Thanks to Gabe for holding down the fort! This week, I’m back and writing about two of the things on my mind as it nears two months of the second Trump administration.

Namely: The way newsrooms have easily bent in advance to the federal government’s threats, and the flaws in appeals to investment in resistance that are premised on the idea that we should care about repression and censorship at newsrooms because it’s something coming for all journalists.

The latter specifically still feel lacking, because they focus our care inwards on ourselves rather than outwards toward the world and the communities journalists purport to write for.

In this issue:

And also: Newsprint tariffs suspended until the start of April, Wesley Lowery exits two positions after student complaints, behind furor at Outside Magazine, and looking back at the life of the “godfather of Asian American journalists.” And the resource of the week is advice not to stenograph Trump’s words at face value.

—James Salanga

Less than two months into the second Trump administration, the president has made good on prioritizing attacks on the press.

The new Federal Communications Chair Brendan Carr launched investigations into NPR and PBS while reestablishing complaints against ABC, NBC, and CBS. Comcast, the parent company of NBC News and MSNBC, is being investigated for its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Several “general news” sites are blocked for a subset of federal employees. Plus, the White House revoked access to the Oval Office for the Associated Press after it refused to revamp its stylebook to unilaterally adopt the Gulf of Mexico as the Trump-executive-ordered “Gulf of America.” Newsprint materials from Mexico and Canada could be subject to Trump’s 25% tariffs on those imports starting next month, potentially jacking up prices of magazines and print news products that are already struggling to retain audiences.

What the bulk of mainstream newsrooms seem to be missing is that there’s a difference between complying in advance — like implying DEI programs, flawed as they are, and the people they’re intended to serve are expendable insofar as they inhibit a company from continuing to make money — and proceeding thoughtfully so the most targeted journalists have the community, financial, and legal insurance needed to do their jobs.

In the face of pushback, PBS, Disney, and other major media companies have preemptively shuttered their DEI departments. Newsrooms kept going to the Oval Office instead of boycotting or making another substantial stand in support of their shut-out AP colleagues.

As censorship has gotten more blatant and the government’s fist has squeezed more tightly around First Amendment rights, the famous last line of Martin Niemöller’s “First They Came” is making rounds as a warning bell: ”Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

But there are limits on empathy-dependent, “this could be you” solidarity — further exacerbated by industry norms, as chronicled by Steven Thrasher for LitHub.

A thirst for access and need for the “scoop” supersedes any appeal to broader coalition-building and strengthened press protections premised on the idea that one’s newsroom, too, could face repression. It’s not just the AP saga that highlights this phenomenon. It’s also the failure of journalists to support their Palestinian counterparts as they report on Israeli apartheid and bombardment, facing the deadliest violence since the Committee to Protect Journalists began recording journalist killings. It’s looking agog, outraged, and critically at police violence against journalists but stenographing police when the same violence happens to those not protected by their job.

For an industry meant to hold power to account, there’s a whole lot of capitulating to that power.

Read the full piece here. And feel free to reply directly and let us know what you think!

—James Salanga

Newsprint tariffs suspended until April 2: The impending 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico imports would include magazine paper and newspaper, likely increasing the prices of both and impacting their salability. The News/Media Alliance has urged people to communicate with their legislators about the harm these tariffs and potential price increases may have on their respective newsrooms.

📰 Read more in Editor and Publisher.

Wesley Lowery leaves Investigative Reporting Workshop, American University following student complaints: At least three Title IX complaints had been filed against Lowery, who denied the allegations and says he left voluntarily. The complaints alleged Lowery’s improper behavior toward colleagues and female students. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist had been at the respective positions for less than two years.

🔍 Read more in Columbia Journalism Review.

Behind Outside’s staff’s push to remove themselves from the magazine’s masthead: Thirty-five staff members, including magazine co-founder Tim Cahill, sent a letter to the CEO of Outside Inc. saying “the company now seems intent on destroying what Outside once stood for: bold, spirited journalism.” The eponymous outdoor journalism magazine has been gutted while Outside Inc., its presiding corporation, has upped consolidation of other adventure and outdoor journalism titles.

⛰️ Read more in Escape Collective.

“Godfather of Asian American journalists” K.W. Lee passes away at 96: Lee was the first Korean immigrant to work as a mainstream journalist in the contiguous U.S. He wrote over 100 articles on fellow Korean American Chol Soo Lee and his reporting sparked a multigenerational community movement to exonerate Chol Soo Lee after a wrongful conviction of a 1973 San Francisco Chinatown murder.

⚖️ Read more in AsAm News.

This week’s resource is … a reminder to never, ever repeat Trump’s words at face value.

On March 8, 2025, federal immigration officials arrested and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian, Columbia University graduate, and green card holder, for organizing Palestinian solidarity protests on the university’s campus.

In the days since, we’ve learned that authorities attempted to arrest Khalil’s 8-months-pregnant wife — also an American citizen —  and shuffled the legal resident from a detention center in New Jersey to Louisiana to prevent him from meeting with counsel.

We’ve also seen news outlet after news outlet parrot the Trump administration’s claim that Khalil was antisemitic and supported Hamas, assertions that appear in statements from Democratic congressional representatives and senators even as they advocate for his release.

The focus on whether or not Khalil is a Hamas supporter distracts from the Trump administration’s forced quelling of speech the president disagrees with, through First Amendment violation after First Amendment violation, until college campus and the press corps are devoid of diversity of thought.

Journalists set agendas from the top-down and bottom-up: We tell the public what’s newsworthy while also coloring the language public officials use to shape the policy that dictates how we utilize our fundamental rights. Our coverage also sets the pace at which politicians take action, let alone if they decide to do anything at all.

Choosing to parrot the Trump administration’s rhetoric — especially without any challenge or context — fundamentally changes the conversation from the one we should be having, about democratic backsliding and repression, to one stuck in the graveyard of what-aboutisms, where we waste precious energy arguing over whether or not Khalil is worthy of fighting for.

Legal experts say Khalil’s detainment is a “clear violation of the First Amendment” meant to crush speech President Donald Trump finds disagreeable. This isn’t something his administration has shied away from: The State Department plans to use artificial intelligence to identify and revoke the visas of international students that engage in pro-Palestinian activism. Trump himself has said he intends for Khalil’s arrest to be “the first of many” in a crackdown on students protesting Israel’s ongoing siege and bombardment of Palestine.

The White House has yet to provide evidence supporting their accusations against Khalil, and he has not been charged with a crime. They planned to revoke Khalil’s green card and immediately deport him had a federal judge not intervened.

His looming deportation is already having a sobering effect on the journalism industry: Columbia university’s journalism school had to recently convene a town hall to give students an “honest rendering” of the risks and threats reporters could face by covering Khalil’s detainment, according to a Bluesky statement from Jelani Cobb, Columbia’s journalism dean. “These are, in fact, dangerous times,” Cobb wrote. “They require as much caution as they do courage.”

As journalists, it’s time to be clear-eyed about the impacts of our language, especially in a time when it is being weaponized to restrict the rights and mobility of marginalized communities. It’s beyond time to focus on the specifics. Spell out what Khalil was advocating for. Spell out the definition of antisemitism. Spell out consequences of his potential deportation. Highlight what it takes to preserve the First Amendment.

Defaulting to the heuristics used by the Trump administration isn’t just lazy. It verges on malpractice.

—Beatrice Forman, Democracy Journalism Columnist

For more style guides, journalism job boards, and tip sheets, check out The Objective’s resource list.

Thanks for reading. We’ll have more for you next week.

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