Days ago I learned of an online dictionary with quotations from Marshall McLuhan themmm.marshallmcluhan.com As a test I put my favorite McLuhan quote into the machine and got a perfect result. Don't know who Marshall McLuhan was? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshal... Search term was "house on fire"

Some of the "industy veterans" at 60 Minutes who laugh or groan at each of these "no experience with what we do" appointments seem to be overlooking the possibility that what they do will be changed by Bari Weiss— radically and right in front of them. www.status.news/p/60-minutes...

"When I became [WHCA] president, last July, my goal was to restore and normalize the relationship with the White House." You succeeded, to a rotten core. Columbia Journalism Review: www.cjr.org/the_media_to...

The press dinner with Trump as the guest is tonight. The anonymous journalist below... kinda says it all for me. www.cnn.com/newsletters/...

One thing to keep in mind about leak stories is that they're often — not always, but often — about the losers in an internal conflict who don't accept the final decision, and so they try to alter the politics of the thing by going public with a rejected argument. www.status.news/p/cecilia-ve...

Here's something I post from time to time. My answer to a reader who asked me: what could journalists do NOW to break with some of their more corrosive habits.

To everyone who ever argued that it was a bad practice to let the president of the United States spread disinformation and lie to the public in a live setting... Take a victory lap. Then get back to work.

Last night, writes Brian Stelter, most of the networks used a “truth sandwich” approach to presidential lying. Stelter coined the phrase back in 2018, inspired by linguist George Lakoff. www.cnn.com/newsletters/...

Yep.

There are times when the big media companies need to outsource their capacity to think. This is one. @oliverdarcy.bsky.social: "The major broadcast networks declined to say on Tuesday whether they plan to carry Donald Trump’s planned primetime address on Thursday night."

Did you see this? www.cnn.com/newsletters/...

Exactly.

I am a media critic and journalism academic who has been publishing things on the internet since 1996...What I mean by an “internet archive” is this: Everything of mine you can find online by clicking. pressthink.org/2026/07/jay-...

Now we are getting somewhere. There could never be a CBS News, a 60 Minutes, or a CNN that satisifed both Trump and Journalism. Ellison never had a plan for that, either, as @status.news says here. What he had was a person he liked for the job he created. She was supposed to fix it. No one knew how.

Did I ever show you my typology, "Five Types of Scoops." publicnotebook.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/f...

Wanna see a simple example of why framing matters in journalism? CJR interviews Melody Mercado, staff writer for Block Club Chicago, which divides things differently. "Instead of traditional beats like business, politics, food, all the reporters have neighborhoods." www.cjr.org/kicker/why-d...

Every good journalism school in the US teaches the landmark 1964 decision known as Times v. Sullivan, a pillar on which our freedom of the press rests. So it's good news that the Supreme Court said "nope" to Alan Dershowitz, who accused CNN of defamation in a way that threatened Times v. Sullivan.

* First, operate in a way that is going to draw attention from a properly dubious press * Then fulminate about how negative are the results * Bake at 350 * Now enjoy your mindless bias claim WSJ says, “Ellison’s $45 Million Helped Seal Ties With President.” www.cnn.com/newsletters/...

You may recall that the Salt Lake Tribune is, after a lot of planning and inquiry, ditching their paywall so they can reach the entire community as a non-profit. It's a fascinating challenge to meet. www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/salt... For example...

Kara Swisher: “I don’t want to work for the Ellisons, and I don’t want to work for their handpicked minions because I think they’re incompetent.” www.mediaite.com/media/im-jus...

It was a political hire, cont. This is something I don't get about the merger. If the new company comes with a massive debt, it will require quick profits from all divisions— including the newsrooms. Do the Paramount executives really believe that "center Right" Bari Weiss has a formula for that?

Finally! "Not the odds, but the stakes" is consenus thinking. Columbia Journalism Review: "The larger consensus among everyone I talked to here is that many of the conventions that shape US political reporting are outdated or should never have been employed at all." www.cjr.org/feature/out-...

One thing to keep your eye on as Paramount takes control: what happens to CNN's Fact Checker, Daniel Dale. www.cnn.com/profiles/dan... Below is @status.news: "Ellison made repeated trips to Washington, privately assuring administration officials that CNN would undergo significant changes"

It was a political hire, continued. Via @oliverdarcy.bsky.social The first thing I have read that sounds anything like a solution. Bari Weiss is removed from CBS. She gets to run The Free Press. She also gets a platform online and on TV to develop the P.O.V. that she and the Ellisons share.

It was a political hire. We know that because Bari Weiss had no experience at all in broadcase news, or in deeply dug investigative reporting. From @brianstelter.bsky.social

Columbia Journalism Review: Why — exactly why — did 60 Minutes need to be changed? www.cjr.org/the_media_to... My answer: 60 Minutes is the flagship, CBS News the fleet. As owner the Ellison family will serve the pleasures of Donald Trump. From this plan they can all benefit— even beyond news.

If Scott Pelley keeps up with "CBS News is on fire" and new management keeps up with "this would never be tolerated in any other work place" the conflict will continue. www.cnn.com/2026/06/07/m... The page can only be turned when Weiss is replaced. But there's no sign of that yet. Stelter:

If you follow the mess at CBS, don't dismiss the possibility that Ellison thinks he's been clear about playing nice with Trump, while Bari Weiss thinks she can get by with "Center Right," while Nick Bilton thinks it's Mike Wallace all over again— but super digital. All at once. From @status.news:

If everything here is normal, then why is the boss an opinion writer with no experience in broadcast news? If that question is never answered — answered by CBS itself, I mean — then I see nothing ahead but newsy turmoil and slow ruin. @brianstelter.bsky.social

It was a political hire. To understand its logic, start not with Walter Cronkite but with DOGE, The targeting of research in higher ed, the hollowing out of foreign aid, and the like. From @status.news: