How is the Media Changing Under President Trump?

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The federal agency overseeing Voice of America has placed its chief national correspondent on a paid “excused absence” while it investigates his alleged bias against Donald Trump. The White House continues to bar the Associated Press from presidential events and maintains that it can handpick its press pool. Meanwhile, Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos — who donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund — says the paper’s opinion section will now focus on free markets and personal liberties. The announcement led to the resignation of Post opinions editor David Shipley and triggered over 75,000 digital subscription cancellations. We look at the Trump Administration’s moves to muzzle the press and their potential impact. Guests: David Folkenflik, media correspondent, NPR News Ann Telnaes, Pulitzer-prize winning editorial cartoonist, formerly with The Washington Post; writer, the Substack “Open Windows” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for Forum comes from Rancho La Puerta, boated the number one wellness resort and spa by readers of travel and leisure magazine in 2024.
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0:26.6	Support for Forum comes from Broadway SF, presenting Parade, the musical revival based on a true story.
0:34.4	From three-time Tony-winning composer Jason Robert Brown comes the story of Leo and Lucille Frank,
0:40.6	a newlywed Jewish couple struggling to make a life in Georgia. When Leo is accused of an
0:46.3	unspeakable crime, it propels them into an unimaginable test of faith, humanity, justice, and
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1:02.1	The riveting and gloriously hopeful parade plays the Orpheum Theater for three weeks only, May 20th through June 8th.
1:06.4	Tickets on sale now at Broadway, sF.com.
1:09.0	From KQED.
1:27.6	From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Mina Kim.
1:33.8	Coming up on forum, we take stock of recent moves by the Trump administration to crack down on the press.
1:40.7	The White House has barred the Associated Press from events because the AP wouldn't reclassify the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
1:44.6	And the White House says it will decide who is part of the press pool that covers the president, not the White House Correspondents Association.
1:48.8	Meantime, some news organizations like the Washington Post are making editorial changes,
1:54.3	while others race to settle lawsuits or find ways to reset relations.
1:59.4	A closer look at Trump's impact on press freedom after this news.
2:06.9	Welcome to Forum. I'm Nina Kim. Voice of America is among the latest organizations facing
2:16.8	upheaval, upheaval amid the Trump administration's clampdown on reporters and news outlets covering the president.
2:23.3	After Trump official Richard Grinnell accused a VOA reporter of treason for quoting on social media criticisms of USAID cutbacks, the reporter was placed on leave.
2:34.6	Meantime, the Associated Press remains iced out of White House events, and an emboldened FCC
	...

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