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Associated Press
21 hours ago
- General
- Associated Press
OAN's Pentagon reporter learns the limits of expressing her own opinion
Assigned to cover the Pentagon for the conservative outlet One America News Network, Gabrielle Cuccia didn't pretend to be an unbiased reporter. She describes herself as 'a MAGA girl' who is unapologetically defiant in her support of President Donald Trump. Yet days after publicly criticizing a Trump appointee, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Cuccia found herself out of a job. In taking to Substack last week to express a personal opinion about a figure she covers, Cuccia did something that would be frowned upon in many legacy newsrooms. The message that she was sent, however, is most likely to resound in places where opinion is fine — but only a certain variety. Cuccia's lengthy Substack post, 'The Secretary of Defense-ive,' was posted three days after Hegseth issued new rules that banned reporters from accessing large areas of the Pentagon without being watched by his minders. She criticized him for limiting freedom of movement in the name of national security. Cuccia praises responsible Pentagon reporters 'The Pentagon wants to paint a picture that journalists are freely roaming classified spaces, sneaking into (secure areas), and leaking top-secret information,' she wrote. 'And that is simply not true. There are security cameras everywhere, protocols in place and quite frankly, it would be painfully obvious if a reporter was in a space they didn't belong.' Cuccia said the real leaks from the Pentagon have come from Hegseth's own team and other senior officials. Hegseth, a former Fox News personality, was embarrassed in March when The Atlantic magazine's editor-in-chief was mistakenly included in a Signal chat in which the defense secretary discussed upcoming military strikes. She criticized Hegseth for not yet holding a media briefing at the Pentagon. 'The Commander-in-Chief welcomes the hard questions ... and yes, even the dumb ones,' she wrote. 'Why won't the Secretary of Defense do the same?' Three days after her Memorial Day Substack post, Cuccia said her Pentagon access badge was revoked. 'By Friday,' she said, 'I was out of a job.' The Defense Department did not pull Cuccia's credentials, according to a Defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel issues. Cuccia said OAN told her the Substack piece had been 'put on their radar,' but she wouldn't say by who. She wouldn't speak further about what her employer told her, and OAN president Charles Herring told The Associated Press that it does not discuss personnel issues. 'When a reporter asks inconvenient questions about government overreach, the response should be accountability — not silence, and certainly not separation,' Cuccia said. Traditionally, the legacy media does not want its journalists expressing opinions about people they cover, since it calls into doubt their ability to report without bias. But exceptions are often made in cases where media access is at issue, said Tom Rosenstiel, a journalism professor at the University of Maryland. The New York Times, for example, institutionally called upon Joe Biden to meet more often with journalists when he was president. The Pentagon Press Association said Hegseth's restrictions were a direct assault on the freedom of the press. Making no secret of allegiance to Trump One America News Network makes no secret of its allegiance to Trump. When Matt Gaetz's nomination as Trump's attorney general fell apart following the election, OAN quickly signed him up as a contributor. OAN faced lawsuits — and negotiated settlements — for its promotion of Trump's false theories that he did not lose the 2020 election. When Hegseth earlier this year evicted several news organizations from their Pentagon workspaces and gave more room to friendly outlets, Cuccia was assigned space formerly held by NBC News. Before Hegseth aide Sean Parnell's only media briefing, Cuccia said Hegseth's team reached out to her in advance to find out what questions she wanted to ask, something that would never be done for most media outlets. If OAN is responsible for removing Cuccia, it's a 'take no quarter position,' Rosenstiel said. 'There is no room, if you're on the team, to say anything that is negative.' He said he'd be interested to see if any representatives from pro-Trump media outlets defend her. 'Are they silent, or do they rally to her in any way?' he asked. Trump, in the past, has frequently criticized Fox News Channel for saying anything on the air that he deemed negative. Part of Cuccia's Substack post sounded almost prescient about what might happen to her, when she reminisced about the energy of the early Make America Great Again movement. Questioning government then, she noted, was a point of pride. 'Somewhere along the way, we as a collective decided — if anyone ever questioned a policy or person within the MAGA movement — that they weren't MAGA enough,' she wrote. 'That they were deep state, that they couldn't be trusted, that they didn't love America as much as we do and that ... to put it bluntly, they sucked.' ___ AP correspondent Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report. David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at and
Fox News
27-05-2025
- Business
- Fox News
NPR sues Trump White House over executive order targeting public media
NPR and a trio of Colorado public radio stations sued the Trump administration in federal court on Tuesday over the executive order seeking to cease all federal funding to NPR and PBS. President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this month instructing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies "to cease Federal funding for NPR" and other public media outlets. NPR has vowed to challenge the order "by all means available," and CEO Katherine Maher took action. "The Executive Order is a clear violation of the Constitution and the First Amendment's protections for freedom of speech and association, and freedom of the press. It is an affront to the rights of NPR and NPR's 246 Member stations, which are locally owned, nonprofit, noncommercial media organizations serving all 50 states and territories. Today, we challenge its constitutionality in the nation's independent courts," Maher said in a statement. This is a developing story, more to come…
Irish Times
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
`When the other three estates fail the Fourth Estate has to succeed'
A thread running through our coverage of different issues in different parts of the world this weekend is the threats the media faces externally and from within. Washington Correspondent Keith Duggan writes about George Clooney and his role as Edward R Murrow , the CBS anchor regarded as the most trusted man in 1950s America, in a New York play. Duggan writes the conceit of Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck concerns Murrow's courageous stand against the bullying 'Red Scare' senator Joseph McCarthy despite mounting pressure from his network. Clooney was filmed outlining the theme of the play in a segment on 60 Minutes before opening night. READ MORE In this segment Clooney said 'when the other three estates fail – when the judiciary, the executive and the legislative branches fail us, the Fourth Estate (the media) has to succeed'. 'Has to succeed,' Clooney repeated. Last week saw the resignation of Wendy McMahon, the chief executive officer of CBS News, who cited her disenchantment with the network's position in relation to a lawsuit issued against it by Donald Trump. McMahon is the latest casualty in Donald Trump's long, slow war on mainstream media. The legal action concerns the US president's accusation that 60 Minutes, the flagship CBS current affairs show for six decades, edited a Kamala Harris interview to reflect favourably on her during the presidential election, Duggan writes. He notes it also represents the battle for control over the independence of US media for which the Clooney play provides a parallel. The Trump legal complaint states the CBS editing of the Harris interview was election interference and is demanding an astonishing $20 billion in compensation. Duggan writes that Paramount, the CBS parent company wishes to settle the Trump lawsuit even though CBS is adamant that it is without merit. The broader context is that Paramount is eager to complete an $8 billion merger with Skydance, for which it will require approval from the Trump-appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Duggan notes. There have been other high profile US media departures. Bill Owens, the executive producer of 60 Minutes, resigned in April saying it 'has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it'. Last December ABC News settled a lawsuit with Trump, then US president-elect, for $15 million. The Washington Post has seen high-profile resignations after its owner, Jeff Bezos, spiked the paper's planned endorsement of Kamala Harris. While Clooney says the Fouth Estate " has to succeed" , the question Duggan asks is 'can it?'. Another threat to the standing of the media is highlighted by Paul Kearns, an Irish-born freelance journalist based in Tel Aviv. With the humanitarian crisis in Gaza reaching ever-more shocking depths, Kearns says 'one question that is rarely answered is how ordinary Israelis feel about this and how much do they know about the imminent Israeli-induced famine on their doorstep?' He notes the war Irish people see in the media is not the war people living in Israel see. 'Israeli media – in particular the three mainstream news channels – simply do not show the most harrowing images that the rest of the world has been seeing for nearly 18 months of war.' He writes from Israel where he recently showed his friends in Israel a photo of a starving baby in Gaza and asked them had seen the photograph of six-month-old Siwar Ashour who was being treated for malnutrition at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis in Gaza? 'Not one of them could recall seeing any images of emaciated children on Israeli television news.' Kearns says the gap between how mainstream media inside and outside Israel report on what is happening in Gaza has widened in recent months. This has seen the coverage move from 'understandable differences of polarised political opinion' into what he describes as a 'chasm of counterfactual storytelling'. With just one, notable exception, the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper , the media in both Hebrew and English is failing ordinary Israelis, according to Kearns. 'I have little doubt that history will not be kind to how Israeli news channels met their responsibilities to show the truth of what the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is doing and has done in Gaza in the name of all Israelis. 'I also do not doubt that Israeli children will be asking their parents in the years ahead some variation of the question I asked: what did they know or not know about the Israeli-induced starvation in Gaza,' he writes. Five Key Reads As the Michael Gaine investigation continues, with a man being released without charge this week, Barry Roche reports from Kenmare where people ask why a farmyard slurry tank was not searched properly, and how the farmer's remains were not found earlier. Conor Gallagher's investigation on the links between lawyers in Ireland and Putin's soft-power agency. The reporting finds the Russian leader set up Pravfond with the stated goal of protecting the rights of Russians abroad. David McWilliams writes about how Ireland's economy is showing worrying signs. He writes: 'As the country goes full throttle and rents hit all-time highs, it's clear the economy is overheating. It may be time to chill.' Eoin Burke-Kennedy writes about Ireland's enduring failure: the housing crisis. Burke-Kennedy says that year after year, despite policy after policy, the problem always remains the same. Kneecap have made the headlines this week after Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, who performs as Mo Chara, was charged on terrorism offences. Siobhán Reynolds was at the group's Friday night gig in south London where the band member told a crowd of 20,000 'you have no idea how close we were to being pulled off this gig'. In this week's On the Money newsletter, Dominic writes about what your options are if you want to release wealth tied up in your home? Sign up here to receive the newsletter straight to your inbox every Friday. As always, there is much more on , including rundowns of all the latest movies in our film reviews , tips for the best restaurants in our food section and all the latest in sport . There are plenty more articles exclusively available for Irish Times subscribers here . We value your views. Please feel free to send comments, feedback or suggestions for topics you would like to see covered to feedback@ .
CNN
21-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Russia opens criminal case against high-profile journalist critical of Ukraine war
Russia's Investigative Committee has launched criminal proceedings against a prominent journalist who heads a publication in neighboring Latvia providing critical coverage of the three-year-old conflict in Ukraine. The Moscow branch of the committee, which deals with major criminal cases in Russia, said Tuesday that it had opened the case against Russian-born Galina Timchenko, co-founder and head of the Meduza publication. Meduza, which reports in detail on Moscow's full-scale invasion of its neighbor, said in an announcement posted online that Timchenko faced six years in prison if convicted. The committee said the case was based on organizing the activities of an 'undesirable organization' and posting videos 'to foment protest sentiment and to involve the public in the activities' of such an organization. Institutions deemed 'undesirable' on grounds that they threaten Russia's constitutional order can be subject to fines or orders to dissolve. Timchenko, who had previously headed up prominent publications inside Russia, was last year declared a 'foreign agent,' a designation that carries negative Soviet-era connotations and imposes difficult bureaucratic requirements. Hundreds of Russian nationals have had the designation imposed on them. Since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, parliament has approved legislation cracking down on dissent in the country, including fines and prison terms for discrediting or spreading false information about the army.
Reuters
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Russia opens criminal case against journalist critical of Ukraine war
May 20 (Reuters) - Russia's Investigative Committee said on Tuesday that it had launched criminal proceedings against a prominent journalist who heads a publication in neighbouring Latvia providing critical coverage of the three-year-old conflict in Ukraine. The Moscow branch of the committee, which deals with major criminal cases in Russia, said it had opened the case against Russian-born Galina Timchenko, co-founder and head of the Meduza publication. It said the case was based on organising the activities of an "undesirable organisation" and posting videos "to foment protest sentiment and to involve the public in the activities" of such an organisation. Institutions deemed "undesirable" on grounds that they threaten Russia's constitutional order, can be subject to fines or orders to dissolve. Meduza, which reports in detail on Moscow's full-scale invasion of its neighbour, said in an announcement posted online that Timchenko faced six years in prison if convicted. Timchenko, who had previously headed up prominent publications inside Russia, was last year declared a "foreign agent", a designation which carries negative Soviet-era connotations and imposes difficult bureaucratic requirements. Hundreds of Russian nationals have had the designation imposed on them. Since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, parliament has approved legislation cracking down on dissent in the country, including fines and prison terms for discrediting or spreading false information on the army.
