Media: The war over war reporting

The Trump administration has identified a new enemy in its war on Iran, said Caitlin Vogus in The Guardian: the American media. Frustrated that outlets are daring to inform the public about U.S. casualties, the conflict’s economic fallout, and the administration’s “lack of planning or strategy,” President Trump and his allies are pressuring news organizations to provide favorable coverage—or else. Trump has mused online about “charges for TREASON” for journalists and “lowlife ‘papers’” that “perpetuate LIES.” Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr has threatened to revoke the licenses of broadcasters that air what he deems “hoaxes and news distortions.” And Defense Secretary Pete
Hegseth has used Pentagon briefings to assail outlets for being insufficiently patriotic, saying “the sooner” CNN is taken over by Trump-friendly billionaire and Paramount owner David Ellison, “the better.” It seems that, rather than a free press, the Trump administration wants a media that “operates more like that in, well, Iran,” with “obedient, state-run broadcasters that run propaganda praising a supreme leader and his wars.”

“Carr’s threats ring hollow,” said Brian Stelter in CNN.com. The FCC hasn’t yanked a broadcaster’s license in decades, and any revocation attempt would spark an ugly, years-long litigation battle “with many opportunities for stations to beat back the Trump administration’s pressure.” Broadcasters would be favored to win any case, by arguing their free speech rights are threatened by “Trump’s retributive streak” and by noting that reporting the truth of the war is in the public’s interest. Still, “station owners have to be willing to defend themselves. And that’s not always a given.” Carr knows that some outlets will change their coverage rather than “go through the arduous work of defending themselves,” said Tom Jones in Poynter.org. And he knows that broadcasters are uniquely vulnerable to pressure when they have a merger requiring FCC approval—like station owners Nexstar and Sinclair, which temporarily pulled Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show last year after Carr complained about the comedian.

This ongoing crusade against the free press is deeply un-American, but also highly revealing, said Steve Benen in MS.now. When a war is going well, administrations typically don’t “whine incessantly about media coverage” and threaten news organizations. If Trump and his team genuinely felt confident about achieving their objectives in Iran, they wouldn’t be making the “kind of hysterical press complaints we’re seeing now.” They can shoot the messenger, but that won’t change the fact that their unpopular war in Iran is not going to plan.