Content Creators
Traditional Media
New media is getting a new seat in the White House’s James S. Brady Press Briefing Room. “It’s essential to our team that we share President Trump’s message everywhere and adapt our White House to the new media landscape in 2025,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said. The seat, off to the side of the garrulous cluster of political journos so often shown on cable news and previously reserved for administration officials, will be taken by a podcaster, social media influencer or other vaguely defined news content “creator.”
The move might show some restraint by the Trump team, which has signaled it wants to bar unfavorable journalists from briefings. That would run afoul of the White House Correspondents’ Association, which ultimately devises the room’s much-analyzed seating chart.
“60 Minutes”
Paramount
Skydance
FCC
CBS News will comply with an FCC request to hand over the transcript of an October 2024 “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris. Network representatives had previously deemed the request, part of a $10 billion lawsuit Trump filed over alleged deceptive editing, “completely without merit.” Anna Gomez, a Democratic FCC commissioner, said “Let’s be clear: This is a retaliatory move by the government against broadcasters whose content or coverage is perceived to be unfavorable. It is designed to instill fear in broadcast stations and influence a network’s editorial decisions.”
The about-face is widely seen as part of CBS parent company Paramount’s looking to stay on good terms with the Trump administration in the hope of gaining its approval for a planned merger with Skydance Media. And it has stoked anxiety about the effect Trump’s return to power will have on the country’s free press, particularly as mergers in need of federal approval proceed at a brisk clip.
TV news, minus Fox News
Inauguration ratings peaked at 34.4 million viewers this year, down from 40 million in 2020 and 38.3 million in 2016. The decline shocked few observers who for years have been witnessing a broad erosion of TV news audiences. Another trend continued: Fox News numbers (10.3 million) barely budged from 2017, while CNN’s (1.7 million versus 10 million in 2020) and MSNBC’s (850,000 versus 6.5 million) stayed in freefall.
CNN
Mark Thompson
Jim Acosta
“This is a moment where the digital story feels like an existential question,” Mark Thompson said in an interview with the New York Times in which he detailed sweeping changes to the struggling news network.
Thompson, who’s been CNN chief executive for 15 months, made clear that the key to the channel’s survival is finding digital audiences “wherever they are.” On that note, CNN this month announced it would cut 200 linear TV jobs and hire a similar number of digital roles, including data scientists. It will also roll out a new streaming platform with content similar to the news network’s, as well as a lifestyle vertical including food and fitness series.
Another big shakeup: Jim Acosta, CNN’s longtime White House Correspondent and target of Trump’s ire, is leaving the network after 18 years. The official reason for the departure is a scheduling change that moved Acosta’s morning show to the midnight ratings graveyard. But Acosta’s on-air parting words hinted at a more complicated story: “I’ve decided to move on. Don’t give in to the lies. Don’t give in to the fear. Hold on to the truth and to hope.”
Thompson navigated similarly choppy waters in leadership roles at the NYT and BBC, but media fragmentation has only grown, and even CNN (and MSNBC) diehards have fled in droves in the months since Trump’s reelection.
Chuck Todd
NBC News
Another political news fixture is leaving his home of nearly two decades: Chuck Todd announced this month that he would depart NBC in order to pursue other projects. His exit and those of other similarly big names come amid talk of salary slashings amid shrinking TV news audiences.
