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How a Professional Bully Is Winning Control of the Media

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Original article by Steven Harper republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Guests including Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk attend the Inauguration of Donald J. Trump in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on January 20, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Julia Demaree Nikhinson – Pool/Getty Images)

Major media outlets from CBS to The Washington Post have “bent the knee” to President Trump’s specious demands.

U.S. President Donald Trump is following the authoritarian’s handbook that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán used to consolidate power in Hungary. He is attacking the independent institutions that comprise the infrastructure supporting democracy—universities, law firms, culture, and the media.

And he is winning.

Major media outlets have “bent the knee” his press secretary’s preferred phrase for capitulation to Trump’s specious demands. His latest conquest is CBS.

CBS

Days before the 2024 election, Trump filed a frivolous lawsuit accusing the network of bias in broadcasting a “60 Minutes” interview of then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Seeking $10 billion in damages, the complaint claimed that the edited interview and associated programming were “partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference” intended to “mislead the public and attempt to tip the scales” in Harris’ favor.

Prominent First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams said that “the First Amendment was drafted to protect the press from just such litigation.” Harvard Law School Professor Rebecca Tushnet called it “ridiculous junk and should be mocked.” Attorney Charles Tobin warned, “This is a frivolous and dangerous attempt by a politician to control the news media.”

A few days later, Trump won the election. And now CBS’ parent company, Paramount, wants to settle the case.

Whatever money CBS pays Trump to settle his frivolous lawsuit is extortion.

Through her family’s holding company, Shari Redstone who is “friendly with Trump” is Paramount’s controlling shareholder. If the Federal Communications Commission approves its pending merger with Skydance Media, Redstone will reap millions.

On February 6, Redstone told the Paramount board that she wanted to settle Trump’s lawsuit. The next day, Trump doubled his damages claim to $20 billion. As the media reported Redstone’s desire to resolve the case, Trump pounced. On April 13, he asserted on social media that the FCC should impose “the maximum fine and punishment” on CBS and the network “should lose its license.”

The parties have agreed on a mediator, but whatever money CBS pays Trump to settle his frivolous lawsuit is extortion. The more profound cost is the loss of CBS’ journalistic independence, which became apparent on April 22 when the producer of “60 Minutes” resigned.

In the program’s 57-year history, Bill Owens—who became the “60 Minutes” executive producer in 2019 after 30 years at CBS—was only the third person to run it. Owens’s memo to his staff should be a warning to all of us:

“[O]ver the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for ‘60 Minutes,’ right for the audience.”

CBS wasn’t Trump’s first media victim.

The Washington Post

In early November 2024, The Washington Post editorial board had signed off on an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for president. But it never ran. Owner Jeff Bezos personally killed it and, for the first time in decades, the paper did not endorse a U.S. presidential candidate.

A few hours after Bezos’s “no endorsement” decision became public, officials from his Blue Origin aerospace company, which has a multi-billion dollar contract with NASA, met with Trump.

After Trump won the election, Bezos flew to Mar-a-Lago where he and his fiancée dined with the president-elect. Shortly thereafter, Amazon donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. And another Bezos company—Amazon—paid $40 million to license a documentary about Melania Trump, who personally will receive $28 million.

On February 26, Bezos announced a new rightward shift for the Post: It would now advocate for “personal liberties and free markets” and not publish opposing viewpoints on those topics.

The paper’s opinion section editor, David Shipley, resigned in response to the change. Prominent columnists followed him out the door, and more than 250,000 readers canceled their subscriptions.

The Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times had an established record of presidential endorsements too—until 2024. Its 2020 endorsement of Joe Biden blasted Trump. But in 2024, billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong quashed an editorial that would have endorsed Vice President Harris. As at the Post, columnists and editorial board members resigned in protest, and the paper lost thousands of subscribers.

After the election, Soon-Shiong killed another editorial set to run with this headline: “Donald Trump’s cabinet choices are not normal. The Senate’s confirmation process should be.”

Self-censorship is the most effective, enduring, and dangerous method of abridging free speech.

Facebook

More than one-half of Americans “often” or “sometimes” get their news from social media. One-third of all adults in the U.S. get their news from Facebook (operated by Meta). Meta’s president Mark Zuckerberg was among the billionaires who traveled to Mar-a-Lago after the election, met with Trump, and donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. (With the help of corporate and billionaire megadonors like Zuckerberg and Bezos, Trump raised a record $239 million for the fund.)

Then Zuckerberg gave Trump a bigger gift: Meta abandoned third-party fact-checking of Facebook posts. As his rationale, Zuckerberg repeated Trump’s false talking points that fact-checking was “censorship” and reflected an “anti-Trump bias.”

Asked if he thought Zuckerberg was “directly responding to the threats” that Trump had made to him in the past, Trump answered: “Probably.”

Meanwhile, Meta invited Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White, a longtime Trump supporter, to join its board of directors.

PBS and NPR

On April 26, Trump will send Congress his request to halt all funding for public media—including NPR and PBS.

Viktor Orbán’s Playbook—The Trump Sequel

Since his return to power, Hungary’s prime minister has used “muscular state policy to achieve conservative ends,” according to conservative activist Christopher Rufo. Orbán is “attempting to rebuild its culture and institutions, from schools to universities to media.”

Orbán began “working with friendly oligarchs to purchase and transform media companies into conservative stalwarts; directing government advertising budgets to politically-aligned outlets;… and pressuring the holdover state media… to provide more favorable coverage.”

Rufo insists that Hungary “has a media environment at least as competitive as that of many Western nations.” Experienced observers disagree:

Human Rights Watch found that the government is using its near media monopoly to strengthen its hold on democratic institutions… The government’s increased control over the media market is linked to its broader assault on rule of law in Hungary, including undermining judicial independence and state capture of public institutions…

Trump’s attacks on universities, law firms, culture, and the media are all of a piece. Viktor Orbán’s Hungary provides a roadmap of his battle plan and a preview of his end game.

Original article by Steven Harper republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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‘Sick’: Trump Marks Earth Day With Layoff Notice for Hundreds of EPA Staff

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Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Demonstrators march during a “Hands off the EPA” rally outside the Environmental Protection Agency office in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on Earth Day, April 22, 2025. (Photo: Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images)

“The only people who will benefit from their firings are corporate polluters.”

As defenders of the planet marked Earth Day with pledges to fight the destructive agenda of U.S. President Donald Trump, some green groups on Tuesday responded with alarm to the administration’s plans for layoffs at the Environmental Protection Agency.

Several news outlets obtained the notice that EPA Assistant Deputy Administrator Travis Voyles sent on Monday evening to staffers with the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights as well as regional EJ divisions, warning of a reduction in force (RIF) that will cut 280 employees and reassign about 175 others this summer.

“This action is necessary to align our workforce with the agency’s current and future needs and to ensure the efficient and effective operation of our programs,” Voyles said. “With this action, EPA is delivering organizational improvements to the personnel structure that will directly benefit the American people and better advance the agency’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment.”

The Washington Post noted that “the news comes months after the agency placed 171 of the office’s employees on administrative leave and then reversed course, reinstating dozens of regional employees in offices across the country,” and as decision-makers at the EPA have been weighing how to implement Trump’s executive order targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

“It’s a gut punch but long expected,” said an employee who was put on leave in February and spoke with the Post on the condition of anonymity. “Announcing a RIF of the EJ program on the eve of Earth Day is sick and shows exactly who they are.”

Joyce Howell, executive vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 238 that represents over 8,400 EPA workers nationwide, toldReuters that “decimating our agency and environmental justice workforce goes against our oath to protect human health and to keep our planet healthy and habitable for future generations.”

In a Tuesday statement, Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous similarly said that “the Trump administration is determined to destroy the stated mission of the Environmental Protection Agency to protect human health and the environment. All of us deserve to have clean air to breathe, safe water to drink, and be protected from toxic pollution.”

“Instead, the Trump administration is selling us out to corporate polluters by actively working to slash clean air and water protections and laying off critical environmental justice staff,” he continued. “The people that Donald Trump is putting out of work are hardworking, dedicated civil servants who have devoted their careers to protecting our clean air and water and securing a livable future for us all. The only people who will benefit from their firings are corporate polluters.”

Chitra Kumar, a former official with the impacted EPA office who’s now managing director at the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Climate and Energy Program, said in a statement that “the layoff notice sent to employees claimed their dismissal would ‘better advance the agency’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment,’ which is the height of hypocrisy given that these staffers are working to reduce pollution and toxins in the communities suffering the most harm.”

“Scientific data shows that, due to historic and ongoing injustices, communities overburdened by polluting industries, smog-forming traffic, and contaminated waterways and soil are predominantly low-income, Black, Brown, and Indigenous. Exposure to consistently higher levels of pollution increases the risk of asthma, heart and lung ailments, cancer, and even death,” said Kumar, who took aim at EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.

“Zeldin and the Trump administration continue to focus on propping up the profits of coal, oil, and gas companies and other big polluters who take advantage of every loophole available at the expense of public health. This is about all of us, our children, and grandchildren,” she stressed. “If Administrator Zeldin goes forward with this destructive move, he will be responsible for ending decades of work intended to help set right the harmful legacy of pollution in overburdened communities in a handout to big polluters.”

Kumar pointed out that “this is also part of the Trump administration’s larger ongoing strategy to dismantle EPA and its core functions and undermine its very mission, which is to help keep all people in America safe. In the time ahead, Zeldin is expected to launch a repeal, or ‘no enforce’ order, for a host of science-backed environmental regulations and engage in a wholesale ‘reorganization’ of the agency, including gutting the Research and Development Office that produces science undergirding EPA decisions.”

As criticism of Zeldin and Trump’s plans for the EPA mounted, people protested against the administration in communities across the country. Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, said in a statement that “Donald Trump, backed by fossil fuel billionaires, is waging a full-scale assault on the very lifesaving protections that Earth Day was created to demand.”

While Republicans currently control the White House and both chambers of Congress, some elected Democrats used Earth Day to advocate for policies that would protect the planet. Multiple senators used the day to promote bills that would protect the Pacific and Atlantic oceans from offshore oil and gas drilling.

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
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Failing to Rise to the Constitutional Crisis

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Original article by Ari Paul republished from FAIR under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

The Trump administration maintains that it can send people to overseas concentration camps with impunity  because “activist judges do not have the jurisdiction to seize control of the president’s authority to conduct foreign policy” (BBC, 4/11/25).

As the Trump administration openly defies court orders to return a man wrongfully deported to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, some American outlets are underplaying the significance of this constitutional crisis.

In a unanimous decision the Supreme Court “declined to block a lower court’s order to ‘facilitate’ bringing back Kilmar Ábrego García,” a Salvadoran who had legal protections in the United States and was wrongfully sent to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT (BBC, 4/11/25).

The White House is not complying (Democracy Docket, 4/14/25). “The federal courts have no authority to direct the executive branch to conduct foreign relations in a particular way, or engage with a foreign sovereign in a given manner,” Trump’s Justice Department insists (CNN, 4/15/25). Fox News (4/16/25) said of Attorney General Pam Bondi: “Bondi Defiant, Says Ábrego García Will Stay in El Salvador ‘End of the Story.’”

In an X post (4/15/25) filled with unproven assertions that skirt the question of due process and extraordinary rendition, Vice President J.D. Vance said, “The entire American media and left-wing industrial complex has decided the most important issue today is that the Trump admin deported an MS-13 gang member (and illegal alien).” (Are we supposed to believe that the six conservatives on the Supreme Court, three of whom were appointed by Trump, are a part of the “left-wing industrial complex?”)

The complete disregard to constitutional protections of due process and to court orders should send alarm bells throughout American society. The MAGA movement condones sending unconvicted migrants to a foreign hellhole largely on grounds that they are not US citizens, and thus don’t have a right to constitutional due process. But the administration has floated the idea of doing the same thing to “homegrown” undesirables as well (Al Jazeera, 4/15/25).

‘An uncertain end’

The New York Times (4/15/25) goes out on a limb and declares that the president defying the Supreme Court is “a path with an uncertain end.”

The case is quite obviously not about the extremity or unpopularity of President Donald Trump’s policies, but a breaking point at which the executive branch has left the democratic confines of the Constitution, as many journalists and scholars have warned about. But the case is not necessarily being portrayed that way in the establishment press.

In an article about the Trump administration’s record of resisting court orders, a New York Times subhead (4/15/25) read, “Scholars say that the Trump administration is now flirting with lawless defiance of court orders, a path with an uncertain end.” In an article about “What to Know About the Mistaken Deportation of a Maryland Man to El Salvador” (4/14/25), reporter Alan Feuer described the Supreme Court’s upholding the order to “facilitate” the return of Ábrego García as “complicated and rather ambiguous” rather than a “clear victory for the administration.”

At the Washington Post (4/14/25), law professor Stuart Banner wrote an opinion piece saying that fears of a constitutional crisis were overblown, noting that while Trump is “famous for his contemptuous remarks about judges…tension between the president and the Supreme Court is centuries old.” Thus, he said, there are incentives in both branches to “not to let conflict ripen into public defiance.”

The Wall Street Journal (4/15/25) presents the prospect of the White House defying a Supreme Court order as a “showdown” that Trump might “win.”

The Wall Street Journal editorial board (4/15/25) said:

Mr. Trump would be wise to settle all of this by quietly asking Mr. Bukele to return Mr. Ábrego García, who has a family in the US. But the president may be bloody-minded enough that he wants to show the judiciary who’s boss. If this case does become a judicial showdown, Mr. Trump may assert his Article II powers not to return Mr. Ábrego García, and the Supreme Court will be reluctant to disagree.

But Mr. Trump would be smarter to play the long game. He has many, much bigger issues than the fate of one man that will come before the Supreme Court. By taunting the judiciary in this manner, he is inviting a rebuke on cases that carry far greater stakes.

These articles display a naivete about the current moment. The Trump administration and its allies have flatly declared that they believe a judicial check on the executive authority wrongly places constitutional restraints on Trump’s desires (New York Times, 3/19/25; Guardian, 3/22/25).

House Speaker Mike Johnson, responding to court rulings that went against MAGA desires, “warned that Congress’ authority over the federal judiciary includes the power to eliminate entire district courts,” Reuters (3/25/25) reported. The House also approved legislation, along party lines, that “limits the authority of federal district judges to issue nationwide orders, as Republicans react to several court rulings against the Trump administration” (AP, 4/9/25).

In other words, Trump’s defiance of the courts is part of a broader campaign to assert that the Constitution simply should not be an impediment to his rule. That’s not a liberal versus conservative debate about national policy, but a declaration that the United States will no longer operate as a constitutional republic.

‘Constitutional crisis is here’

“Think long and hard about what it means to have a president who gleefully ignores the courts,” urges Rex Huppke (USA Today, 4/15/25). “It’s time to stand up and shout ‘Hell no!’ right freakin’ now, and not a moment later.”

Pieces like the ones at the Journal, Times and Post give readers the sense that this affair is just another quirk of the American system of checks and balances, when, in fact, history could look back and declare this the moment when the Constitution became a dead letter.

Other outlets, however, appeared to appreciate the gravity of the situation. “America Is Dangerously Close to Being Run by a King Who Answers to No One” was the headline of Rex Huppke column at USA Today (4/15/25). “The Constitutional Crisis Is Here” was the headline of a recent piece by Adam Serwer at the Atlantic (4/14/25).

This case will roil on, and both the judicial system (Reuters, 4/15/25) and congressmembers (NBC News, 4/16/25) are taking action. There’s still time for the papers to treat this case with the urgency that it deserves.

FAIR’s work is sustained by our generous contributors, who allow us to remain independent. Donate today to be a part of this important mission.

Original article by Ari Paul republished from FAIR under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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Capitalism’s Free Speech Trap: Bezos Shows How Billionaires Set the Boundaries of Debate

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Original article by Peter Bloom republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos delivers remarks during the opening ceremony of the media company’s new location January 28, 2016 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The Washington Post’s shift toward free-market advocacy is not simply an editorial decision; it is a strategic move to reinforce the dominant ideological framework that benefits the billionaire class.

The recent directive by Jeff Bezos that The Washington Post editorial section should promote “personal liberties and free markets” is a stark reminder of how freedom under capitalism often boils down to the freedom of economic elites to dictate the parameters of public discourse. While Bezos has suggested that social media provides alternative perspectives, thus absolving his newspaper of the responsibility to represent diverse viewpoints, his decision is part of a broader trend of billionaire media ownership shaping acceptable discourse.

This phenomenon is visible across digital platforms as well. Elon Musk’s control over X (formerly Twitter) has demonstrated how ownership can shape public debate—both through direct interventions, such as the alleged suppression of progressive perspectives, and through more subtle changes to platform algorithms. Similarly, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has faced repeated allegations of privileging certain political narratives while suppressing others, including ending its “fact checking” policy that could challenge far-right viewpoints.

Perhaps the most glaring contradiction in Bezos’ advocacy for free markets is the extent to which he, and other billionaires like him, have benefited from state intervention as part of an intentional strategy of “corporate welfare.”

In each case, the rhetoric of “free speech” is selectively applied. While these platforms and newspapers claim to support open debate, their policies ultimately reflect the ideological preferences of their owners. This demonstrates a fundamental truth: In capitalist societies, freedom of expression is often contingent on the interests of those who control the means of communication. The Washington Post’s shift toward free-market advocacy is not simply an editorial decision; it is a strategic move to reinforce the dominant ideological framework that benefits the billionaire class.

The Myth of Meritocracy and the Far-Right’s War on DEI

Bezos’ framing of free markets as inherently linked to personal liberties exposes a deeper ideological assumption—namely, that economic success is the result of individual talent and merit rather than systemic privilege. This assumption is not unique to Bezos but is foundational to the way many economic elites understand their own wealth and influence.

The logic behind Bezos’ editorial direction is similar to the arguments used by the contemporary far-right to attack Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The opposition to DEI is rooted in a desire to preserve the myth that success is determined purely by hard work and ability, rather than by racial, gender, or class privilege. By rejecting policies that acknowledge structural inequalities, The far-right seeks to uphold a narrative that justifies existing economic and social hierarchies.

This worldview is deeply intertwined with the ideology of neoliberalism, which insists that markets are neutral mechanisms that reward the most capable individuals. However, history shows that markets are anything but neutral. The barriers faced by marginalized groups are not simply the result of individual shortcomings; they are the product of centuries of systemic exclusion. The far-right’s attack on DEI serves to obscure these realities, just as Bezos’ insistence on free markets seeks to erase the role of privilege and power in determining economic outcomes.

By positioning The Washington Post as a champion of free markets, Bezos is promoting the idea that capitalism functions as a pure meritocracy. This serves not only to legitimize his own position but also to delegitimize calls for policies that challenge structural inequality, whether in the form of DEI programs, labor protections, or wealth redistribution measures.

The Illusion of the Free Market and Its Political Implications

Perhaps the most glaring contradiction in Bezos’ advocacy for free markets is the extent to which he, and other billionaires like him, have benefited from state intervention as part of an intentional strategy of “corporate welfare.” The notion of a truly free market, where economic actors compete on equal footing without government interference, is a fantasy. In reality, corporations like Amazon have thrived not because of unregulated competition, but because of significant government support.

From tax incentives to government contracts, Amazon has received billions in subsidies that have allowed it to dominate the retail and logistics industries. Moreover, the U.S. government plays a critical role in enforcing corporate-friendly trade policies, suppressing labor movements, and protecting the interests of multinational corporations abroad. These interventions are rarely acknowledged in discussions of free markets, yet they are crucial to understanding the power dynamics of contemporary capitalism.

If freedom under capitalism ultimately means the freedom of the wealthy to dictate the terms of discourse, then the very concept of free speech is in jeopardy.

Politically, Bezos’ editorial directive at The Washington Post serves to strengthen a broader ideological alignment between neoliberal economics and far-right nationalism. By framing free-market capitalism as an essential component of personal liberty, Bezos is laying the groundwork for a political agenda that fuses economic libertarianism with nationalist conservatism. This is significant because it provides an ideological foundation for challenging emerging economic policies that deviate from neoliberal orthodoxy—such as the rise of protectionism in response to globalization.

This alignment between free-market ideology and far-right nationalism is not new. Historically, neoliberalism has often coexisted with reactionary politics, as seen in the economic policies of figures like former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Today, this synthesis is being revived as right-wing populists seek to defend corporate interests while simultaneously appealing to nationalist sentiments. Bezos’ intervention in The Washington Post should be understood within this broader context: It is not just about shaping editorial policy but about consolidating an ideological framework that benefits economic elites while limiting the scope of acceptable political debate.

The Dangers of Billionaire-Controlled Media

Bezos’ decision to impose a free-market ideology on The Washington Post is not an isolated event; it is part of a larger trend in which media ownership is used to shape public discourse in ways that serve elite interests. This phenomenon extends beyond traditional journalism to social media platforms, where billionaires like Musk and Zuckerberg wield immense power over the flow of information.

At its core, this issue is about more than just media bias—it is about the fundamental tension between democracy and concentrated economic power. A truly free and open society requires a diversity of perspectives, yet the dominance of billionaire-controlled media threatens to constrain the range of acceptable debate. If freedom under capitalism ultimately means the freedom of the wealthy to dictate the terms of discourse, then the very concept of free speech is in jeopardy.

The consolidation of media power in the hands of a few ultra-wealthy individuals raises urgent questions about the future of democratic debate. If we are to challenge the ideological hegemony of economic elites, we must first recognize the mechanisms through which they shape public discourse. Bezos’ editorial mandate is not just about The Washington Post—it is a reflection of the broader struggle over who gets to define the boundaries of political and economic debate in the 21st century.

Original article by Peter Bloom republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingCapitalism’s Free Speech Trap: Bezos Shows How Billionaires Set the Boundaries of Debate

Media Afraid to Call Ethnic Cleansing by Its Name

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Original article by Gregory Shupak republished from FAIR under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

News outlets often preferred euphemisms like “displacing” or “resettling” to the more accurate “ethnic cleansing, as in this CBC headline (2/4/25).

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump said that the US will “take over the Gaza Strip” and “own” it for the “long-term” (AP, 2/5/25), and that its Palestinian inhabitants will be “permanently” exiled (AP, 2/4/25). Subsequently, when reporters asked Trump whether Palestinians would have the right to return to Gaza under his plan, he said “no” (BBC, 2/10/25).

After Trump’s remarks, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (Reuters, 2/5/25) said “it is essential to avoid any form of ethnic cleansing.”

Navi Pillay (Politico, 2/9/25), chair of the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said that

Trump is woefully ignorant of international law and the law of occupation. Forcible displacement of an occupied group is an international crime, and amounts to ethnic cleansing.

Human Rights Watch (2/5/25) said that, if Trump’s plan were implemented, it would “amount to an alarming escalation of forced displacement and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza.”

Clarity in the minority

Amnesty International (2/5/25) called Trump’s proposal to forcibly transfer the population of Gaza a flagrant violation of international law”—but the phrase “international law” was usually missing from news reports on the plan.

I used the news media aggregator Factiva to survey coverage of Trump’s remarks from the day that he first made them, February 4 through February 12. In that period, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post combined to run 145 pieces with the words “Gaza” and “Trump.” Of these, 19 contained the term “ethnic cleansing” or a variation on the phrase. In other words, 87% of the articles these outlets published on Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza chose not to call it ethnic cleansing.

A handful of other pieces used language that captures the wanton criminality of Trump’s scheme reasonably well. Three articles used “forced displacement,” or slight deviations from the word, while five others used “expel” and another nine used “expulsion.” Two of the articles said “forced transfer,” or a minor variation of that. In total, therefore, 38 of the 145 articles (26 percent) employ “ethnic cleansing” or the above-mentioned terms to communicate to readers that Trump wants to make Palestinians leave their homes so that the US can take Gaza from them.

Furthermore, the term “international law” appears in only 27 of the 145 articles, which means that 81% failed to point out to readers that what Trump is proposing is a “flagrant violation of international law” (Amnesty International, 2/5/25).

A ‘plan to free Palestinians’

A Wall Street Journal op-ed (2/5/25) hailed “Trump’s Plan to Free Palestinians From Gaza”—in the same sense that the Trail of Tears “freed” the Cherokee from Georgia.

Several commentators in the corporate media endorsed Trump’s racist fever dream, in some cases through circumlocutions and others quite bluntly. Elliot Kaufman (Wall Street Journal, 2/5/25) called Trump’s imperial hallucination a “plan to free Palestinians from Gaza.”

While the Journal’s editorial board (2/5/25) called what Trump wants to do “preposterous,” the authors nonetheless put “ethnic cleansing” in scare quotes, as if that’s not an apt description. The paper asked, “Is his idea so much worse than the status quo that the rest of the world is offering?”

Sadanand Dhume (Wall Street Journal, 2/12/25) wondered why “If Indians and Pakistanis Can Relocate, Why Can’t Gazans?” To bolster his case, Dhume noted that 2 million people died as a result of the India-Pakistan partition, and cited other shining moments in 20th century history, such as Uganda’s expulsion of Indians in the 1970s. That these authors implicitly or explicitly advocate Trump’s plan for mass, racist violence demonstrates that they see Palestinians as subhuman impediments to US/Israeli designs on Palestine and the region.

Bret Stephens (New York Times, 2/11/25) wrote that

Trump also warned Jordan and Egypt that he would cut off American aid if they refused to accept Gazan refugees, adding that those refugees may not have the right to return to Gaza. The president’s threats are long overdue.

Ethnically cleansing the West Bank

Al Jazeera (2/26/24): “Settler violence is a central part of the Israeli state’s policy and plan to ethnically cleanse the occupied Palestinian territory.”

A similar pattern exists in coverage of the West Bank, where evidence of ethnic cleansing is hard to miss, but corporate media appears to be finding ways to do just that.

Legal scholars Alice Panepinto and Triestino Mariniello wrote an article for Al Jazeera (2/26/24) headlined “Settler Violence: Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing Plan for the West Bank”:

Supported by the Israeli security forces and aided and abetted by the government, settler violence is a central part of the Israeli state’s policy and plan to ethnically cleanse the occupied Palestinian territory in order to establish full sovereignty over it and enable settlement expansion.

The authors noted that, at the time they wrote their article, 16 Palesti nian communities in the West Bank had been forcibly transferred since October 7, 2023.

In October 2024, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese found that throughout the Gaza genocide, “Israeli forces and violent settlers” have “escalated patterns of ethnic cleansing and apartheid in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.” In the first 12 months after October 7,  Albanese reported, “at least 18 communities were depopulated under the threat of lethal force, effectively enabling the colonization of large tracts” of the West Bank.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor (2/10/25) said that Israel’s “latest ethnic cleansing efforts” entail “forcibly uproot[ing] thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank,” accompanied by

the bombing and burning of residential buildings and infrastructure, the cutting off of water, electricity and communications supplies, and a killing policy that has resulted in the deaths of 30 Palestinians…over the course of 19 days.

According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) (2/10/25), Israeli military operations in Jenin camp, which expanded to Tulkarm, Nur Shams and El Far’a, displaced 40,000 Palestinian refugees between January 21 and February 10.

Unnoteworthy violations

I used Factiva to search New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post coverage and found that, since Panepinto and Mariniello’s analysis was published just under a year ago, the three newspapers have combined to run 693 articles that mention the West Bank. Thirteen of these include some form of the term “ethnic cleansing,” a mere 2%. Nine more articles use “forced displacement,” or a variation on the phrase, 31 use “expel,” 11 use “expulsion” and five use some variety of “forced transfer.”

Thus, 69 of the 693 Times, Journal and Post articles that mention the West Bank use these terms to clearly describe people being violently driven from their homes—just 10%. Many of the articles that address the West Bank are also about Gaza, so the 69 articles using this language don’t necessarily apply it to the West Bank.

Of the 693 Times, Journal and Post pieces that refer to the West Bank, 106 include the term “international law.” Evidently, the authors and editors who worked on 85% of the papers’ articles that discuss the West Bank did not consider it noteworthy that Israel is engaged in egregious violations of international law in the territory.

‘Battling local militants’

The Washington Post (2/2/25) captioned this image of IDF bombing with Israel’s claim that it was “destroying buildings used by Palestinian militants.”

Rather than equip readers to understand the larger picture in which events in the West Bank unfold, much of the coverage treats incidents in the territory discretely. For instance, the Wall Street Journal (1/22/25) published a report on Israel’s late January attacks on the West Bank. In the piece’s 18th paragraph, it cited the Palestinian Authority saying the Israeli operations “displaced families and destroyed civilian properties.” In the 24th paragraph, the article also quoted UNRWA director Roland Friedrich, saying that Jenin had become “nearly uninhabitable,” and that “some 2,000 families have been displaced from the area since mid-December.” Palestinians being driven from their homes are an afterthought for the article’s authors, who do nothing to put this forced displacement in the longer-term context of Israel’s US-backed ethnic cleansing.

A Washington Post  report (2/2/25) on Jenin says in its first paragraph that the fighting is occurring “where [Israeli] troops have been battling local militants.” The article then describes Palestinian “homes turned to ash and rubble, cars destroyed and small fires still burning amid the debris.” It cited the Palestinian Health Ministry noting that “at least five people were killed in Israeli strikes in the Jenin area, including a 16-year-old.”

Establishing a “troops vs. militants” frame at the outset of the article suggested that that is the lens through which the death and destruction in Jenin should be understood, rather than one in which a racist colonial enterprise is seeking to ethnically cleanse the Indigenous population resisting the initiative.

The rights of ‘neighbors’

This New York Times piece (2/4/25) acknowledges that Israeli settlements have “steadily eroded the land accessible to Palestinians”—but doesn’t call this process ethnic cleansing.

The New York Times (2/4/25) published an article on Republican bills that would require US government documents to refer to the West Bank as “Judea and Samaria,” the name that expansionist Zionists prefer. The report discusses how Trump’s return to office “has emboldened supporters of Israeli annexation of the occupied territory.”

The piece notes that hundreds of thousands of Israelis have “settled” the West Bank since Israel occupied it in 1967, and that Palestinians living there have fewer rights than their Israeli “neighbors.” The author points out that “the growing number and size of the settlements have steadily eroded the land accessible to Palestinians.”

Yet the article somehow fails to mention a crucial part of this dynamic, namely Israel violently displacing Palestinians from their West Bank homes. Leaving out that vital information fails means that readers are not a comprehensive account of the ethnic cleansing backdrop against which the Republican bills are playing out.

Recent coverage of Gaza and the West Bank illustrates that, while corporate media occasionally outright call for expelling Palestinians from their land, more often the way these outlets support ethnic cleansing is by declining to call it ethnic cleansing.

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Original article by Gregory Shupak republished from FAIR under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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Continue ReadingMedia Afraid to Call Ethnic Cleansing by Its Name