Category Archives: US press and publishing

Top Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus resigns after piece critical of Jeff Bezos is scrapped

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The column was disapproving of paper’s new opinion policy of supporting only ‘personal liberties and free markets’

Washington Post associate editor and top political columnist Ruth Marcus is reportedly resigning following CEO Will Lewis’ decision to kill her opinion column critical of owner Jeff Bezos’ latest changes to the paper.

“It is with great sadness that I submit my resignation as columnist and associate editor of the Washington Post,” Marcus wrote in a letter addressed to publisher Will Lewis and billionaire Jeff Bezos and posted on X by a New York Times media reporter.

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The LA Times published an op-ed warning of AI’s dangers. It also published its AI tool’s reply

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‘Insight’ labeled the argument ‘center-left’ and created a reply insisting AI will make storytelling more democratic

Beneath a recent Los Angeles Times opinion piece about the dangers of artificial intelligence, there is now an AI-generated response about how AI will make storytelling more democratic.

“Some in the film world have met the arrival of generative AI tools with open arms. We and others see it as something deeply troubling on the horizon,” the co-directors of the Archival Producers Alliance, Rachel Antell, Stephanie Jenkins and Jennifer Petrucelli, wrote on 1 March.

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Pentagon swaps desk for New York Times reporters for New York Post

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Other swaps due to new ‘rotation’ include NPR for Breitbart, NBC for One America News and Politico for HuffPost

The Trump administration’s program to shake up media representation at official briefings and press calls in Washington is set to affect the Pentagon, with credentialed media being rotated out of assigned workspaces for media newcomers.

The conservative-leaning One America News Network will replace NBC News, Breitbart will be given space held by National Public Radio, the New York Post has been offered the New York Times’ workspace and HuffPost will replace Politico.

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‘Safe to be a white male again’: how conservative media covered Trump’s first week

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The right is ecstatic about the end of the Biden era – but remains polarized about some of Trump’s decisions

Americans really do inhabit two worlds: some shed tears of sadness at the advent of Donald Trump’s second presidency. Others cried, too – with joy.

Across the conservative, “post-liberal” and alternative media spheres, journalists, pundits and some social media circles celebrated the end of the Biden era with the enthusiasm of rebels toppling the relics of a collapsing dictatorship. As Trump swore his presidential oath, the writer Walter Kirn, a pro-Trump, anti-establishment agitator on X, grandiloquently declared: “This is a revolution against a corrupt ancien regime.”

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Why will the Washington Post be different during Trump’s second term?

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As Trump’s inauguration looms, the paper, owned by Jeff Bezos, is in shambles – largely of its own making

As Donald Trump prepares to take office on 20 January, the ascension of a man who has repeatedly said he will persecute the media surely calls for the journalistic muscle of a newspaper that broke the Watergate scandal and has for decades been a mainstay of American political reporting.

But as Trump’s second term looms, the Washington Post, owned by the billionaire Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, is in shambles – mired in chaos and disarray largely of its own making.

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Quaker group pulls NYT ad over paper’s refusal to let it call Israel’s Gaza bombing ‘genocide’

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Organization said paper’s refusal ‘outrageous attempt to sidestep the truth’, choosing ‘silence over accountability’

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker organization that advocates for peace, said on Monday the group cancelled a planned advertisement in the New York Times in response to the paper refusing to allow it to refer to Israel’s actions in Gaza as a genocide.

“The refusal of The New York Times to run paid digital ads that call for an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza is an outrageous attempt to sidestep the truth,” said Joyce Ajlouny, general secretary for the AFSC, in a press release. “Palestinians and allies have been silenced and marginalized in the media for decades as these institutions choose silence over accountability. It is only by challenging this reality that we can hope to forge a path toward a more just and equitable world.”

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Washington Post cartoonist resigns over paper’s refusal to publish cartoon critical of Jeff Bezos

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Pulitzer prize winner Ann Telnaes drew a cartoon of the paper’s owner kneeling before Donald Trump

The Washington Post’s Pulitzer prize-winning editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes has resigned from her position at the newspaper after its refusal to publish a satirical cartoon depicting the outlet’s owner Jeff Bezos – along with other media and technology barons – kneeling before Donald Trump as he gears up for his second US presidency.

“I have had editorial feedback and productive conversations – and some differences – about cartoons I have submitted for publication, but in all that time I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at,” Telnaes wrote on Friday in an online post on the Substack platform detailing her decision to quit. “Until now.”

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Washington Post stirs up fury in liberal America over neutral election stance

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Failure to endorse any US presidential candidate for first time in decades ‘undermines’ paper’s independence, say critics

Fury and shock ripped through liberal America over the weekend after news that the Washington Post, home of the Watergate scandal exposé, the paper that ran the Pentagon Papers, will not now endorse Kamala Harris for president. But angry responses were quickly replaced by two pressing questions: how did it happen, and how could readers best protest?

At the centre of the storm is William Lewis, the British ­newspaperman who became Washington Post publisher and CEO in January. The 55-year-old north Londoner broke the decision to staff on Friday couched in terms that evoked the title’s traditions.

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Washington Post cartoon team skewers paper’s decision not to make endorsement

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Paper has been pilloried for what some call ‘anticipatory obedience’ in preparation of a new president next year

The Washington Post’s cartoon team has taken a measure of revenge on the newspaper’s decision to avoid making a formal presidential endorsement with a dark formless image clearly designed to skewer the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” slogan that the outlet adopted during billionaire Jeff Bezos’s ownership.

The image was published hours after it was revealed that Bezos, who has owned the paper since 2012, had pulled the plug on a prepared endorsement of Kamala Harris over Donald Trump in the 5 November election.

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Furor over Washington Post’s decision to not endorse presidential candidate: ‘Stab in the back’, ‘dying in darkness’

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Employees outraged at ‘chicken-shit’ move that breaks 30-year precedent, alleging Jeff Bezos quashed Harris support

There was uproar and outrage among the Washington Post’s current and former staffers and other notable figures in the world of American media after the newspaper’s leaders on Friday chose to not endorse any candidate in the US presidential election.

The newspaper’s publisher, Will Lewis, announced on Friday that for the first time in over 30 years, the paper’s editorial board would not be endorsing a candidate in this year’s presidential election, nor in future presidential elections.

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LA Times editor resigns after owner refuses presidential endorsement

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Mariel Garza said it was her way of ‘standing up’ after billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong quashed support

Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, refused to allow the newspaper’s editorial board to endorse Kamala Harris for president, the former editor of paper’s opinion section told a media news outlet on Wednesday.

Mariel Garza, a veteran California journalist who has worked for the Times’s editorial board for nearly a decade, resigned from the paper in protest of Soon-Shiong’s decision, she told the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR).

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Bloomberg fires reporter for ‘premature’ publication of Evan Gershkovich release – reports

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At least one reporter appears to have been fired for a decision that would’ve been reviewed by senior editors

Bloomberg News said it had taken “disciplinary action” against a number of its editorial staff after the outlet “prematurely” published news of the historic prisoner swap between Russia and the United States last week that it said could have endangered the safety of the Americans being released.

In an email to staff on Monday, editor-in-chief John Micklethwait wrote that a number of staff members had been disciplined, although the company did not say who, how many or what their punishment had been. At least one reporter on the story appears to have been fired in a rare case where a journalist was punished for a decision to publish a major news story that would likely have been reviewed by senior editors at the outlet.

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‘Day of great joy’: Wall Street Journal’s crusade to free Gershkovich succeeds

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Newspaper mounted a high-profile campaign to stress reporter’s innocence and ensure he was not forgotten

The reporter Evan Gershkovich’s release from a Russian prison on Thursday was celebrated across US and global media but perhaps most happily by journalists at his own paper, the Wall Street Journal in New York.

In an email to staff after news of Gershkovich’s release as part of a large-scale prisoner swap, Emma Tucker, the Journal editor-in-chief, said: “A few moments ago, Evan walked free from a Russian plane. He will shortly be on a flight back to the US.

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Russia frees Evan Gershkovich and others in biggest prisoner swap since cold war

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Several foreigners and Russian political prisoners released as Germany frees hitman Vadim Krasikov as part of deal

The largest prisoner swap between Russia and the US since the cold war has taken place, as 16 people were freed from Russian custody including the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. Several other foreign citizens held in Russia and numerous Russian political prisoners were also freed.

The exchange took place at Ankara airport on Thursday in a complicated operation in which planes arrived from and departed to multiple countries.

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Russian court sentences US journalist Evan Gershkovich to 16 years in prison

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Reporter found guilty of spying in trial thought to have been rushed in preparation for prisoner swap

A Russian court has found the US journalist Evan Gershkovich guilty of espionage and sentenced him to 16 years in prison, after a trial widely described as a sham.

Gershkovich, 32, denied the charges and pleaded not guilty during the secretive court proceedings in Yekaterinburg, mostly held behind closed doors. His employer, the Wall Street Journal, described the verdict as a “disgraceful, sham conviction”.

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Does Evan Gershkovich’s quick trial suggest a Russia-US prisoner swap is close?

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Russian court cases often drag on for months but speed of US journalist’s trial may be sign that long-discussed exchange is in the offing

The courtroom footage of a Russian judge announcing a 16-year prison sentence for Evan Gershkovich – mumbling his way through the verdict as the US journalist looked on impassively from inside a transparent defendant’s box – will be a chilling watch for the family, friends and colleagues of the 32-year-old Wall Street Journal correspondent.

But counterintuitively, the manner of the conviction and sentencing may be encouraging for Gershkovich’s supporters. In Russia’s fixed and politicised legal system, the result of the trial was never in any doubt. But Russian court cases often drag on interminably, with scattered hearings every couple of months. This one moved at lightning pace: after an initial hearing in June, the next court date was unexpectedly moved forward to this week. Evidence was heard in a few hours on Thursday afternoon, and the verdict and sentencing came on Friday.

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Wall Street Journal fires new chair of Hong Kong Journalists Association

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Selina Cheng says she believes her termination is linked to her taking up the position at the embattled union

The chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association has been fired by her employer, the Wall Street Journal, weeks after being appointed as the head of the embattled union.

Selina Cheng said she was “appalled” that her first press conference as HKJA chair was to announce that she had been “fired for taking up this position in a press union”.

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New York Times editorial board declares Trump ‘unfit to lead’

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Board calls Trump ‘a chilling choice against this national moment’ days before Republican national convention

The editorial board of the New York Times has declared that “Donald Trump is unfit to lead” in an urgently worded article published just ahead of the Republican convention, where Trump will once again be formally named the party’s choice for president.

Noting that the former president and convicted felon has now become the Republican nominee three times in eight years, the board said: “A once great political party now serves the interests of one man, a man as demonstrably unsuited for the office of president as any to run in the long history of the republic, a man whose values, temperament, ideas and language are directly opposed to so much of what has made this country great.”

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Closed-door trial of US journalist Evan Gershkovich begins in Russia

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WSJ reporter faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted on spying charges US says are politically motivated

A Russian court has begun a closed-door trial of the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on spying charges that he, his employer and the US government have all described as politically motivated.

Gershkovich appeared in a courtroom in Ekaterinburg on Wednesday, his head shaven by prison authorities, after being transferred from the Moscow jail where has been held since March 2023.

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Jailed US reporter to be tried behind closed doors, says Russian court

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First hearing in trial of Evan Gershkovich, who denies charges of spying, scheduled for next week in Ekaterinburg

The jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich will be tried behind closed doors by a Russian court later this month in a high-profile prosecution that his employer and the US government have decried as a sham.

Gershkovich, who was arrested last March in Ekaterinburg while on a reporting trip, has been held in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison for more than a year while Russia’s FSB security service says it has been carrying out an investigation into his case.

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