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New York Post
21-07-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart quits paper after owner Jeff Bezos overhauls op-ed section: report
Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart has accepted a buyout from the paper, becoming the latest high-profile departure amid sweeping editorial changes implemented under owner Jeff Bezos. Capehart, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer known for his outspoken criticism of President Trump, had been with the Post since 2007. His exit was first reported by Axios on Monday. Capehart's final column for the Post, published in May, featured a conversation with Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison on 'countering' the president. Advertisement 4 Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart has reportedly accepted a buyout from the paper, becoming the latest high-profile departure amid sweeping editorial changes. Getty Images for MVAAFF That same month, Capehart resigned from the newspaper's editorial board over a dispute with a white colleague about a piece that anazlyed Georgia's voting laws and their alleged racial implications. Capehart had previously referred to Trump as 'a cancer on the presidency and American society' and compared a rally held by Trump at Madison Square Garden to a Nazi rally at the same venue in 1939. The terms of his buyout were not disclosed. Advertisement Representatives for the Washington Post did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Capehart will continue co-hosting MSNBC's 'The Weekend' and remain a panelist on PBS's 'NewsHour.' The buyout follows comments made by Washington Post CEO Will Lewis, who in recent weeks urged employees who do not 'feel aligned' with the company's editorial direction to resign. Advertisement 4 The newspaper's billionaire owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has shifted the publication's editorial direction. REUTERS His departure adds to a string of exits at the paper over the Beltway broadsheet's shift to the right. In February, Bezos ordered the Post's opinion section to focus on 'personal liberties and free markets.' The directive led to the resignation of Opinion Editor David Shipley, followed by the departure of multiple other opinion writers, including longtime columnist Ruth Marcus. Last month, Adam O'Neal, formerly of The Economist and The Dispatch, was named opinion editor. Advertisement 4 In May, Capehart quit the newspaper's editorial board after a dispute with a colleague over Georgia's voting laws. Getty Images Weeks later, popular columnist Joe Davidson announced he was leaving after one of his columns was killed for being 'too opinionated.' Davidson criticized the paper's ownership, stating that 'Bezos's policies and activities have projected the image of a Donald Trump supplicant.' The paper faced subscriber backlash after Bezos blocked a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris for president shortly before the election. Approximately 250,000 subscribers canceled their subscriptions. 4 The Washington Post has undergone significant change in the last year, including the departure of big-name reporters. AFP via Getty Images In January, several top reporters and editors — including Ashley Parker, Michael Scherer, Josh Dawsey and Tyler Pager — left the Post for rival outlets such as The Atlantic and the New York Times. Managing editor Matea Gold joined the Times' Washington bureau in late 2024. At the same time, the Post laid off 4% of its business-side staff due to profitability concerns. Earlier this year, more than 400 staff members signed an internal petition expressing concern over editorial independence and management decisions.
Yahoo
19-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ken Burns: Public media funding cuts ‘shortsighted'
Ken Burns, a documentary filmmaker and director whose work is often published on PBS, criticized Congress's elimination of $1.1 billion of federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). 'I think we're all in a bit of a state of a shock and also sort of reeling at the shortsightedness of it all,' Burns said Friday to PBS 'News Hour' host William Brangham. 'And what's so shortsighted about it, I think, is that this affects mostly rural communities or the hardest hit,' he added. On Thursday, the Republican-controlled House sent a rescissions bill to President Trump's desk; the bill aims to defund $9 billion in federal funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development and public media. Trump is expected to sign the bill Friday, along with other legislative wins for the administration. More than 40 of Burns's documentaries aired on PBS and were funded up to 20 percent by the government. However, he says others will suffer even more with projects that were previously financed by up to 75 percent with government dollars. The impact on small, local news stations will also be felt across the country, he continued. 'And you begin to see the way in which, particularly in those small rural markets, the PBS station is really like the public library. It's one of those important institutions. It may be the only place where people have access to local news, that the local station is going to the city council meeting,' Burns said. Local media is already degrading, according to a Rebuild Local News and MuckRack report, which stated that 1 in 3 counties in the U.S. don't have a local journalist. News stations in rural America will be hit the hardest; however, even stations in large cities depend on federal funding. It was a tight battle in Congress to pass the bill. Multiple Republicans, including Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (Maine) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), voiced opposition against it. 'Some colleagues claim they are targeting 'radical leftist organizations' with these cuts, but in Alaska, these are simply organizations dedicated to their communities,' Murkowski posted on social platform X. Loyal MAGA Republicans, however, are celebrating this win by calling PBS and NPR biased. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Tuesday, 'This is in our view the misuse of taxpayer dollars. They're biased reporting; they're not objective. They pretend to be so. And the people don't need to fund that.' Burns said he will continue his work despite the changes. 'We will scramble. We will have to make it up. I'm confident that, with the extra work, it will happen,' he said of making up the loss of funding. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Assault on Good-for-You TV: C-SPAN and PBS Teeter as Trump Attacks
When money flowed more freely in television, public-service programming was seen as a means of giving back. From educational TV and supporting public broadcasting to cable operators providing C-SPAN, spaces existed where ratings weren't the yardstick — instead, this was TV intended to be good for you. On Thursday, Congress took a major step toward undermining all of that, as the House narrowly approved a rescission bill that would claw back $1.1 billion in funding to the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, which helps support PBS stations, in addition to cuts to other programs. The bill passed by the slimmest of margins, 214 to 212, with a few GOP legislators switching their votes to get it through. The funding was part of a larger $9.4 billion allocation that lawmakers had already approved for foreign aid and public broadcasting. Senate still has to weigh in on the matter, and has five weeks to decide. With PBS and NPR besieged by the political right, with C-SPAN's funding via cable and satellite fees strafed by cord cutting, higher-minded alternatives have been hit by hard times. The whole point of PBS and National Public Radio was that they would be unfettered by commercial demands, allowing them to offer programming — from children's programming like Mr. Rogers and 'Sesame Street,' devoid of toy commercials, to lower-key news, documentaries and public affairs — that didn't have to justify its existence on a balance sheet. Ditto for C-SPAN, which cable operators carried for a small licensing fee simply because of the perceived value in allowing subscribers to see what their elected representatives were doing and saying, unfiltered and unedited. Public broadcasting has found itself swept up in the Trump administration's war against the media, with the perception that any unflattering reporting about the president — whether from PBS' 'NewsHour' or 'Frontline' or NPR's 'All Things Considered' — reveals 'invidious' bias and a liberal agenda, to use FCC chairman Brendan Carr's favorite word. Conservatives have long argued that public broadcasting represents an unnecessary expense given the abundance of choices available to most consumers. But in its latest incarnation, 'Defund PBS' overtly translates into being less about fiscal responsibility than leveraging the government's underwriting role to silence otherwise-independent media voices by labeling them progressive propaganda. On the left, the response was unambiguous. The Writers Guild of America East (WGAE) condemned the House vote as 'a radical right-wing ideology that aims to destroy a non-partisan public service despite all evidence of its wide benefits.' The group quickly turned its attention to pleading with the Senate, which holds a GOP majority but has exhibited a bit more restraint than the House in prosecuting the MAGA agenda. The CEO of PBS, Paula Kerger, remained silent in the wake of Thursday's vote, but she has been lobbying intensively to save PBS, warning that Trump's push to defund public broadcasters would spell the end for a number of local stations, and the service they provide to their communities. In a recent interview with Katie Couric, Kerger contemplated the end of public funding for the network, which only relies on the government for a portion of its funds. 'I think we'll figure out a way, through digital, to make sure there is some PBS content,' she said. 'But there won't be anyone in the community creating local content. There won't be a place for people to come together.' Kerger was referring to the fact that the campaign against PBS and NPR disproportionally harms smaller and more rural communities that voted for Trump (even if many listeners and viewers didn't), which lack the same menu of local-media options as major markets. In a sense, Sesame Workshop — the entity behind 'Sesame Street' — has provided an unlikely poster child for the financial pressures on public TV, having undergone layoffs before losing its streaming deal with Warner Bros. Discovery's Max. Netflix has since stepped into the breach, joining with PBS Kids in providing access Elmo and his pals. As for C-SPAN, its challenges stem primarily from evolving technology, which has dramatically undercut the financial model upon which the network was founded in 1979. With viewers shifting to streaming and dropping cable and satellite subscriptions, the number of homes receiving C-SPAN has sharply dropped to a little over 50 million, meaning the nonprofit enterprise — which costs operators just $7.25 a month, a fraction of what they pay for channels like Fox News and CNN — is running at a significant deficit. One proposed solution would be for entities with streaming subscribers, like YouTube or Hulu's live-TV package, to carry C-SPAN. Indeed, YouTube's 8 to 10 million subscribers alone would provide enough income to offset most of the shortfall in its roughly $60 million annual operating expenses. Thus far, however, those companies have balked, prompting a rare bipartisan push in the Senate on C-SPAN's behalf, with Republican Chuck Grassley and Democrat Amy Klobuchar among those joining in a resolution calling upon streaming services to carry the network. 'For tens of millions of Americans who have cut the cord and get their content from streaming services, they should not be cut off from the civic content made available by C-SPAN,' the senators stated. It's a welcome development for C-SPAN CEO Sam Feist, who joined the network a little over a year ago from CNN. Feist noted that 'cord cutting' doesn't accurately characterize what's transpired — since old cable subscribers have generally moved to new delivery systems — meaning the case for carrying the network remains as simple as the public-service ideal that inspired its launch. 'We're the only network that provides what we provide, which is this unfiltered view of American government,' Feist told TheWrap, adding in regard to the streamers, 'It is good for the country for their customers to have access to our product.' The campaign regarding C-SPAN carriage has seemingly gained some momentum over the last year, with former Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler and the Washington Post's Karen Tumulty among those joining the aforementioned senators in taking up the cause. Wheeler called YouTube's decision not to carry C-SPAN 'baffling and anti-democratic,' writing in The Hill that the company is depriving viewers of 'an unfiltered window into the goings-on in Congress, the White House and other parts of the government.' As Sen. Ron Wyden told Tumulty, carrying the network would only cost YouTube about $6 million a year — 'crumbs,' he suggested, for a streamer that rakes in billions in ad revenue. YouTube has stated that its subscribers 'have not shown sufficient interest in adding C-SPAN to the YouTube TV lineup to justify the increased cost' to their monthly bills, although as Wyden noted, that would amount to a relative pittance of 87 cents a year per household. The two situations aren't completely analogous, especially with the fate of PBS and NPR having become embroiled in politics, as opposed to corporate stubbornness. More fundamentally, though, both situations speak to the question of civic responsibility, and whether the government and private interests acknowledge such obligations. Because even if C-SPAN and PBS reach smaller audiences in a fragmented world, certain things are worth keeping around not because everybody watches them, but rather for what they offer, symbolically as well as tangibly, thanks to the staid sobriety they provide by being available to the people that do. The post The Assault on Good-for-You TV: C-SPAN and PBS Teeter as Trump Attacks appeared first on TheWrap.
Boston Globe
02-06-2025
- Health
- Boston Globe
How Trump's planned Medicaid cuts would hurt older women
Since women on average live longer than men, they are more likely to have to stretch their more meager savings and retirement income over more years. There are More women than men age 65 and older are low-income, meaning their Advertisement Since women live longer than men, they are also more likely to suffer the ailments of age. According to the Advertisement This brings us to Medicaid, the main public program paying for long-term care. According to KFF, Medicaid accounts for Since many more beneficiaries receiving Medicaid-covered long-term care are women, they would be most affected by cuts to Medicaid. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the anticipated cuts would result in Speaking on the PBS 'NewsHour,' Jennifer Tolbert of KFF explained that the bill rescinds a rule 'that made it easier for seniors and people with disabilities who also have Medicare coverage to enroll in Medicaid, which will then pay for their premiums and cost-sharing, as well as provide them access to supplemental benefits that Medicare doesn't provide, including long-term care, dental benefits, as well as vision care.' Advertisement It could also mean many more seniors being forced to move to nursing homes. As Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow in the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute, explained to me, while Medicaid coverage of nursing home care is mandatory, coverage of home health care is discretionary. So to save funds, states are likely to cut back on the discretionary services they now cover. Without home health care assistance, many more families would have to make the difficult choice of placing parents and grandparents in nursing homes, where the quality of care would be likely to deteriorate as states reduce what they pay providers. This would also adversely affect women who are caregivers, both paid and unpaid. While the statistics vary, up to Further, many family caregivers would be likely to be thrown off Medicaid themselves under the expanded work requirements in the House Republican bill. According to KFF, All these funding reductions are meant to reduce a federal deficit that is projected to balloon with Advertisement Fortunately, the Republicans may not have the votes to put this devil's bargain through. Even Senator Josh Hawley,
What's On
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- What's On
Here's how to get a labubu at home in Abu Dhabi
Click, click, boom… In case you haven't tuned in to News Hour in the UAE yet, here's what's got everyone talking: Labubus. 'La-what?', you ask. Well, these adorable new dolls with disturbingly cute smiles have taken the internet, social media, news headlines, BlackBerry broadcasts, telegrams and fax machines by storm – so to answer the question that's on your mind: here's how you can get them. Images: supplied The details The UAE's winning quick-commerce app, Deliveroo, will handle all the hassle, so you don't have to waste any time queued-up, pushing your way through, or crowding at stores (or e-stores) to get your hands on one of these trending little collectors' items. The furry little fellows will now be dropped off by your friendly neighbourhood Deliveroo rider beginning today, May 26. If you're really in on the craze and going the collector route, there's more news: limited labubu blind boxes will drop daily at 4pm on Deliveroo, priced from Dhs280. A little context The labubu love spread via social media earlier this month, and here's what we know: it's a creation of Hong Kong-born, Netherlands-raised illustrator Kasing Lung, who created the character as part of a cast in The Monsters , a Nordic fairytale series. Throw in an ounce of exclusivity via the marketing team, and ding-ding-ding, we have a winner. If you're as old as we are, you'll remember the tamagotchis – yep, the 'virtual pets' that took the world by storm around Y2K – as well as the furby dolls that became a huge global craze shortly after. So, if you see one of these fresh faces with their upto-no-good grins hanging off a co-worker's bag, grinning at you on the metro, or serving your lunch (okay that last one's a stretch), it's okay to be startled, but fret not – it's only a harmless little labubu, now available on Deliveroo. Read more about it all, here. @deliveroo_ae > Sign up for FREE to get exclusive updates that you are interested in
