How the Media Capitulated to Trump
When Trump attacked the press, major media organizations chose accommodation over resistance. Meta, X, and YouTube paid over $60 million to settle his account-suspension lawsuits. Meta scrapped its fact-checking program — its own Oversight Board later called the replacement inadequate — and YouTube eased moderation thresholds to align with Trump. CBS paid $16 million to settle a 60 Minutes dispute while Paramount’s CEO dined privately with Trump as a DOJ merger review loomed. Some outlets paid up to $100,000 a month for early access to his Truth Social posts. Networks then turned on their own staff: ABC suspended journalist Terry Moran, cancelled Stephen Colbert, and suspended Jimmy Kimmel. Pentagon press passes shifted to right-wing allies. The administration seized editorial control of Stars and Stripes, firing its publisher and editor. Tucker Carlson later admitted he had misled his viewers.
Get notified of new events in this story thread
Use the search function to find specific events within a story thread.
Meta agreed to pay Trump $25 million to settle a lawsuit over the suspension of his accounts following the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. The settlement resolves one of several lawsuits Trump filed against the social media platform.
X agreed to pay Trump $10 million to settle a lawsuit over his ban from the platform following the Capitol attack. Trump had brought the suit under X's previous ownership after January 6.
Trump and Elon Musk appeared together on Fox News with Sean Hannity, discussing their working relationship. The interview highlighted their collaboration while avoiding explanations of Musk's actual influence over administration policy.
Trump and Paramount sought a mediator for a lawsuit involving CBS News and a '60 Minutes' segment, as tensions between Trump and major media outlets intensified.
Meta begins its US rollout of Community Notes, the crowdsourced fact-checking system modeled on X, following Zuckerberg's January 2025 announcement ending third-party fact-checking partnerships.
During a contentious ABC interview with Terry Moran, Trump pressured the journalist to accept a doctored photo as real and lashed out at questioning about deportations and tariffs. The exchange showcased tensions between the administration and media.
Eight US senators, including Bernie Sanders, urged Paramount not to settle Trump's $20 billion lawsuit against 60 Minutes over a 2024 Harris interview, calling the suit 'bogus.'
ABC News suspended journalist Terry Moran after he posted a since-deleted comment calling Trump and Stephen Miller "world-class haters," with the suspension pending evaluation of his conduct.
The New York Times reports that YouTube has instructed moderators to lean into 'freedom of expression,' raising the threshold for how much of a video can violate its policies before removal (from a quarter to half), a shift explicitly aimed at aligning with the Trump administration.
An early review of Meta's Community Notes pilot finds it 'not ready for prime time,' raising doubts about whether the crowdsourced model can match the scale of the fact-checking program it replaced.
Paramount Global agreed to pay Trump $16 million to settle his lawsuit over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, though the payment will go to Trump's future library or charitable cause rather than directly to him, and Paramount made no apology.
CBS announced the cancellation of 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,' to end in 2026. The decision came days after Colbert criticized the network's parent company for settling a lawsuit with Trump, which he called a 'bribe.'
The Center for Democracy & Technology publishes a policy brief on Meta's Community Notes program, warning that its design allows misinformation to spread virally before consensus-based corrections appear, with no distribution penalties for flagged posts.
Newsmax agreed to pay $67 million to Dominion Voting Systems to settle an election-related defamation lawsuit that was headed to trial, marking another significant settlement in cases related to false election claims.
Meta adds new Community Notes features, including alerts for users who interacted with corrected posts. The company discloses that only 6% of the 15,000 notes submitted by contributors had been published since launch.
Jimmy Kimmel Live! was suspended indefinitely by ABC after the host made comments about Charlie Kirk's killing. The suspension came hours after Trump-appointed FCC Chair Brendan Carr threatened broadcaster affiliate stations' licenses, sparking widespread concerns about government pressure on media.
Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show was indefinitely suspended, leading to widespread protests outside Disney headquarters and criticism from other late-night hosts who called it a 'blatant assault on freedom of speech.' Trump subsequently suggested that TV networks carrying critical coverage should lose their broadcast licenses.
Alphabet tells the House Judiciary Committee the Biden administration pressured YouTube to remove non-violating COVID-19 content, announces plans to reinstate accounts banned for COVID and election misinformation, and pledges it has never used and will never use outside fact-checkers.
YouTube settled a lawsuit filed by Trump against Alphabet (Google's parent company) and other social media platforms over account suspension following the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot, with YouTube paying $24.5 million.
The Trump FCC chair is scheduled to testify before a Senate panel regarding his apparent pressure on broadcasters to suspend Jimmy Kimmel's show. The decision comes amid broader scrutiny of the agency's role in content moderation.
Pentagon press passes previously held by credentialed journalists are now being held by right-wing pundits and Trump allies, representing a significant shift in media access and messaging control at the Department of Defense.
Trump administration officials moved to seize editorial control of Stars and Stripes, striking a policy requiring the military publication to maintain a civilian editor and independent ombudsman, drawing criticism from press advocates.
Meta's own Oversight Board warns that Community Notes are not an adequate substitute for fact-checking and may be structurally unsuited to address misinformation at scale, citing 900 published US notes versus roughly 35 million EU fact-check labels over a comparable period.
Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson stated he regrets backing Donald Trump and is 'tormented by it,' admitting he 'misled' his supporters as his rift with the president deepens over the Iran war.
Paramount's CEO David Ellison hosted a dinner for Trump while the Justice Department reviews a proposed $110 billion merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, raising questions about potential conflicts of interest.
Media groups filed a lawsuit against Trump alleging he unfairly profits by charging up to $100,000 monthly for exclusive early access to his Truth Social posts, claiming the subscription violates First and Fifth Amendment principles.
Max D Lederer Jr., longtime publisher of Stars and Stripes military newspaper, announced his resignation over differences with the Pentagon regarding editorial control, marking another clash between the Trump administration and the independent press.
The Pentagon fired the publisher and editor of the military newspaper Stars and Stripes, with the editor suggesting the terminations were retaliation for reporting on editorial independence and crew conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
29 events in this story · Browse all stories · Back to top ↑