There is so much awful Trump-related news to make sense of today that I’m going to offer a roundup, though I doubt I’ll attain the eloquence or profundity of Heather Cox Richardson. I’ll begin with two stories that are puzzling once you look beneath the surface — CBS’s decision to cancel Stephen Colbert’s late-night show and The Wall Street Journal’s report on Trump’s pervy birthday greetings to Jeffrey Epstein.
First, Colbert. Late-night television isn’t what it used to be, though Colbert’s program was the highest-rated among the genre. Like most people, I never watched, and what little I did see of it was through YouTube clips. Still, it’s only natural to think that he was canceled because CBS’s owner, Paramount, which recently gifted Trump $16 million to settle a bogus lawsuit, is trying to win favor as it seeks regulatory approval for its merger with Skydance. Colbert is an outspoken Trump critic, and he hasn’t been shy about taking on his corporate overlords, either.
If that’s the case, it seems odd to announce that Colbert’s show will run through next May. That makes no sense if the idea is to appease Trump. If it’s a contractual matter, Colbert could be paid to stay home. Now he’s free to unload on Trump and network executives every night without having to worry about whether his show will be renewed. And for those who argue that Colbert is on a short leash: No, he isn’t. I suspect we’ll learn more.
Now for that Wall Street Journal story (gift link). I don’t want to minimize the importance of Trump’s demented message and R-rated drawings that he gave to Epstein for his 50th birthday. There was a time in public life when it would have — and should have — been a major scandal. But I didn’t think the article quite lived up to its advance billing. Before publication, media reporter Oliver Darcy called it “potentially explosive” and wrote about Trump’s personal efforts to kill it, but I’m not sure that it is.
In my previous post, I raised the question of whether the New Jersey news outlet Redbankgreen should consider making an item about an arrest that has been expunged invisible to search engines, an increasingly common practice with minor police matters. This is totally aside from the outrageous criminal case being brought against the site for its refusal to delete the item.
That prompted the editor, Brian Donohue, to contact me. He told me that Redbankgreen sometimes agrees to render certain stories unsearchable upon request — but that it won’t do so until after two years have passed.
“That is something we take enormously seriously here,” he said, “so people’s worst day of their lives don’t haunt them forever or a mistake that they made won’t haunt them forever.” He added: “The key to this case is it’s our decision. It’s not up to the government.”
Although Donohue wouldn’t talk about the particulars of the case, he did say this: “Thankfully we’re being represented by the best First Amendment firm in the state. It’s not too much time or money. It’s a lot of energy. But we think it’s important that the government cannot tell news organizations under the threat of the criminal code what to publish or what to unpublish.”
Redbankgreen, by the way, has been around for nearly 20 years. Donohue joined about a year and a half ago after a career at The Star Ledger of Newark and in local television news. Publisher Kenny Katzgrau is also the founder of Broad Street, which provides advertising services to the media business, and who was a “reluctant witness” for the defense, as Editor & Publisher put it, in the Google antitrust trial. That earned him an appearance on Mike Blinder’s podcast, “E&P Reports.”
Now here’s an interesting dilemma. A digital news organization publishes a police blotter item about an arrest. The arrest is later expunged, and the arrestee contacts the news outlet demanding that any mention of it be deleted. They refuse, though they do add a note saying that the matter had been dropped. But that’s not good enough for the arrestee, and now prosecutors are pursuing criminal charges against the two journalists for sticking by their policy against unpublishing news items.
Whew. This came to my attention recently in the form of a press release from the Freedom of the Press Foundation. The news outlet, Redbankgreen, covers Red Bank, New Jersey, and the journalists being targeted are publisher Kenny Katzgrau and editor Brian Donohue. The journalists have a clear and unambiguous First Amendment right to publish truthful information without interference from the government, but that’s not what makes this interesting.
The arrest itself was a big nothing. In August 2024, Kyle Pietila was charged with simple assault, and in March 2025, after the charge was dropped, Redbankgreen updated the item to note that a judge had expunged it “under an order determining the arrest ‘shall be deemed to have not occurred.’” I am naming Pietila only because he is pursuing criminal charges against Redbankgreen and has thus made himself a public figure.
According to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, which is part of the Freedom of the Press Foundation:
An attorney for the journalists filed a motion to dismiss and expunge the charges on July 11, arguing that the “publication of truthful information on matters of public significance cannot be punished unless it involves a state interest of the highest order.”
“Moreover, information concerning the arrest was published prior to the expungement, and there is no requirement in law that it be removed from the publisher’s website simply because an expungement had taken place,” Bruce Rosen wrote. “The issuance of probable cause in this matter is plain legal error, this prosecution is unconstitutional and in fact unfathomable, and the matter should be promptly dismissed.”
Unconstitutional and unfathomable are good descriptions of this. Yet there are two ethical issues that need to be considered as well.
First, in recent years thoughtful news organizations have ended the practice of regurgitating the local police blotter for the entertainment of their readers. Such alleged news, to quote the late Jack Cole, serves no public purpose, and in some cases it can reinforce racial stereotypes. A few years ago I wrote about how the Keene Sentinel in New Hampshire eliminated routine police news in order to concentrate on more serious crime and broader stories about criminal justice.
Second, I think Redbankgreen acted ethically by appending the police blotter item to note that the arrest had been expunged. What’s not clear from the coverage is whether Katzgrau and Donohue offered to engage in a milder form of unpublishing: keeping it on their website but making it invisible to search engines. A number of news organizations have done this, including The Boston Globe with Fresh Start program.
The prosecution of these two journalists is an outrage, and any officials involved should be reprimanded and punished. Nevertheless, I hope Redbankgreen’s ordeal might lead to a rethink of how they cover news from the local police.
Update: After this item was published, I heard from Brian Donohue, and we talked about Redbankgreen’s unpublishing policy.
The tragic fire in Fall River, Massachusetts, which claimed the lives of nine residents at an assisted living facility, is a significant news story not just locally but nationally. Broadcast networks and The New York Times have all weighed in with coverage.
But the story is also playing out in a community whose own news ecosystem is shaky. The Boston Globe and local television news have made it their top story, but what about Fall River-based news organizations? Northeastern journalism student Alexa Coultoff took a look at how Fall River gets its news and wrote up her findings for our What Works project on local journalism earlier this year. She also appeared on our podcast.
What she found was that the legacy paper, The Herald News, had been hollowed out by its corporate chain owner, Gannett, and that perhaps the most reliable source of coverage was produced by the public access cable channel, hosted by Bristol Community College.
Yet the fire is getting solid coverage at the local level. Despite its small staff, The Herald News has published multiple stories. Today’s front page is taken up entirely by the fire, with reports on the firefighters union’s concerns about staffing, how local hospitals responded, and how survivors are coping. Inside there’s a sidebar on who owns the assisted living facility, known as Gabriel House.
A digital news organization called the Fall River Reporter, which Alexa described as a breaking news service for the city and a number of other communities, has had some coverage as well, with stories by former Herald News reporter Jo Goode and local journalist Ken Paiva as well as from State House News Service.
The public access outlet, Fall River Community Media, has posted quite a bit of information on its Facebook page, including the video of a news conference by Fire Chief Jeffrey Bacon and updates from the city, the United Way and the firefighters union.
The fire at Gabriel House is a community tragedy, and the way these stories are told is a reflection of civic health and engagement. Despite lacking the resources of the Boston-based media, Fall River’s information providers are giving a voice to officials and residents rather than relying on outsiders to tell their story.
More: Fall River has an independent radio station, WSAR, which broadcasts at AM 1480 and 95.9 FM. The website carries some links to coverage from other outlets, but the station has also broadcast segments on the fire.
For the past 16 years I’ve been reporting on the decline of local news and on efforts to offset it. But though it’s simple enough to spout anecdotes, it can be more challenging to come up with hard numbers, though some have tried.
The latest attempt dropped last week: a comprehensive study by Rebuild Local News and Muck Rack, the latter a platform that connects journalists and public relations professionals. I’ve been looking over some of the findings this week, and what’s interesting is that it’s based entirely on data from millions of articles published during the first three months of this year. That means it’s not dependent on the vagaries of counting news outlets by hand, but it also means the researchers had to pile assumption upon assumption and then hope they got it right. I think they did for the most part.
Downtown New Bedford, Mass. 2008 public domain photo by Marc N. Belanger.
The New Bedford Light and The Boston Globe are both suing the city of New Bedford in an attempt to pry loose public records. The Light seeks records pertaining to funds the city awarded that it received through the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, as well as the city’s contract with a consultant that it hired following the Globe’s Spotlight series on the police department’s dubious reliance on confidential informants. The Globe’s suit also pertains to the Spotlight series.
The Light’s story about the lawsuits notes that this is the first time since the nonprofit’s founding in 2021 that it has sued the city. Executive editor Karen Bordeleau is quoted as saying:
The role of journalism in a democracy ensures that elected officials serve the public’s interest and the best way to accomplish this is through public records. Unfortunately this administration has refused multiple times to turn over public documents that would shed light on its decision to award ARPA grant money to high risk projects or to release the cost of a police consultant’s review of departmental conduct.
Indeed, suing for public records is an extreme step taken only after other avenues of appeal have been exhausted. The Globe is also suing the cities of Boston, Worcester and Springfield as well as Massachusetts State Police.
The Light’s and the Globe’s lawsuits are both pending in Bristol County Superior Court.
The altar boy-in-chief resigns. 1974 photo in the public domain.
Two weeks ago The Boston Globe published letters from readers of La Presse, a Montreal newspaper, in which they expressed their views about Donald Trump. The letters were published in both the Globe and La Presse.
Part two, letters from Globe readers to La Presse, appears today. If you’re not a Globe subscriber, you can access the feature at La Presse by clicking here. If you use Chrome, you should see a box at the top asking if you want to translate the page from French into English.
Because I’m always up for a good Nixon analogy, I especially liked a letter written by Sandra Regan of Winthrop, who says in part:
Richard Nixon was an altar boy compared with the entity who is currently impersonating the president of the United States. Donald Trump has trashed our Oval Office and soiled the history and dignity of our beautiful White House. Now he is trying to use you and other allies in yet another shameless attempt to get whatever he wants.
Donna R. Cooper of Provincetown adds:
I want to assure you that many Americans do not support his racist, sexist, and homophobic agenda. He understands only money, so I support you in not spending yours in the United States (although I’ll miss overhearing that lovely French as I sit on the beach this summer). Urge your elected officials not to compromise in the face of Trump’s tariffs. Take your products to other countries. Do not let the bully win.
And Marjorie Martin of Framingham concludes her letter with this: “Please pray for us.” Indeed.
Dallas Morning News headquarters. Photo (cc) 2018 by Shaggylawn65.
This morning I want to share some good news about local news — and from a legacy newspaper company, no less. The Hearst newspaper chain has acquired The Dallas Morning News, adding to its constellation of Texas newspapers including the Houston Chronicle, the Austin American-Statesman and the San Antonio Express-News.
Hearst is a privately held chain and, though corporate chain ownership is always problematic, the company has shown that it’s committed to strong regional and statewide news. We discussed Hearst’s strategy in Connecticut in our book, “What Works in Community News,” where Hearst has a cluster of newspapers that includes the New Haven Register, the Connecticut Post of Bridgeport, the Times-Union of Albany, New York (OK, not quite Connecticut), and the digital-only CT Insider. Hyperlocal is left to smaller outlets and digital startups.
Readers with long memories may recall that DallasNews Corp. at one time was known as Belo, and that it owned The Providence Journal. Rick Edmonds, who analyzes the news business for Poynter, reports that the Texas transaction was worth some $75 million, writing:
Staff reductions on the business side can be expected as those Dallas Morning News functions are consolidated with the rest of Hearst, but except for production, I would expect the newsroom to remain nearly intact. The Morning News’s story on the deal said that it has 157 news employees.
Ken Doctor, a former newspaper industry analyst who now runs local news digital startups in Santa Cruz, California and Eugene, Oregon, had a positive take on the news.
“To have a state like Texas with one owner for those four markets is really something,” he said. “Hearst has held on to their newspaper business and is reinvesting. That’s really contrarian and a good sign for the industry. And they do great journalism.”
The deal ends 140 years of local ownership for the Morning News, which is a shame. Hearst publishes 28 dailies and 50 weeklies. But for the paper to wind up in the hands of a decent publisher rather than a cost-cutting behemoth like Gannett or Alden Global Capital is certainly good news for the News’ staff and the people they serve.
Nonprofit acquires Vt. weekly
A for-profit weekly newspaper in southern Vermont is going nonprofit. The Deerfield Valley News, founded in 1966, is being acquired by The Commons, a venerable nonprofit newspaper based in Brattleboro.
“We’ve never had the resources for more finely grained news coverage like gavel-to-gavel coverage of municipal government news, and The Deerfield Valley News will continue to perform that critical role, as it has, week after week, for years and years. That won’t change,” said Commons editor-in-chief Jeff Potter in a statement. The Valley News writes:
Randy and Vicki Capitani, owners of The Deerfield Valley News for nearly 35 years, have announced the sale of their venerable weekly print newspaper to Vermont Independent Media, publisher of the The Commons.
The sale was completed on June 27, bringing The Deerfield Valley News under the umbrella of Vermont Independent Media, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit news corporation. The Deerfield Valley News will be a nonprofit sister publication of The Commons, an independent newspaper covering Brattleboro, the Connecticut River Valley, and southern Vermont.
Vermont Independent Media and its board of directors plan to maintain the The Deerfield Valley News as a paid-circulation newspaper serving the Deerfield Valley, and current subscriptions will be honored under the new management. The newspaper will continue to operate out of its Wilmington location, and editorial staff and other key personnel will remain in their roles.
N.H. paper shuts down. Again.
Sadly, another newspaper serving New Hampshire is shutting down. The Claremont Eagle Times ceased publishing several weeks ago, Steve Taylor writes in The Valley News. (That Valley News is based in West Lebanon, New Hampshire, and is not to be confused with The Deerfield Valley News.)
According to Taylor, the Eagle Times has struggled since its founding in 1950. Indeed, the news of its closing rang a bell, and sure enough, the paper closed for the first time in 2009. I guess at some point it was revived. When I took note of the first shutdown, there was another news outlet in town called Your Claremont Press. That no longer seems to be in existence, either.
The shutdown came not long after the staff walked out because their paychecks bounced. By the end, the once-daily print paper was coming out three days a week. Its website had reportedly not been updated since June 15, and it currently appears to be down.
Katherine Ann Rowlands. 2017 photo by Cali Godley.
On the latest “What Works” podcast, Ellen Clegg and I talk with Katherine Ann Rowlands, who runs the Bay City News Foundation. The foundation is a nonprofit that publishes journalism for the Greater San Francisco Bay Area at LocalNewsMatters.org and The Mendocino Voice. And by the way, this is our last podcast until September.
The Bay City News Foundation acquired The Mendocino Voice and took it nonprofit a little more than a year ago. I reported on the Voice for our book, “What Works in Community News,” and was visiting in March 2020 when … well, you know what happened next. At that time, co-founders Kate Maxwell and Adrian Fernandez Baumann were hoping to turn the nominally for-profit operation into a cooperatively owned venture, but COVID sidetracked those plans. Maxwell and Baumann have since moved on, and Rowlands has some pointed observations about why there have been no successful examples of local-news co-ops.
Rowlands also is owner and publisher of Bay City News, a regional news wire supplying original journalism for the whole media ecosystem in her area, from TV to start-up digital outlets.
The first-ever COVID news conference in Mendocino County, Calif., on March 5, 2020. Mendocino Voice co-founder Adrian Fernandez Baumann is shooting video and co-founder Kate Maxwell, seated, wearing blue and off to the right, is taking notes. Photo (cc) 2020 by Dan Kennedy.
I’ve got a Quick Take about the New England Muzzle Awards. Since 1998 I’ve been writing an annual Fourth of July roundup of outrages against free speech and freedom of expression in New England during the previous year, first for the late, lamented Boston Phoenix, later for GBH News and now for my blog, Media Nation. This is the 27th annual edition.
Ellen reports on the death of Nancy Cassutt, a newsroom leader at Minnesota Public Radio and American Public Media’s “Marketplace.” Nancy was a driving force in helping Mukhtar Ibrahim get Sahan Journal off the ground.
Several weeks ago we had a reunion of Northeastern University journalism alumni who were involved in student media in the 1970s and early ’80s. Among those attending was David McKay Wilson, one of the very few in our crowd who is still working as a full-time reporter. And he was excited about a story he was digging into about a Republican politician who seemed to have infiltrated a Democratic group in the suburbs north of New York City using a fake name.
Today The Journal News published that story, and it is weird and wonderful. Erin Crowley, a county legislator who also works for Republican congressman Mike Lawler, appears to have gotten herself inserted into an anti-Lawler chat group on Signal using the name “Jack Thomas.” Once in, Thomas — again, almost certainly Crowley — tried to generate an uproar against Lawler at a town meeting he was holding in May. Thomas/Crowley apparently believed that such behavior would create sympathy for her boss.
Although there is no definite proof, Thomas’ phone number is identical to one that Crowley has used. Wilson writes:
After two Lawler critics were carried out of the hall by New York State troopers, Thomas posted that chat group members should leave the auditorium to protest Lawler’s crackdown on dissent and his evasive answers to questions from the audience.
“Should we walk out en masse?” posted Thomas. “Make a point we won’t tolerate his bullsh** anymore.”
Wilson also quotes an anti-Lawler activist named Ann Starer, who says, “Walking out of the hall would have been to their benefit. That would have been great for them. I said on the chat that I didn’t think it was a good idea.”
The story is locked behind a paywall. Because The Journal News is a Gannett paper, I was able to access it through my USA Today subscription. If that’s not an option, you can read a thorough synopsis by Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo, who calls it “my official new favorite story ever.”
Wilson has tangled with Lawler before, as I’ve written, and last month he was kicked out of a Lawler event for photographing Crowley. David’s doggedness at holding power to account at an age when many of his peers are retired is an inspiration.
