteen Journalists on How They Are Rethinking Ethics

"Seek truth. Own up to mistakes. Consider all sides of a story. Prioritize accuracy, minimize harm, be transparent, avoid conflicts of interest. These are the core ethics many working journalists today learned in school or during their first years on the job.  

This summer, the two of us—Margaret Sullivan and Julie Gerstein, of the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security at Columbia University—have been exploring, in a series of pieces with CJR, whether those ethics are sufficient for journalists in the modern moment. Whether, in the face of artificial intelligence, “fake news,” eroding protections for sources, and the weakening of their business model, journalists should adjust their core tenets. 

As part of our research, we asked working journalists and academic journalism ethicists to share their thoughts on themes including disinformation, objectivity, AI, nonprofit news business models, and dealing with sources. 

In some areas, we heard calls for change. “Traditional journalistic norms and conventions for covering politics and politicians were not created for a president like Donald Trump,” said Rod Hicks, executive editor of the St. Louis American and formerly the director of ethics and diversity at the Society of Professional Journalists. Stephen J. Adler, director of the Ethics and Journalism Initiative at the NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and chair of the steering committee of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, argued that “the media isn’t doing its job in correctly balancing the news value of a leak versus. the news value of who made the leak and why.” 

But other journalists spoke out in favor of renewed allegiance to old values. “Limiting the use of unnamed sources to matters of public interest wherever we can helps us ensure we don’t dilute the credibility that makes our coverage worth reading,” pointed out Elena Cherney, senior editor at the Wall Street Journal and leader of the newsroom’s Standards & Ethics team. And even as business models have changed, Matthew Watkins, editor in chief of the nonprofit Texas Tribune, argues, “the need to protect journalism from the potential corrupting influence of money is as old as the profession itself.” 

Their comments highlight the value of open, honest conversation among thoughtful leaders in an industry seeking a path forward."

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."

Connie Chung Says ‘Shame On’ Shari Redstone and the Ellisons: ‘I Fear the End of CBS as I Knew It’ | Video; The Wrap, July 26, 2025

 Josh Dickey, The Wrap; Connie Chung Says ‘Shame On’ Shari Redstone and the Ellisons: ‘I Fear the End of CBS as I Knew It’ | Video

Former “CBS Evening News” anchor Connie Chung said the impending sale of Paramount and “60 Minutes” skirmish with Donald Trump represent “the end of CBS News” as she knew it, blaming Shari Redstone and the Ellisons for the demise of “unbiased, fact-based journalism.”

“CBS was always a standalone network,” Chung said in a CNN interview with Brianna Keilar on Saturday. “The news division was autonomous. It was always unencumbered by pressures from politicians – including presidents – and unencumbered by bean-counters. But now I can see that the days [of] honest, unbiased, fact-based journalism is being tainted.

Chung placed the blame squarely on Redstone, chair of Paramount Global, and “Larry Ellison, and his son David,” who “seem to only know greed, avarice. I worry about the CBS I used to know.”"

WaPo Columnist Flames Jeff Bezos After Quitting in Protest; The Daily Beast, July 10, 2025

Corbin Bolies  , The Daily Beast; WaPo Columnist Flames Jeff Bezos After Quitting in Protest

"Davidson said in the Facebook post the spiked piece centered on what he believed was a hallmark of President Donald Trump’s second term, “his widespread, ominous attack on thought, belief and speech,” and referenced federal officials’ comments and Trump’s own executive orders. 

But the Post spiked the column, according to Davidson. He said he tried to write two more pieces to test his resilience under the new policy, but that he bristled when editors objected to his use of “well-deserved” when describing a potential pay raise for federal employees...

“Bezos’s policies and activities have projected the image of a Donald Trump supplicant. The result: fleeing journalists, plummeting morale and disappearing subscriptions,” Davidson wrote.

“Nonetheless, Post coverage of Trump remains strong,” he added. “Yet the policy against opinion in News section columns means less critical scrutiny of Trump—a result coinciding with Bezos’ unseemly and well-documented coziness with the president.”

Two men jailed for life for supplying car bomb that killed Daphne Caruana Galizia; The Guardian, June 10, 2025

Juliette Garside, The Guardian ; Two men jailed for life for supplying car bomb that killed Daphne Caruana Galizia

[Kip Currier: It's encouraging to see that justice can occur, even in places and situations where corruption is deeply entangled and seemingly intractable. I vividly remember learning from The Guardian's reporting about the horrific car bomb murder of courageous investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta in October 2017:

The journalist who led the Panama Papers investigation into corruption in Malta was killed on Monday in a car bomb near her home.

Daphne Caruana Galizia died on Monday afternoon when her car, a Peugeot 108, was destroyed by a powerful explosive device which blew the vehicle into several pieces and threw the debris into a nearby field.

A blogger whose posts often attracted more readers than the combined circulation of the country’s newspapers, Caruana Galizia was recently described by the Politico website as a “one-woman WikiLeaks”. Her blogs were a thorn in the side of both the establishment and underworld figures that hold sway in Europe’s smallest member state.

Her most recent revelations pointed the finger at Malta’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat, and two of his closest aides, connecting offshore companies linked to the three men with the sale of Maltese passports and payments from the government of Azerbaijan.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/16/malta-car-bomb-kills-panama-papers-journalist

As mentioned in the 2017 article, Galizia was reporting about corruption that involved the Maltese government at the time. Journalists like Galizia risk -- and all too often lose -- their lives to expose corruption and promote public awareness and accountability for wrongdoing.

These intrepid reporters also shed important light on the ways that the wealthy, powerful, and famous are frequently able to circumvent laws and ethical standards that apply to everyone else, as was revealed by the Panama Papers investigation.

Non-profit groups like Transparency International are committed to exposing corruption and promoting democracy and accountability:

We are Transparency International U.S. (TI US), part of the world’s largest coalition against corruption. We give voices to victims and witnesses of corruption, and work with governments, businesses, and citizens to stop the abuse of entrusted power.

In collaboration with national chapters in more than 100 countries, we are leading the fight to turn our vision of a world free from corruption into reality. Our U.S. office focuses on stemming the harms caused by illicit finance, strengthening political integrity, and promoting a positive U.S. role in global anti-corruption initiatives. Through a combination of research, advocacy, and policy, we engage with stakeholders to increase public understanding of corruption and hold institutions and individuals accountable.

https://us.transparency.org/who-we-are/]

My forthcoming Bloomsbury book Ethics, Information, and Technology (January 2026) examines the corrosive impacts of corruption. It also explores organizations like Transparency International that report on and educate about corrupt practices, as well as efforts to root out public trust-damaging activities and positively influence and change organizational cultures where corruption exists.

Corruption is often intertwined, too, with other ethical issues like conflicts of interest, censorship, research misconduct, misinformation and disinformation, counterfeit goods and deficits of transparency, accountability, data integrity, freedom of expression, and free and independent presses, which are critically assessed and considered in the book.]

[Excerpt]

"Two men have been sentenced to life in prison for supplying the car bomb that killed the anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta eight years ago.

The sentencing on Tuesday of Robert Agius and Jamie Vella, reported to be members of the island’s criminal underworld, marked a significant step in the long campaign to bring those charged with Caruana Galizia’s murder to justice.

Her death in October 2017 sparked outrage across Europe and embroiled Malta’s governing party in accusations of a coverup, ultimately leading to the resignation of the then prime minister, Joseph Muscat.

Prosecutors have brought charges against seven people, including a millionaire businessman who is still awaiting trial."

Have journalists skipped the ethics conversation when it comes to using AI?; The Conversation, May 13, 2025

Angela Misri, Assistant Professor, School of Journalism, Toronto Metropolitan University, April Lindgren, Professor emerita/adjunct professor, Toronto Metropolitan University School of Journalism, Toronto Metropolitan University, Nicole Blanchett, Associate Professor, Journalism, Toronto Metropolitan University , The Conversation; Have journalists skipped the ethics conversation when it comes to using AI?

"Artificial intelligence (AI) is being used in journalistic work for everything from transcribing interviews and translating articlesto writing and publishing local weather, economic reports and water quality stories.

It’s even being used to identify story ideas from the minutes of municipal council meetings in cases where time-strapped reporters don’t have time to do so. 

What’s lagging behind all this experimentation are the important conversations about the ethics of using these tools. This disconnect was evident when we interviewed journalists in a mix of newsrooms across Canada from July 2022 to July 2023, and it remains a problem today. 

We conducted semi-structured interviews with 13 journalists from 11 Canadian newsrooms. Many of the people we spoke to told us that they had worked at multiple media organizations throughout their careers.

The key findings from our recently published research:"

‘Fight back’: journalist taking Trump administration to court calls for media to resist attacks; The Guardian, May 5, 2025

Kate Lamb, The Guardian; ‘Fight back’: journalist taking Trump administration to court calls for media to resist attacks

 "Now, she finds herself pushing against fascistic tendencies in her adopted home. “I grew up in 80s Indonesia where there was no press freedom and newspapers had to be careful what they printed to avoid government closure,” she says. “Could the US backslide that far? Not if enough people resist, and that’s why I’m fighting back.”

Her lawsuit, backed by Reporters Without Borders and four unions, argues the Trump administration, through the actions of the defendants, USAGM, and the government’s special adviser Kari Lake, are attempting to unlawfully dismantle VOA’s operations because they deem it contrary to the government’s agenda.

Widakuswara argues that Trump’s executive order is a violation of press freedom, the first amendment, and laws to prevent executive overreach, with VOA funding approved by Congress, not the president."

Our job is to be truthful not neutral’: Christiane Amanpour on Trump, tech and and fighting for the truth; The Observer, via The Guardian, January 25, 2025

Tim Adams, The Observer via The Guardian; Our job is to be truthful not neutral’: Christiane Amanpour on Trump, tech and and fighting for the truth

"Amanpour works to a trusted formula: “Our job is to be truthful, not neutral,” she says. When we speak, the news is full of the malign influence of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg on the global conversation.

As someone who originally owed her lucrative journalistic career to a billionaire, the “visionary” – her word – CNN founder Ted Turner, Amanpour is fully aware that rich men have always seen news as a business opportunity. Social media oligarchs, however, want to pocket the billions with none of the attendant responsibilities. Never a doom scroller, she sees Mark Zuckerberg’s utterly shameless decision to remove all factchecking from his Meta platforms as a drastic escalation of that policy.

“Of course, not everybody’s going to agree on everything and nor should they,” she says. “But unless we can agree that the sky outside is blue and the grass is green, we have no chance. What is overtaking the public square is that every single fact is now the subject of accusations of lies or bias. Zuckerberg enabling totally permissive commentary is another arrow in the heart of truth.”"

‘2073’ Review: Back to the Future; The New York Times, December 26, 2024

 Natalia Winkelman, The New York Times; ‘2073’ Review: Back to the Future

"The existential questions guiding “2073,” Asif Kapadia’s audacious exercise in futurism, are broad and familiar ones. How did we get here? What does our future look like? How can we change our current course toward a brighter one?...

Big Tech, climate catastrophe, autocracy — these are the hallmarks of Kapadia’s vision of the future, and they each receive an origin story of sorts in the nonfiction portions of his film. Montages of archival footage are paired with expert commentary on how the issues are correlated, and the bleak future they presage. Kapadia also profiles a handful of female journalists, who, alongside the film’s array of villains, emerge as spirited heroes offering an iota of hope to counter the feeling of impending doom."

Los Angeles Times owner says articles will use AI meter to show sources’ ‘bias’; The Guardian, December 6, 2024

Anna Betts, The Guardian; Los Angeles Times owner says articles will use AI meter to show sources’ ‘bias’

"Patrick Soon-Shiong, the owner of the Los Angeles Times, has announced plans to incorporate an artificial intelligence-powered “bias meter” into the newspaper’s coverage.

Soon-Shiong, the biotech billionaire who bought the Los Angeles Times in 2018, made the comments on a podcast hosted by conservative commentator Scott Jennings, who is soon joining the LA Times editorial board.

The proposed move is the latest controversy to rock the newspaper which has suffered a wave of resignations and layoffs under Soon-Shiong’s ownership. Most recently, Soon-Shiong blocked the paper from endorsing Democrat Kamala Harris in last month’s presidential election, sparking outrage from many staff.

The “bias meter”, Soon-Shiong said, will be integrated into articles so that “somebody could understand, as they read it, that the source of the article has some level of bias”.

“And what we need to do is not have what we call confirmation bias, and then that story automatically, the reader can press a button and get both sides of that exact same story based on that story and then give comments,” he added.

Soon-Shiong told Jennings that he had been “quietly building” the AI tool “behind the scenes” and expressed his hope to launch it by this coming January."

The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media; The Washington Post, October 28, 2024

Jeff Bezos, The Washington Post; The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media

Jeff Bezos is the owner of The Washington Post.

"I would also like to be clear that no quid pro quo of any kind is at work here. Neither campaign nor candidate was consulted or informed at any level or in any way about this decision. It was made entirely internally. Dave Limp, the chief executive of one of my companies, Blue Origin, met with former president Donald Trump on the day of our announcement. I sighed when I found out, because I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision. But the fact is, I didn’t know about the meeting beforehand. Even Limp didn’t know about it in advance; the meeting was scheduled quickly that morning. There is no connection between it and our decision on presidential endorsements, and any suggestion otherwise is false."

John Grisham poached material for new book, media outlets say; The Washington Post, October 18, 2024

Will Sommer,  The Washington Post; John Grisham poached material for new book, media outlets say 

"Both ProPublica and the Times said in statements to The Post that they want changes made to “Framed” to better credit Colloff.

“We are in conversation with the publisher to correct this very concerning oversight and ensure the original work receives appropriate credit,” ProPublica said in its statement.

The similarities between Colloff’s series and Grisham’s writing were first noted publicly by Maurice Chammah, a criminal justice reporter for the Marshall Project who reviewed “Framed” for the Times.

Chammah wrote “Grisham relies so heavily on Pamela Colloff’s 2018 reporting” that “simply mentioning her work in a note at the end does not feel adequate.”

Chammah said Grisham’s use of Colloff’s series is especially notable because reporting on apparent wrongful convictions can require years of painstaking investigation."