A 🧵 Nepo baby David Ellison’s recent OpEd deflected attention from the reality that the Paramount attempted takeover of WarnerBros is corrupt to the core, a debt-time bomb, a natl security issue, would decrease diversity of voices in film/media/ journalism +a press freedom issue. #BlockTheMerger 1/n

#Italy 🇮🇹 The @mediafreedomeu.bsky.social report details the further erosion of media freedom in the country, based on the findings from a mission conducted by various groups in March.

Italy: MFRR report highlights continuing media freedom backsliding

On 9-10 March 2026, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) joined its Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) partners for its third visit to Rome in ...

buff.ly

David, if you want this charm offensive to work, your dad should sit for an interview. Maybe with an unemployed ex-60 Minutes reporter. He can make the case for giving CBS, CNN and TikTok to a guy building an AI surveillance dystopia. What could go wrong?

Opinion | What to know about David Ellison’s embattled bid to acquire Warner Bros.

David Ellison’s embattled bid to acquire Warner Bros. doesn’t make much financial sense. It might still be a win for the Ellison empire and its bigger global plans.

ms.now

Freedom of the Press Foundation@freedom.press · 24h ago

What a great platform to publicly deny promising Trump a CNN overhaul or $20 million in free advertising in exchange for merger approvals. Or to speak out against his bullying of journalists you employ or want to employ. Weird that you didn’t do any of that.

Unfortunately for David Ellison this is transparently laughable after what Bari Weiss has already done at CBS and it will be very funny if her genius moves fuck up a $100 billion merger www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/o...

I worked on this story behind the scenes - making a bunch of scripts and workflows that helped us organize and understand the data - and am glad to see it out in the world.

ProPublica@propublica.org · yesterday

NEW: The EPA spent hundreds of millions on lead remediation in Omaha, home of the nation’s largest residential Superfund site. New soil tests by @flatwaterfreep.bsky.social and ProPublica show that years later, many yards still have harmful levels of lead.

ICE took the Trump mass deportation campaign into NC’s mountain wilderness. A relative of one man says he had no criminal record.

‘This is a kidnapping,’ says aunt of man arrested in NC national forest ICE raid

ICE took the Trump mass deportation campaign into NC’s mountain wilderness. A relative of one man says he had no criminal record.

bit.ly

KOREAN HEAT WAVE Brutal humid heat continues with widespread MINIMUMS 25C/30C and several records of hot nights including a MIN of 29.4C at Sogwipo, A new August record max. was broken at Hongseong with 37.1C. Heat will get even worse the next 3 days.

Extreme Temperatures Around the World@extremetemps.bsky.social · 3d ago

Yongsan broke in 3 days: Hottest July day in KOREAN HISTORY with 41.4C and that of AUGUST with 42.5C.

True! The Dominion suit also exposed in discovery the depravity of Rupert Murdoch + Fox executives and infotainers. They knowingly broadcast lies about the 2020 election. That discovery is the basis of our 3 yr quest to hold the Murdochs accountable. www.mediaanddemocracyproject.org/fcc-license-...

FCC Fox Action | Media and Democracy Project

Media and Democracy Project seeks FCC hearing to hold Fox Corp accountable following court finding senior management repeatedly presented false news.

mediaanddemocracyproject.org

Got to it late but this season of @sceneonradio.bsky.social is a great crash course on why our news media is the way it is, and how it could be. Plus it features brilliant friends & colleagues @chenjerai.bsky.social, @victorpickard.bsky.social, @dannagal.bsky.social, @willyou.bsky.social and more!

The News

Welcome to Season 8: The News. This 8-part series explores the deep challenges facing American journalism, and the nation’s news and information crisis. It seems everyone’s mad at the media,

sceneonradio.org

Weeks after Fox News and top right-wing media figures blamed Democrats for vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the Justice Department admitted the narrative didn't hold water. Details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/reflecting...

MAGA’s Leaky Narrative

Weeks after Fox News and top right-wing media figures blamed Democrats for vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the Justice Department admitted the narrative didn't hold water.

status.news

I know this would be closing the barn door after he horse has been reelected president, but if Democrats win both chambers I'd really like to see a concurrent resolution deeming January 6 an insurrection under 14(3). 1/

The media and MAGA like to write off Trump’s outrageous comments as “joking” when he’s actually telling us the ways he intends to ruin our country. My Stop the Presses newsletter.

Stop saying Trump is joking when he’s not

Will he rig the midterms? Seek an illegal third term? We need to take him seriously

stopthepresses.news

My latest story has some intrigue. FCC finally released Chairman Brendan Carr’s financial report for 2025 late Friday. The report states Paramount gave him tickets to the gala worth $12,390. But he and his wife sat in skybox seats that sold for $125,000 a piece. www.propublica.org/article/fcc-...

FCC Commissioners Face Ethics Complaints for Taking Luxury Gifts From Paramount

Citing a ProPublica report on Paramount providing luxury Kennedy Center gala tickets to FCC officials, the complaints note that commissioners accepted the gifts while the FCC was reviewing or about to...

propublica.org

How many times have they run this same story? www.nytimes.com/2026/08/02/u...

New Round of Trump Threats and Pullbacks Raises Uncertainty in Mideast

Analysts and lawmakers are trying to divine whether Mr. Trump’s latest announcement means negotiations with Iran will truly get underway Monday or if the president is just working through unappealing ...

nytimes.com

There are many problems with this NYT framing & reporting, but this paragraph in particular is bizarre First, the case wasn’t in federal court it was in DC court—how did this get past an editor? Second, this framing of the USAO’s motion is a crazy level of editorializing?

Larry Glickman@larryglickman.bsky.social · 3d ago

Another example of the problem with the fixation with Trump’s putative emotions: here a story about the Trump administration’s corruption, incompetence, and venality is framed as one about Trump’s “wrath.” www.nytimes.com/2026/08/01/u...

Last year the NYT reported on how SEAL Team Six stormed into North Korea, accidentally murdered a bunch of fishermen, punctured their lungs so their bodies would sink & then stormed out. Trump is now trying to force one reporter to reveal his sources: www.nytimes.com/2026/08/01/u...

Justice Dept. Subpoenas Times Freelancer in Effort to Identify Sources (Gift Article)

A previously undisclosed subpoena, involving reporting on a failed SEAL Team 6 mission in North Korea, reflects the government’s expanding campaign to investigate leaks of secrets.

nytimes.com

To the extent that the media is treating this as a horse story: Max Miller is not a some random candidate from Ohio. This is a picture of President Trump speaking at the wedding of Max Miller and Emily Moreno.

I don't hear about it much, but during Reconstruction 2.0, we need a federal domestic terrorism law that can be used to prosecute groups that inspire stochastic terror attacks as well as promote seditionism.

Smart move going right at Musk and explaining why Elon is meddling in another election.

Troy Jackson@troyjackson207.bsky.social · 3d ago

My response to Elon Musk.

“.. The disclosure marks the first time a bank has formally tied money laundering concerns to U.S. President Donald Trump's family business.” @reuters.com $COF www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

we posted the first 20 minutes of my show this week so you could hear as much as possible about the new revelations of disgusting and racist behavior by federal agents and allegations of abuse in Trump's ongoing mass deportation effort youtu.be/_DSI5DBTWss?...

“See bodies, chase bodies”: A look at DISTURBING bodycam footage and texts between ICE agents

YouTube video by MS NOW

youtu.be

If we live in a democracy where federal regulators can even plausibly threaten to strip broadcast licenses from outlets that fail to please the president, then we don't actually live in a democracy.

Protect Democracy@protectdemocracy.org · last wk.

NEW: A bipartisan coalition of former FCC officials, represented by Protect Democracy, filed an opposition urging the FCC to terminate its early renewal review of ABC's licenses — a proceeding they call "an assault on free speech disguised as regulatory process." https://protdem.org/3Rjacrj

#ResistanceRoots Major General Smedley Butler was born on this day in 1881 in West Chester, Pa. One of the most decorated figures in U.S. Marine Corps history, he transformed into an anti-war activist and whistleblower. He exposed a plot by wealthy men to overthrow FDR and install a dictator. /1

The way far right owned, right leaning @politico.com’s “Forecast” newsletter breathlessly “reported” how this “crisis” is “rattling” European capitals quoting far-right politicians is quiet a tell. 🫤 www.politico.com/newsletters/...

Mehdi Hasan@mehdirhasan.bsky.social · 5d ago

“The Fake ‘Invasion’ of Spain: What You Need to Know” 9 things you should know about the so-called ‘crisis’ of Moroccan migrants forcing their way into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta – and the hysterical response from the right in the U.S., UK, and EU.

This is an extremely important point in an insightful thread. We add: Rupert Murdoch & Roger Ailes DESIGNED Fox to narrowcast to the right wing to promote their agenda. It is *not* a news network- it is messaging infrastructure and propaganda factory designed to brainwash and subvert reality. 👇

The Editorial Board@editorialboard.bsky.social · 5d ago

10. The slander is such that millions of Fox viewers now believe, years later, that the man most responsible for saving their lives is actually the most responsible for the decimation of trust in government. bsky.app/profile/atru...

It is not just that Fauci is held to a different standard. His critics are held to no standards at all. They routinely say insane or untrue things. We saw one of the most extraordinary public health officials in the world being lectured to by public health cranks.

The Editorial Board@editorialboard.bsky.social · 5d ago

10. The slander is such that millions of Fox viewers now believe, years later, that the man most responsible for saving their lives is actually the most responsible for the decimation of trust in government. bsky.app/profile/atru...

We joined @democracyforward.org, @publicknowledge.bsky.social, @mediaanddemocracy.bsky.social, @newsguild.org, & Locals 41 & 51 of the NABET-@cwaunion.bsky.social to tell the FCC: you can’t use broadcast licenses to punish a network for its editorial decisions. That violates the First Amendment.

Public Interest and Labor Organizations Challenge FCC’s Unprecedented Effort to Target ABC Stations Over Broadcast Content

Washington, D.C. — A coalition of labor unions, media advocates, and public interest organizations today filed a brief urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to end its unprecedented early...

democracyforward.org

Mount Holly Springs is a tiny Pa. borough - 4 cops covering 1.4 square miles, pop. 2,300 It's turned a staggering 32 immigrants over to ICE in just 4 months since teaming with the feds The cruelty of mass deportation has come to small-town America. My new column www.inquirer.com/opinion/moun...

This quaint Pa. borough is a ‘speed trap’ nabbing immigrants for ICE | Will Bunch

Police in Mount Holly Springs, a tiny borough in Central Pennsylvania, have turned over 32 immigrants to ICE since March.

inquirer.com

The Freedom of the Press Foundation (@freedom.press) launched the Penlight Prize for excellence in paywall-free public records reporting, which awards $25,000 to an outstanding piece of journalism that was made free to the public.

New $25K ‘Penlight’ journalism award honors paywall-free FOIA reporting

The Penlight Prize celebrates paywall-free reporting based on records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act or state public records laws.

buff.ly

There are a lot of important things going on. Maybe this isn’t a top twenty concern. But, this is actually workplace harassment, the kind that can get people killed.

@carmenlynn.bsky.social · 5d ago

The Koch Nazis are back “A shadowy network of conservative activist groups, backed by Koch-linked dark money, is deploying hidden cameras and mass public-records requests to hunt down and destroy the careers of college professors and administrators — and it's working.”