Media Nation

There’s little new that can be said about Jeff Bezos’ gutting of The Washington Post

I’ve written about Jeff Bezos’ defenestration of The Washington Post multiple times over the past two-plus years, and I’m not going to rehash it in any great detail today.

Suffice to say that today’s gutting of the Post, reported here by NPR’s David Folkenflik, is just the latest outrage that began when Bezos refused to do anything after his hand-chosen publisher, Will Lewis, turned out to be a terrible choice. Lewis was enmeshed in ethics scandals stemming from his time as a Murdoch lieutenant in the U.K., but Bezos remained silent. Later came the most visible sign that Bezos had turned — his decision to kill an endorsement of Kamala Harris just before the 2024 election.

Retired Post executive editor Marty Baron has a withering essay up on Facebook that you should read in full. After acknowledging the very real challenges facing the Post, Baron writes:

The Post’s challenges … were made infinitely worse by ill-conceived decisions that came from the very top — from a gutless order to kill a presidential endorsement 11 days before the 2024 election to a remake of the editorial page that now stands out only for its moral infirmity. Loyal readers, livid as they saw owner Jeff Bezos betraying the values he was supposed to uphold, fled The Post. In truth, they were driven away, by the hundreds of thousands.

The owner, in a note to readers, wrote that he aimed to boost trust in The Post. The effect was something else entirely: Subscribers lost trust in his stewardship and, notwithstanding the newsroom’s stellar journalism, The Post overall. Similarly, many leading journalists at The Post lost confidence in Bezos, and jumped to other news organizations. They also, in effect, were driven away. Bezos’s sickening efforts to curry favor with President Trump have left an especially ugly stain of their own. This is a case study in near-instant, self-inflicted brand destruction.

It seems like a lifetime ago that I was at the Post interviewing Baron and others for my book “The Return of the Moguls.” In those days the Post was profitable and growing, and Bezos had developed a reputation for standing up to Donald Trump’s threats and bullying. Bezos has since transformed into a Trump toady, spending $75 million to make that ridiculous Melania Trump biopic for — for what? I guess to get the White House on board with his ambitions for the Blue Origin rocket company that he owns.

I can’t imagine why Bezos would want to be associated with what the Post has become — what he’s turned it into. He certainly shows no sign of interest in it. From 2013-23, he was a model owner. But people change. Bezos has changed, much for the worse. If there’s any chance that he might donate it to a nonprofit foundation, as the late billionaire Gerry Lenfest did with The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2016, I hope he’ll do it sooner rather than later.

Northeastern journalism faculty members condemn the arrests of Don Lemon and Georgia Fort

As current and former faculty members at Northeastern University’s School of Journalism, we condemn the unconstitutional arrests of independent journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort. We are instructors, mentors and colleagues of young journalists, and we believe it is imperative that we stand up for the vital role of a free and unfettered press in a democratic society.

The Justice Department has filed charges against Lemon and Fort for the crime of committing journalism when they accompanied activists who entered Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Jan. 18. The activists were there to protest the pastor’s alleged employment by ICE. The journalists were there to observe, to live-stream the proceedings and to interview participants, church members and the pastor before leaving the church. In so doing, they engaged in activities protected by the First Amendment with the goal of informing the public about the Trump administration’s deadly and illegal occupation of the Twin Cities.

As Amnesty International put it: “Journalism is not a crime. Reporting on protests is not a crime. Arresting journalists for their reporting is a clear example of an authoritarian practice.” We call on the Justice Department to drop all charges against Lemon and Fort and to acknowledge the centrality of journalism in holding the government and other powerful institutions to account.

Note: Our statement was published earlier this morning by The Huntington News, Northeastern’s independent student newspaper.

Belle Adler
Rahul Barghava
Mike Beaudet
Matt Carroll
Myojung Chung
Ellen Clegg
Charles Fountain
Meg Heckman
Carlene Hempel
Marcus Howard
Jeff Howe
Dan Kennedy
William Kirtz
Catherine Lambert
Laurel Leff
Peter Mancusi
Meredith O’Brien
Jody Santos
Alan Schroeder
Jeb Sharp
Dan Zedek

The Christian Science Monitor seeks to reposition itself in a cacophonous media landscape

*The Christian Science Church. Photo (cc) 2025 by Dan Kennedy.*

The Christian Science Monitor is going through yet another rethink. Once one of the finest newspapers in the country, the Boston-based Monitor has been shrinking for two generations. Its journalism remains world-class, but there just isn’t nearly as much of it as there used to be.

Follow my Bluesky newsfeed for additional news and commentary. And please join my Patreon for just $6 a month. You’ll receive a supporters-only newsletter every Thursday.

According to Boston Globe media reporter Aidan Ryan (sub. req.), the Monitor today has 25,000 paid subscribers and about 60 journalists, both down considerably from its peak. Under editor Krista Case Bryant, a longtime Monitor staff member, the paper — a digital pioneer back in the day — is planning to unveil an app and make more use of distribution platforms like Apple News. “What I’m trying to do is to just be true to our original founding mission, but in a way that’s adapted for 2026,” she told him. Ryan writes:

The Monitor is also seeking to double down on its founding mission “to injure no man, but to bless all mankind” and capture a broader range of perspectives in its reporting, including conservative voices that its editor said are often left out of mainstream coverage.

The changes led some staffers to take buyouts in December, and the Monitor cut several other positions, but is hiring for new roles.

I’m a longtime subscriber, and though I don’t read it every day, I appreciate its calm, optimistic approach and its embrace of solutions journalism. I wrote about a previous reinvention for CommonWealth Magazine (now CommonWealth Beacon) in 2009. It’s telling that the subhead all those years ago was “The Christian Science Monitor reinvents itself for the digital age.” Seventeen years later, if you search for Ryan’s story on Google, a teaser pops up that reads “The Christian Science Monitor tries to adapt to the digital age.”

The Monitor’s most essential product is a daily email comprising news briefs and a few stories. Monday’s newsletter covered European reaction to the occupation of Minnesota, high-tech glasses, an editorial on Kevin Warsh (Donald Trump’s nominee to chair the Federal Reserve) and a religious reflection from a Christian Science point of view — a requirement laid down by church founder Mary Baker Eddy.

The daily paper is long gone, although its website is deep and well-designed. The Monitor’s best journalism is aggregated in a weekly print newsmagazine that is sent to subscribers.

Founded in 1908, the Monitor thrived in the decades when there was no such thing as a national newspaper. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post were virtually unavailable outside their regional bases, and most city papers were abysmal. The Monitor provided a quality alternative, even if it arrived in the mail a day or two late.

The paper’s headquarters are at the Mother Church, right down the street from Northeastern. I hope this latest reinvention gives a boost to a great institution that continues to excel despite its small numbers.

On the new ‘Beat the Press,’ we look at the week in media, starting with Don Lemon’s arrest

*Don Lemon reporting from Cities Church in St. Paul, Minn.*

On the new “Beat the Press with Emily Rooney,” we look at Don Lemon’s arrest, when journalists should (and shouldn’t) use the word “murder,” looming cuts at The Washington Post, and transitions for Scot Lehigh, who’s retiring from The Boston Globe, and David Brooks, who’s moving from The New York Times to The Atlantic. With Emily, Scott Van Voorhis and me — plus a big assist from producer Tonia Magras.

Before Minneapolis, there was the Boston Massacre. My 1983 thesis on how the press covered it.

*Paul Revere’s famous engraving. Via the Yale University Art Gallery.*

All of a sudden, the Boston Massacre is in the news.

Journalists and historians such as Josh Marshall, Radley Balko and Ted Widmer have all written essays in recent days arguing that the uprising against thuggish federal agents in Minneapolis has similarities to the events of Monday, March 5, 1770. That’s when a company of British soldiers who were occupying Boston fired on an angry mob, killing five people.

Follow my Bluesky newsfeed for additional news and commentary. And please join my Patreon for just $6 a month. You’ll receive a supporters-only newsletter every Thursday.

In 1983, while I was an American history student at Boston University, I wrote my master’s thesis on “The Boston Massacre and the Press.” In it, I documented how the local newspapers covered “the Horrid Massacre in Boston.” It was a one-sided affair, as the Patriots had driven out Loyalist printers in the years leading up to the Massacre.

One example: In 1769, John Mein of the Boston Chronicle published the names of Patriot merchants who were secretly violating an agreement not to important British goods. Among those merchants was John Hancock. A Patriot gang descended on Mein, and he was forced to flee to England. The Chronicle continued to publish under Mein’s more cautious business partner, John Fleeming, but it lost readers and influence, shutting down a few months after the Massacre.

For some time I’ve wanted to make my thesis available, but I also wanted to convert it into text and do some editing. I didn’t get around to it, but I did scan it as a PDF, and the text is searchable. And here’s a technical note: I wrote it on a Radio Shack Color Computer using a word-processing program called VIP Writer, which was a WordStar clone. I printed it on a daisy-wheel printer. Those were the days.

You can download my thesis here.

A stunning violation of the First Amendment as the Trump regime arrests two journalists

*Don Lemon. Photo (cc) 2019 by Ted Eytan.*

The Trump regime has taken direct aim at the First Amendment, arresting four people — including two journalists — for their role in a protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, earlier this month. The journalists are Don Lemon, a former CNN anchor who’s now independent, and Georgia Fort, an independent reporter based in the Twin Cities who recorded her thoughts just before she was arrested and posted a video on Facebook.

Lemon and Fort accompanied protesters as they made their way inside a church to protest what they claimed were the pastor’s ties to ICE. They were there to live-stream and report on what happened, and the Department of Justice hasn’t produced a scintilla of evidence that their activities went beyond that. This is a grotesque violation of the First Amendment. I’m tempted to say that it’s shocking, but it’s not. Stunning?

Here is yet another independent journalist, former Washington Post reporter Philip Bump, on Bluesky:

The thing about this is that I don’t know a single journalist who will be intimidated by Don Lemon being arrested? But, then, that’s not why the administration is doing this. The founders couldn’t have imagined a president violating core freedoms for the purposes of social-media accolades.

— Philip Bump (@pbump.com) 2026-01-30T13:42:06.336Z

The Committee to Protect Journalists weighed in earlier today.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) strongly condemns the arrests of journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort for their reporting on a protest in Minnesota, arrests which mark a serious escalation of attacks on the press in the United States.

“This is an egregious attack on the First Amendment and on journalists’ ability to do their work,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg. “As an international organization, we know that the treatment of journalists is a leading indicator of the condition of a country’s democracy. These arrests are just the latest in a string of egregious and escalating threats to the press in the United States — and an attack on people’s right to know.”

Lemon, who formerly reported for CNN and now publishes on Substack, was arrested Thursday night; Fort, an Emmy-winning filmmaker, was arrested Friday morning. Both arrests were in relation to their coverage of a protest at a Minnesota church led by local activists against immigration enforcement operations in the state.

Lemon was arrested in Los Angeles, where he was reporting on the Grammy Awards. Here is what his lawyer, Abbe Lowell, had to say:

Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done. The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable.

Instead of investigating the federal agents who killed two peaceful Minnesota protesters, the Trump Justice Department is devoting its time, attention and resources to this arrest, and that is the real indictment of wrongdoing in this case. This unprecedented attack on the First Amendment and transparent attempt to distract attention from the many crises facing this administration will not stand. Don will fight these charges vigorously and thoroughly in court.

Update, Jan. 31. The Washington Post has published a visual investigation of Lemon’s activities at the church. As you’ll see, it’s pretty unremarkable — Lemon enters, interviews people and leaves.

Pundits moving on: David Brooks heads for The Atlantic, and Scot Lehigh retires from The Boston Globe

A couple of big moves to catch you up on in the world of newspaper punditry.

First, David Brooks is leaving The New York Times, where he’s been a center-right columnist for the past 22 years. He’ll be taking a job as a staff writer and podcaster for The Atlantic, where he’s already a contributor. He’s also joining Yale University as a Presidential Senior Fellow at the Jackson School of Global Affairs. Presumably he’ll continue as a commentator for the “PBS NewsHour.” Brooks wrote a rather downbeat farewell column today, saying in part:

We have become a sadder, meaner and more pessimistic country. One recent historical study of American newspapers finds that public discourse is more negative now than at any time since the 1850s. Large majorities say our country is in decline, that experts are not to be trusted, that elites don’t care about regular people. Only 13 percent of young adults believe America is heading in the right direction. Sixty-nine percent of Americans say they do not believe in the American dream.

Second, and closer to home, Scot Lehigh is retiring from The Boston Globe, where he’s worked for the past 36 years. Lehigh has been a columnist for the opinion pages for most of that time, and had been on leave while finishing his second novel. Before that, Lehigh was a political reporter for The Boston Phoenix (we did not intersect) and was a finalist for a 1989 Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of Michael Dukakis’ presidential campaign. Lehigh, too, has a farewell column up today, and he says (sub. req.):

[O]nce you reach your mid-60s, you become acutely aware that time isn’t limitless and if you want to try different things, you have to saddle up and sally forth. And so I’m sallying. I had just enough luck with my first novel, “Just East of Nowhere,” a coming-of-age story set in Maine, that I’m attempting a more ambitious novel.

Mid-60s? Scot is a mere child.

Lehigh’s moderate-liberal voice will be missed, and I wish him the best on a long and productive retirement. Brooks isn’t retiring, and, since I’m already an Atlantic subscriber, I’ll continue to be a reader.

What the Times, the AP and Merriam-Webster say about the words ‘murder’ and ‘execution’

*Photo (cc) 2026 by Nicole Neri / Minnesota Reformer.*

Following the horrific deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of ICE agents, I’ve seen a lot of references to the words “murder” and “execution.” On Tuesday, The New York Times addressed when it’s appropriate for journalists to use those terms. So, this morning, a brief lesson on journalistm ethics.

As standards editor Susan Wessling explains, both of those words have a specific legal definition, which means that the Times doesn’t use them outside of those definitions. She writes:

Readers might see references elsewhere to the “murder” of Mr. Pretti or Ms. Good, but that word has a clear and significant meaning in law enforcement and the legal system. We do not use it unless a formal charge has been made or a court has found that a killing was, indeed, a murder.

We also hear from those who want to see the word “execution” in our news report. But that, too, has a distinct definition — putting someone to death as a legal penalty — and we don’t want to dilute its meaning by using it when that’s not the case.

Now, we all know that those words have generic, everyday meanings as well as precise legal definitions. In the generic sense, to “murder” someone is to kill them deliberately, which is a judgment call that lay people can make, even if it doesn’t hold up in a court of law. In that sense someone might say that ICE agent Jonathan Ross murdered Renee Good, or that Border Patrol officers murdered Alex Pretti, even though the shooters might be found guilty in court of a lesser charge such a manslaughter — or acquitted, or never charged. There’s also an everyday meaning to “execute” other than carrying out the death penalty.

In practice, I try to be careful not to use “murder” unless I’m describing a criminal charge or verdict. For instance, I referred to former police officer Derek Chauvin as having “killed” George Floyd until Chauvin was convicted. After the verdict, it wasn’t just generically true but legally adjudicated that Chauvin had in fact committed murder. I’m less careful with “execute,” and I regard “execution” as a valid description of how Pretti was killed.

The Associated Press Stylebook, which many news organizations use, has an entry for “homicide, murder, manslaughter” that reads:

Do not say that a victim was murdered until someone has been convicted in court. Instead, say that a victim was killed, stabbed to death, etc.

Use caution in the phrasing charged with murdering; not everyone charged with murder is accused of the act of shooting, stabbing, etc. An alternative, in such cases, is charged in the murder of …

That’s an interesting observation about using “charged in the murder of” rather than “charged with murder.” If I were a copy editor, as I was at one time in my career, I would probably be guided by what specific behavior the defendant had been accused of. To go back to my earlier example, “Chauvin was charged with murder” would be both generically and legally accurate.

Here’s what the AP says about “execute, execution”: “To execute a person is to kill that person in compliance with a military order or judicial decision.” The guide also cautions against referring to an “execution-style” killing: “Avoid use of this term to describe how people are killed, since it means different things to different people. Be specific as to how the person was killed, if that information is necessary.”

Now, you might ask whether the Times and the AP Stylebook are too specific to journalism, and if it’s all right for non-journalists to use those terms in everyday speech or on social media. As it happens, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary (which, by the way, is what the AP Stylebook instructs journalists to use for issues that aren’t covered in its own guide) backs up the stylebook on “murder” but is more permissive on “execute.”

“Murder,” according to Merriam-Webster, is “the crime of unlawfully and unjustifiably killing a person.” To “execute” a person is “to put (someone) to death especially in compliance with a legal sentence.” I take that “especially” to mean that we are free to use “execute” and “execution” in the generic sense if the facts fit what happened — at least according to Merriam-Webster if not the AP Stylebook.

Follow my Bluesky newsfeed for additional news and commentary. And please join my Patreon for just $6 a month. You’ll receive a supporters-only newsletter every Thursday.

A new lawsuit takes aim at Google’s ad monopoly just as the AI train is leaving the station

There’s an old saying — no doubt you’ve heard it — that justice delayed is justice denied. And so it is with the news business’ longstanding lament that Google engages in monopolistic practices aimed at driving down the value of digital advertising. Gilad Edelman, writing for The Atlantic, describes it this way:

If the story of journalism’s 21st-century decline were purely a tale of technological disruption — of print dinosaurs failing to adapt to the internet — that would be painful enough for those of us who believe in the importance of a robust free press. The truth hurts even more. Big Tech platforms didn’t just out-compete media organizations for the bulk of the advertising-revenue pie. They also cheated them out of much of what was left over, and got away with it.

The Atlantic is among a number of media organizations that filed suit against Google this month. I’m kind of stunned that they are only suing now, because the issue they’ve identified goes back many years. As Charlotte Tobitt reports for the Press Gazette, the federal lawsuit was brought earlier this month by The Atlantic as well as Penske Media Corp., which owns Rolling Stone and She Media; Condé Nast, whose holdings include Advance Publications; Vox Media, owner of The Verge; and the newspaper chain McClatchy, whose papers include the Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star and The Sacramento Bee.

Continue reading “A new lawsuit takes aim at Google’s ad monopoly just as the AI train is leaving the station”

Catching up with ‘Beat the Press’: CBS News, media trust and Brian McGrory’s return to The Boston Globe

Apologies for the delay, but the full episode of “Beat the Press with Emily Rooney” is now up. Our host, Scott Van Voorhis of Contrarian Boston, has posted it in four pieces at his YouTube Channel.

Our topics: Tony Dokoupil’s less than inspiring debut as anchor of the “CBS Evening News”; a crisis in media trust; and the return of Brian McGrory as editor of The Boston Globe following Nancy Barnes’ abrupt departure.