In the ensuing decades, diagnoses of cancers, congenital anomalies and thyroid disease affected the surrounding communities at an alarming rate, particularly for women.
Following recent comments on nuclear testing by United States President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, it’s more important than ever to remember that nuclear detonations — whether in war or apparent peace time — have long-lasting impacts.
Over a 40-year period, up to 1989, the Soviet Union detonated 456 nuclear weapons in present-day Kazakhstan (or Qazaqstan, in the decolonized spelling)
In the ensuing decades, diagnoses of cancers, congenital anomalies and thyroid disease affected the surrounding communities at an alarming rate, particularly for women.
As a literary and cultural historian who examines narratives of the nuclear age, I attended the standing-room-only event alongside many delegates from civil society organizations.
Nuclear disarmament activist
Seitenova, who wrote, directed and produced JARA Radioactive Patriarchy on location in Semey, aims to bring women’s nuclear stories to Qazaqstan and international audiences.
The 30-minute documentary features intimate interviews with five Qazaq women. The film shares the women’s fears, grief and the ways they have learned to cope, as well as reflections from Seitenova filmed at the ground-zero site.
For Seitenova, it was essential that the film be in Qazaq language.
“Qazaq language, like Qazaq bodies,” she said in an interview after the premiere, “were considered ‘other’ or not valuable.” Seitenova acknowledged it was also important to show a Qazaq-language film at the UN, as Qazaq is not an official UN language like Russian.
Women consensually share experiences
One of Seitenova’s directorial choices was not just what or who would be seen, but specifically what would not be seen in her film.
“I’m really against sensationalism,” said Seitenova. “If you Google ‘Semipalatinsk’ you will see all of these terrible images of children and fetuses.”
Seitenova accordingly does not show any of these images in her film, and instead focuses on women consensually sharing their experiences.
Seitenova explained how narratives regarding the health effects in Semey are often disparaged. When others learn she is from Semey, Seitenova shared, some will make insensitive jokes like “are you luminescent at night?” — making nuclear impact into spectacle, instead of taking it as a serious health issue.
These experiences have propelled her to take back the narrative of her community by correcting misconceptions or the minimization of harms. Instead, she brings attention to the larger structural issues.
“Everything was done by me because I did not want to invite someone who would not take care of the stories of these women,” said Seitenova.
Likewise, Seitenova only interviewed participants who had already made decisions to speak out about nuclear weapons. She did this so as not to risk retraumatizing someone by asking them to discuss their illnesses, especially for the first time on camera.
Global legacy of anti-nuclear art, advocacy
Seitenova also wanted to show a genealogy of women speaking out about nuclear issues in Qazaqstan, contributing to a global legacy of anti-nuclear art and advocacy.
The film features three generations of women, including Seitenova’s great aunt, Zura Rustemova, who was 12 at the time of the first detonations.
As part of this genealogy of nuclear resistance, the film includes footage of a speech from the Qazaq singer Roza Baglanova (1922-2011), who rose to prominence singing songs of hope during the Second World War.
Effects felt into today
JARA Radioactive Patriarchy shows how the impacts of nuclear weapons are felt intergenerationally into the present.
The Semey monument depicts a mother using her whole body to protect her child from a mushroom cloud. Just like the monument, Seitenova and the women in her documentary use the film to show how women have been doing this advocacy work in the private and public spheres, with their bodies and with their words.
“I want to show them as being leaders in the community, as changing the game,” Seitenova said.
While the film brings a much-needed attention to the gendered impact of nuclear weapons in Qazaqstan, she makes clear that this is, unfortunately, not an issue unique to her homeland or just to women.
“The next time you think about expanding the nuclear sector in any country” Seitenova said, “you can think about how it impacts people of all genders.”
If any Onion opinion piece fully captures the corruption and venality of Donald Trump’s administrations, it’s one “authored” by former President Jimmy Carter (1/25/17) headlined, “You People Made Me Give Up My Peanut Farm Before I Got to Be President.” To be accurate, the farm was put into a blind trust (USA Today, 2/24/23), but contrasting the urgency of the potential conflicts with Carter’s humble agricultural asset to the unrestrained wheeling and dealing of the Trump machine paints the whole scene.
Trump had barely started his first term when the Onion piece came out, but nearly a year into his second administration, the satirical piece truly illustrates the degree to which the Washington establishment has seemed to accept that there will always be conflicts of interest in the White House, and that Trump’s policies will always be intertwined with his family’s profiteering.
It is a hallmark of corrupt societies that institutions like the media simply accept that payoffs and the personal business interests of politicians supersede public service. A good example of this casual resignation to a corrupt regime came from the New York Times (11/15/25) under the headline “Trump Organization Is Said to Be in Talks on a Saudi Government Real Estate Deal.” The subhead: “The chief executive of a Saudi firm says a Trump-branded project is ‘just a matter of time.’ The Trump Organization’s major foreign partner is also signaling new Saudi deals.”
The front-page report by Vivian Nereim and Rebecca Ruiz focused on Trump’s relationship with Dar Global, his business’ “most important foreign business partner and a key conduit to Arab governments and Gulf companies.” The Times matter-of-factly said that Dar “paid the Trump Organization $21.9 million in license fees last year,” noting that “some of that money goes to the president himself.”
The entire piece, in fact, presented this development in Saudi Arabia with a lackadaisical editorial attitude toward the president using the federal government that he administers as a channel for his family’s businesses, without much commentary from experts about the conflicts of interest. “The Trump Organization is in talks that could bring a Trump-branded property to one of Saudi Arabia’s largest government-owned real estate developments,” it began. It went on to say that “the negotiations are the latest example of Mr. Trump blending governance and family business, particularly in Persian Gulf countries,” without ever raising a question how that “blending” might undermine the presidency.
‘Maybe a little bit clever’
Earlier this year, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut (5/13/25) said after Trump accepted the gift of a $400 million luxury plane from Qatar: “Usually, public corruption happens in secret.” But Trump “isn’t hiding it like other corrupt officials are,” Murphy noted, because “his corruption is wildly public, and his hope is that by doing it publicly, he can con the American people into thinking that it’s not corruption because he’s not hiding it.”
The New Republic (5/13/25) didn’t mince words on Trump’s business in the Gulf: “America Has Never Seen a President This Corrupt,” it announced in a headline, with the subhead, “Trump’s brazen use of the White House to advance his family businesses should be one of the biggest scandals in the country’s history.”
The New York Times reported:
“Nothing announced yet, but soon to be,” Jerry Inzerillo, chief executive of the Diriyah development and a longtime friend of President Trump, said in an interview. He said it was “just a matter of time” before the Trump Organization sealed a deal.
Saudi officials toured the Diriyah development with Mr. Trump during the president’s official state visit in May, with the goal of piquing his interest in the project, Mr. Inzerillo said.
“It turned out to be a good stroke of luck and maybe a little bit clever of us to say, ‘OK, let’s appeal to him as a developer’—and he loved it,” Mr. Inzerillo said.
Next week, Prince Mohammed is expected to make his first visit to the United States in seven years. He hopes to sign a mutual defense agreement with Washington and potentially advance a deal to transfer American nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia.
This is friendly, pro-business portraiture that basically repurposes Trump family public relations for the news page. The report only faintly touched on the ethical, saying that the situation creates a “scenario in which Mr. Trump discusses matters of national security with a foreign leader who is also a key figure in a potential business deal with the president’s family.”
The Times perhaps believes that simply narrating these things, without highlighting their egregious nature, is pushback enough. But it’s well past time for the kind of journalism that raises a lazy eyebrow at blatant corruption.
‘Ordinary in the Gulf’
A related New York Times piece (11/15/25) published the same day by the same reporters carried the headline “A Mideast Development Firm Has Set Up Shop in Trump Tower,” with the subhead: “Dar Global bet big on the Trump name. It is now an essential foreign partner for the Trump Organization.” Ruiz and Nereim in passing admitted that Trump’s Gulf deals “have shattered American norms,” but offered no other commentary about the potential corruption. They gave the last word to the president’s son, Eric, who said, We have the greatest partners in the world in Dar Global.”
The Times reporters used the same “shattered norms” expression in their other piece that day to indicate that some people in the democratic West might not approve of this kind of governance, but then reminded us that in the oil-rich Wahhabist monarchy, this is just how things are done. “The recent blending of business and politics has shattered American norms,” the article said, adding, “but is ordinary in the Gulf, where hereditary ruling families hold nearly absolute power and the phrase ‘conflict of interest’ carries little weight.”
It also wrote that “Dar would later call finalizing its first Trump collaboration ‘a straightforward but pivotal moment.’”
A keener editor would have seen the problem with nonchalantly passing off the corrupt practices of self-serving theocracy as normal. Saudi Arabia receives an abysmal score of 9/100 on the Freedom House index, and ranks 162 on the Reporters Without Borders press freedom list, behind Cambodia and Turkey.
No journalist can forget that Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul (Guardian, 10/2/20). The country has a terrible record on workers rights (Human Rights Watch, 5/14/25) and free speech (UN News, 9/15/23). While it has lifted its notorious ban on women driving (BBC, 6/24/18), a coalition of rights groups last year highlighted the “targeting of women human rights defenders, use of the death penalty, lack of protection for women migrant domestic workers, the persistence of a de facto male guardianship system,” and other concerns (Amnesty International, 11/18/24).
‘Likely unconstitutional’
The New York Times (3/27/24, 1/17/25, 2/17/25, 5/13/25) has reported on Trump’s potential conflicts of interest in the past. As the Times editorial board (6/7/25) said last spring, Trump
and his family have created several ways for people to enrich them—and government policy then changes in ways that benefit those who have helped the Trumps profit. Often Mr. Trump does not even try to hide the situation. As the historian Matthew Dallek recently put it, “Trump is the most brazenly corrupt national politician in modern times, and his openness about it is sui generis.” He is proud of his avarice, wearing it as a sign of success and savvy.
All of this might spark some curiosity at the Times about Trump’s objectives in the Gulf, and what consequences his policies and personal dealings could have for the broader region. Alas, nothing.
“The whole point of the piece is—or should be—that making multi-billion dollar real estate deals with the Saudis represents a huge conflict of interest that is likely unconstitutional,” said Craig Unger, author of several books on Republican presidents and their ties to corrupt regimes, including the Saudi monarchy. He told FAIR that Trump’s “family is raking in millions, if not billions, from a country that has played a huge role in fostering terrorism and has a history of extraordinary human rights abuses.”
He added, “It’s striking that the Times didn’t bother to interview Richard Painter, the White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, or a comparable figure to spell out precisely what those conflicts are.”
In Unger’s view, the Times has shrugged off a glaring crisis of legitimacy.
“Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution prohibits any US official from accepting titles, gifts, or payments from foreign monarchs or states without congressional approval,” he said. “How is it that they don’t mention the fact that the deal is likely unconstitutional?”
We are now in a death loop in which the BBC becomes ever more craven to the billionaires, thereby shifting the political centre of gravity ever further rightwards. Much of the British public have been convinced by the billionaire-owned media that the BBC is actually “leftwing”. And as a result, the right grows ever more confident in advancing the billionaires’ self-interested agenda, knowing there will be no pushback.
British politics, as Keir Starmer illustrates only too keenly, is in exactly the same death loop. The billionaires are in charge, whoever leads. The main political battle is over image-laundering: where to direct the hate.
The BBC is in turmoil, its director-general and head of news forced to resign after a memo leaked to the Daily Telegraph highlighted editorial malpractice at the state broadcaster’s flagship news programme Panorama. The documentary had spliced together two separate clips of Donald Trump speaking on 6 January 2021, shortly before a riot at the Capitol building in Washington. The speech’s sentiments that day may not have been much misrepresented, but its contents technically were.
But Panorama, and the BBC more generally, have been exposed peddling far worse misinformation. In those cases, there have been precisely no consequences for such out-in-the-open journalistic abuses.
The reason heads have rolled at the BBC this time are not because it made a journalistic blunder – it makes them all the time. It is because the corporation foolishly offered an open goal to the billionaire right and its media outlets. This is just the latest, particularly damaging skirmish in a years-long battle by the right to bring down the BBC – while, in the meantime, ensuring that the corporation turns even more pliant than it already is in promoting the right’s interests.
We are now in a death loop in which the BBC becomes ever more craven to the billionaires, thereby shifting the political centre of gravity ever further rightwards. Much of the British public have been convinced by the billionaire-owned media that the BBC is actually “leftwing”. And as a result, the right grows ever more confident in advancing the billionaires’ self-interested agenda, knowing there will be no pushback.
British politics, as Keir Starmer illustrates only too keenly, is in exactly the same death loop. The billionaires are in charge, whoever leads. The main political battle is over image-laundering: where to direct the hate.
Open-for-business, austerity-affirming Starmer wants us hating chiefly on those who criticise him from the left, such as opponents of his support for Israel’s genocide. Open-for-business, austerity-affirming Nigel Farage wants us hating chiefly on the immigrants. But, of course, both hate the left and immigrants.
If anyone is falling for the manufactured “furore” over Panorama’s latest journalistic gaffe, there are examples of far graver malpractice by Panorama – especially on issues related to Israel and Palestine. These editorial crimes have barely caused a ripple, even after they were exposed.
Why? Because the billionaires love Israel and hate its critics. Israel is their vision of the future: the model of a fortress state in which they believe they can protect themselves from the people whose lives they are destroying around the globe.
Israel is also the laboratory where they can test and refine the surveillance technology, the weapons and the policing methods they will need if they are to keep their own publics controlled and subdued as austerity bites ever deeper. Gaza may be coming to street near you soon.
Here are two examples of crimes against journalism from Panorama that illustrate what you can get away with as long as you keep the billionaires happy.
The first gave Israel cover for the crimes it committed against peace activists trying to bring aid to Gaza in 2010 – thereby setting the tone for subsequent coverage that would ultimately lead to, and justify, the Gaza genocide.
The second marshalled disinformation to cement Jeremy Corbyn’s reputation as a supposed “antisemite” in the immediate run-up to 2019 general election. Starmer would go on to use the confected antisemitism row to seize control of Labour, oust Corbyn, approve as opposition leader of Israel’s starvation of Gaza’s population, and back Israel’s genocide as prime minister.
Death in the Med (2010)
In 2010 reporter Jane Corbin fronted Panorama’s “Death in the Med”, about an Israeli commando raid a few months earlier on the lead aid ship, the Mavi Marmara, in a humanitarian flotilla that was trying to reach Gaza, despite an illegal Israeli blockade.
(The programme now serves as an unwelcome reminder that the “conflict” between Israel and Hamas did not begin on 7 October 2023, as the western media would have us believe. For the proceeding 17 years, Israel had been trapping the people of Gaza inside the tiny enclave while blocking food and medicine from reaching them – what Israel referred to as “putting them on a diet”.)
The commandos attacked the ship in international waters and killed nine activists on board, several with close-range shots to the head. The illegality of invading a ship in international waters was not mentioned by Panorama, nor were the execution-style killings. Instead the programme featured “exclusive” interviews with some of the commandos, largely presenting them as the victims………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
By the time Panorama aired “Death in the Med” three months later, the Israeli-imposed fog had lifted further. Israel had been forced to make a “correction”, admitting that it had doctored the incendiary “Auschwitz” recording and that it had no idea who had made the comment. The voice was from someone with a strong southern US accent, but none of the people on the Marmara with access to the radio were American.
It was quite extraordinary that the programme posed as the central question whether this was a case of “self-defence or excessive force” by Israel. Israel had no right to “defend” itself in international waters from unarmed peace activists. But the question was even more preposterous given all the critically important evidence that emerged subsequently but that Panorama chose to ignore……………………………………………………………………..
Panorama was effectively helping Israel to justify an act of piracy on the high seas, the siege of Gaza, and the murder of nine humanitarian activists.
Is Labour Antisemitic? (2019)
In the run-up to the 2019 election, Panorama broadcast a special, hour-long episode on the state of the Labour party under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. For the programme-makers, the question mark in the title was entirely redundant. Panorama was bent on proving that Labour was indeed antisemitic, whatever the evidence.
Corbyn, the first leader of a major British political party to place the right of Palestinians to be free of Israel’s illegal occupation ahead of Israel’s supposed “right” to continuing its illegal occupation, had been the target of relentless criticism since he was elected leader in 2015. The media accused him of overseeing – and encouraging – a supposed “plague of antisemitism” among party members……………
But the malicious purpose of the antisemitism smears should be far clearer by now. Millions of Britons who have gone out to protest against the Gaza genocide have been defamed as antisemites. As have students setting up encampments to stop their universities from colluding with the genocide. As have Jews who oppose Israel’s genocide. As have the West Midlands police for trying to stop Israeli football hooligans, many of them likely to be Israeli soldiers who have helped carry out the genocide, from bringing their brand of racist violence to the UK’s streets. We could go on.
The Panorama programme on Corbyn made its case through serial misrepresentations – too many to document here. But the case against the Panorama episode is dealt with fully in this documentary here.
Those deceptions included a series of interviews with unidentified “party members” who claimed to have faced antisemitism in Labour. What Panorama did not tell viewers was that these talking heads belonged to an aggressively pro-Israel lobby group inside Labour called the Jewish Labour Movement………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Proper checks weren’t done in the case of “Death in the Med” or “Is Labour Antisemitic?” because Panorama editors knew that no one in power would care. Defaming peace activists trying to bring aid to a besieged population; smearing a socialist standing to be prime minister. No one would hold the BBC to account.
Why? Because those weren’t errors by the BBC. That’s its job. That is what it is there to do. It is there to uphold narratives that support the interests of the British establishment, as its founder, Lord Reith, explained in the 1920s. “They [the government] know they can trust us not to be really impartial.”
The fact that the BBC is now in hot water for editing a Trump speech – altering its contents without altering its sentiments – is a sign that its senior staff have been misreading the political climate. The establishment itself is now at war – over strategy. Between the traditional right, desperately trying to enforce a crumbling popular, liberal consensus, and the MAGA far-right trying to exploit the crumbling consensus to their own advantage.
Today, on Armistice Day, we honor the original meaning of this date: a day dedicated to peace, to the end of war, and to the hope that we can build a different future. It is with that precise intention that we are incredibly proud to release our documentary:
Golden Rule: The Journey for Peace
We chose this day deliberately. While the world often focuses on military service, we seek to reclaim the radical hope of the original 1918 armistice, a moment that declared, “The war to end all wars is over.” Our film is a continuation of that promise, a testament to the courage it takes to sail for peace in a world still gripped by violence.
This film is a piece of our hearts, a story of the waves, the wind, and the unwavering commitment that carried our historic ketch across the Pacific, c
This Film is Our Armistice Day Commitment.
In a time of escalating conflict and a dangerous new nuclear arms race, this film is our active prayer for peace. It is our stand for climate justice and our pledge to protect our most vulnerable. ontinuing a 65-year legacy of bold, anti-nuclear activism.
YouTube, owned by Google LLC, has deleted more than 700 videos documenting Israeli human rights violations, citing compliance with US sanctions imposed on Palestinian human rights groups cooperating with the International Criminal Court (ICC), according to an investigation by The Intercept published on 5 November.
The investigation revealed that the videos were removed after US President Donald Trump’s administration sanctioned three Palestinian organizations over their work with the ICC on war crimes cases against Israeli leaders.
The organizations sanctioned are Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.
The deletions, carried out in early October, erased years of archives detailing Israeli atrocities in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, including footage of home demolitions, civilian killings, and torture testimonies from Palestinians.
Among the deleted material were investigations into the murder of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and documentaries such as ‘The Beach’, which recounts the killing of children by an Israeli airstrike as they played by the sea.
YouTube confirmed the removals were made in compliance with “trade and export laws” after Trump sanctioned the groups.
Human rights advocates said the company’s decision effectively aided US efforts to suppress evidence of Israeli atrocities.
“It’s really hard to imagine any serious argument that sharing information from these Palestinian human rights organizations would somehow violate sanctions,” said Sarah Leah Whitson of Democracy for the Arab World Now.
The Center for Constitutional Rights condemned the decision as an attempt to erase war crimes evidence, while Al-Haq described the move as “an alarming setback for human rights and freedom of expression.”
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said YouTube’s action “protects perpetrators from accountability,” accusing Google of complicity in silencing victims of Israeli aggression.
Al Mezan stated that its channel was removed without warning. The three organizations warned that US-based platforms hosting similar content could soon face the same censorship, potentially erasing further documentation of Israeli war crimes.
The Intercept investigation highlighted YouTube’s bias, noting that pro-Israel material remains largely untouched while Palestinian narratives are disproportionately targeted.
It reported that the platform had shown a “ready willingness to comply with demands from both the Trump administration and Israel.”
The crackdown comes amid renewed US efforts to shield Israeli officials from prosecution after the ICC issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant over Gaza war crimes.
Washington has since reimposed sanctions on ICC judges and entities assisting the court’s investigations.
Separately, Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales intervened after editors locked the site’s “Gaza genocide” page from further changes on 28 October.
Wales called the entry “particularly egregious” and insisted it “needs immediate correction” to reflect a “neutral approach.”
His remarks drew backlash from editors who accused him of bowing to political pressure and undermining UN and academic findings confirming that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide.
The National Press Club of Australia lists 81 corporate sponsors on its website.
Twenty-one of them (listed below) are either part of the global arms industry or actively working on its behalf.
Ten are multinational weapons manufacturers or military services corporations. They include the world’s two biggest weapons makers, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon (RTX); British giant BAE Systems; France’s largest weapons-maker, Thales; and US weapons corporation Leidos – all five are in the global top 20. BAE Systems, which is the largest contractor to the Department of Defence, received $2 billion from Australian taxpayers last year.
In 2023, these five corporations alone were responsible for almost a quarter – 23.8 per cent (US$150.4 billion (A$231.5 billion)) – of total weapons sales (US$632 billion (A$973 billion)) made by the world’s top 100 weapons companies that year.
Last year, UN experts named Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, RTX (Raytheon) and eight other multinationals in a statement, warning them that they risked being found in violation of international law for their continued supply of weapons, parts, components and ammunition to Israeli forces. The experts called on the corporations to immediately end weapons transfers to Israel. None has done so.
Another of the Club’s sponsors – Thales – is being investigated by four countries for widespread criminal activity in three separate corruption probes. In a fourth, long-running corruption case in South Africa, the country’s former president, Jacob Zuma, is now in court, alongside Thales, being tried on 16 charges of racketeering, fraud, corruption and money laundering in connection with arms deals his government did with Thales.
Global expert Andrew Feinstein has documented his extensive research into the arms industry. He told Undue Influence that wherever the arms trade operates, it “increases corruption and undermines democracy, good governance, transparency, and the rule of law, while, ironically, making us less safe”.
Undue Influence asked the Press Club’s CEO, Maurice Reilly, what written policies or guidelines were in place that addressed the suitability and selection of corporations proposing to become Press Club sponsors.
Mr Reilly responded: “The board are informed monthly about…proposals and have the right to refuse any application.”
Wherever the arms trade operates it “increases corruption and undermines democracy, good governance, transparency, and the rule of law, while, ironically, making us less safe”. – Andrew Feinstein, author of Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade
National Press Club board
The National Press Club, established by journalists in 1963, is an iconic Australian institution. It is best known for its weekly luncheon addresses, televised on the ABC, covering issues of national importance, after which the speaker is questioned by journalists.
The Club’s board has 10 directors led by Tom Connell, political host and reporter at Sky News, who was elected president in February following the resignation of the ABC’s Laura Tingle.
The other board members are: vice president Misha Schubert (CEO, Super Members Council of Australia; formerly with The Age and The Australian); treasurer Greg Jennett (ABC); Steve Lewis (senior adviser, SEC Newgate; formerly with NewsCorp and the Financial Review); Jane Norman (ABC); Anna Henderson (SBS); Julie Hare (Financial Review); Andrew Probyn (Nine Network); Gemma Daley (Media & Government Affairs, Ai Group); and Corrie McLeod, the sole representative from an independent media outlet – InnovationAus.
At least two board members have jobs that involve lobbying.
Long-term board member Steve Lewis works as a senior adviser for lobbying firm SEC Newgate, which itself is a Press Club sponsor and also has as clients the Press Club’s two largest sponsors: Westpac and Telstra. SEC Newgate has previously acted for several Press Club sponsors, including Serco (one of the arms industry multinationals listed below), BHP, Macquarie Bank, Tattarang, and Spirits & Cocktails Australia Inc.
Gemma Daley joined the board a year ago, having started with Ai Group as its head of media and government affairs four months earlier. Ms Daley had worked for Nationals’ leader David Littleproud, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and former treasurer Joe Hockey and, before that, for media outlets the Financial Review and Bloomberg. Ai Group has a significant defence focus and promotes itself as “the peak national representative body for the Australian defence industry”. The group has established a Defence Council and in 2017 appointed a former assistant secretary of the Defence Department, Kate Louis, to lead it. The co-chairs of its Defence Council are senior arms industry executives. One of them, Paul Chase, is CEO of Leidos Australia, a Press Club sponsor.
Undue Influence asked Ms Daley for comment on several aspects related to her position on the board, including whether she has had to declare any conflicts of interest to date. She responded: “Thanks for the inquiry. I have forwarded this through to Maurice Reilly. Have a good day.”
Given the potential for conflicts of interest to arise, as happens on any board, Undue Influence had already asked the Press Club CEO what written policies or guidelines existed to ensure the appropriate management of conflicts of interest by board members and staff.
Mr Reilly responded:
The Club has a directors’ conflict register which is updated when required. Each meeting, board members and management are asked if they have conflicts of interest with the meeting agenda. We have a standard corporate practice that where a director has a conflict on an agenda item they excuse themselves from the meeting and take no [part] in any discussion or any decision.
Undue Influence is neither alleging nor implying inappropriate or illegal behaviour by anyone named in this article. Our objective, as always, is to shine a light on, and scrutinise, the weapons industry’s opaque engagement in public life in Australia.
While Mr Reilly declined to disclose the Club’s sponsorship arrangements with Westpac and Telstra, citing “commercial in confidence” reasons, The Sydney Morning Herald reported earlier this year that Westpac paid $3 million in 2015 to replace NAB as the Press Club’s principal sponsor.
The SMH article, “Westpac centre stage at post-budget bash”, on Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ National Press Club address in the Great Hall of Parliament House in late March, added:
[Westpac] … gets more than its money’s worth in terms of access. New-ish chief executive Anthony Miller got the most coveted seat in the house, between Chalmers and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese… Finance Minister Katy Gallagher and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles were also on the front tables.
Westpac occupied prime real estate in the Great Hall, with guests on its tables including Treasury Secretary Steven Kennedy, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet boss Glyn Davis, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, Housing Minister Clare O’Neil and Labor national secretary and campaign mastermind Paul Erickson…
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland was on the Telstra table.
Mr Reilly told Undue Influence that all the other corporate sponsors pay $25,000 per year, with a few paying extra as partners in the Club’s journalism awards.
The 21 arms industry and related sponsors therefore contribute an annual $525,000 to the Press Club’s coffers. This is 23% of the $2.26 million revenue it earns from “membership, sponsorship and broadcasting”, the Club’s largest revenue line, as shown in its 2024 financial statement.
“The National Press Club of Australia proudly partners with organisations that share our commitment to quality, independent journalism,” says the Club’s website.
“Aligning your brand with the National Press Club is an opportunity for unparalleled engagement in the Australian political debate and announces that your organisation is part of the business culture in Canberra.”
In response to Undue Influence’s questions about the Club’s cancellation of a planned address by the internationally acclaimed journalist Chris Hedges (covered below), Mr Reilly stated that: “For the avoidance of doubt [sponsors] do not receive any rights to speak at the club [nor are they] able to influence decisions on speakers.”
Sponsors may not be granted a right to speak, but they are sometimes invited to speak, with their status as sponsors not always disclosed to audiences.
When the Club’s second largest sponsor, Telstra, spoke on 10 September, both Club president Tom Connell and Telstra CEO Vicki Brady noted the corporation’s longstanding sponsorship.
Sponsors may not be granted a right to speak, but they are sometimes invited to speak, with their status as sponsors not always disclosed to audiences.
When the Club’s second largest sponsor, Telstra, spoke on 10 September, both Club president Tom Connell and Telstra CEO Vicki Brady noted the corporation’s longstanding sponsorship.
Compare this with two addresses given by $25,000 corporate sponsors – Kurt Campbell (former US deputy secretary of state, now co-founder and chair of The Asia Group) who gave an address on 7 September; and Mike Johnson, CEO of Australian Industry and Defence Network (AIDN), who gave an address on 15 October. Neither the Press Club nor the speakers disclosed the companies’ sponsorship of the Press Club.
While both speakers are considered experts in their field, the sponsorships should have been disclosed as a matter of public accountability.
“Priority seating and brand positioning”
On its website, the Club also promotes additional benefits of corporate sponsorship, including, “Brand association with inclusion on our prestigious ‘Corporate Partners’ board and recognition on the National Press Club of Australia website”.
The Club also promises corporate sponsors that they will receive “priority seating and brand positioning” at its weekly luncheon addresses, as the following examples show. (As principal sponsor, the logo of Westpac appears on every table and on the podium.)
The local subsidiary of British giant BAE Systems has benefited handsomely from its modest $25,000 annual sponsorship. It had the best table – behind the microphone from which journalists asked questions – at then defence minister Peter Dutton’s address in November 2021. The BAE logo appeared on the national public broadcaster – which has strict rules against advertising – eight times during the half-hour question period following Mr Dutton’s address, giving BAE Systems extended ‘brand positioning’ with its target market: senior politicians, defence public servants and military officers.
On 28 November 2023, Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy spoke about AUKUS. The logos of Press Club sponsors DXC Technology and Deloitte were also well-situated for the camera during question time. Both companies are significant contractors to the Defence Department. Deloitte also works for the weapons industry, including BAE Systems.
Cancelling Chris Hedges
The Press Club recently drew significant attention to itself after it cancelled a planned address by the Pulitzer-prize-winning American journalist, and former long-term war correspondent, Chris Hedges. Mr Hedges reported for The New York Times for 15 years, from 1990-2005, including long stints as its bureau chief in the Middle East and in the Balkans. He was to have appeared at the Press Club on 20 October.
However, in late September, Press Club CEO Maurice Reilly cancelled Mr Hedges’ appearance. This occurred two weeks after the Club was sent details of what Mr Hedges proposed to cover, including a link to an article he had entitled The Betrayal of Palestinian Journalists. In that article, Mr Hedges wrote:
Israel has murdered 245 journalists in Gaza by one count and more than 273 by another… No war I covered comes close to these numbers of dead. Since Oct 7 [2023], Israel has killed more journalists “than the US Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War (including the conflicts in Cambodia and Laos), the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined”.
Mr Hedges also intended to cover what he has described as the “barrage of Israeli lies amplified and given credibility by the Western press”, examples of which he provides in the above article.
Following a scathing post from Mr Hedges about the Press Club’s cancellation of his address, and significant public disquiet, the Press Club issued a statement denying it had come under external pressure to cancel his address. Inexplicably, the Press Club also denied it had confirmed the Hedges address. This claim was easily checked and soon reported to be false. Undue Influence has seen the emails showing that the Press Club had confirmed the address.
National Press Club funded by companies profiting from genocide
In July, Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, issued a report explaining how the corporate sector had become complicit with the State of Israel in conducting the genocide.
Her report also noted that arms-making multinationals depend on legal, auditing and consulting firms to facilitate export and import transactions to supply Israel with weapons.
Numerous members of the public posted their concerns on the Press Club’s Facebook page. Here are three examples: [on original]
Four of the world’s largest accounting, audit and consulting firms – all of which have arms industry corporations as clients – are sponsors of the Press Club: KPMG, Accenture, Deloitte and EY. Until recently, PwC counted among them.
EY (Ernst & Young) has been Lockheed Martin’s auditor since 1994. EY is also one of two auditors used by Thales, and has been for 22 years. Deloitte has been BAE Systems’ auditor since 2018. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) – a Press Club sponsor until 2024 – has been Raytheon’s auditor since 1947.
Lockheed Martin’s supply to Israel of F-16 and F-35 fighter jets and C-130 Hercules transport planes, and their parts and components, along with Hellfire missiles and other munitions, has directly facilitated Israel’s genocide.
Raytheon’s (RTX) supply of guided missiles, bombs, and other advanced weaponry and defence systems, like the Iron Dome interceptors, also directly supports Israel military capability.
In England, BAE Systems builds the rear fuselage of every F-35, with the horizontal and vertical tails and other crucial components manufactured in its UK and Australian facilities. It also supplies the Israeli military with munitions, missile launching kits and armoured vehicles, while BAE technologies are integrated into Israel’s drones and warships.
Thales supplies Israel’s military with vital components, including drone transponders. Australian Zomi Frankcom and her World Central Kitchen colleagues were murdered by an Israeli Hermes drone, which contain Thales’ transponders. Yet, echoing Australia, France claims its military exports to Israel are non-lethal.
National Press Club sponsors from military-industrial complex
# Rankings compiled by SIPRI at December 2023 (published December 2024)
^ NOTE ON US COMPANIES: The Defence Department procures weapons/military goods directly from Lockheed Martin, RTX (Raytheon) and other US corporations via the US Government’s Foreign Military Sales program. The value of FMS contracts is not included in the table.
Note on the use of the word ‘genocide’
Three independent experts appointed by the UN’s Human Rights Commission – the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel – issued a report in September that concluded Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. One of the Commissioners – Chris Sidoti – speaking at the Press Club recently, said the Commission’s report will remain the most authoritative statement on this issue until the world’s highest authority, the International Court of Justice, makes its ruling.
Examines the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster
The 2011 Fukushima Dai’ichi nuclear disaster was the worst industrial nuclear catastrophe to hit Japan. It was a major event, rated at the highest severity, which released radioactive elements into the power plant’s surrounding environment when back-up systems failed and could not sufficiently cool the nuclear reactors. At least 164,000 people were permanently or temporarily displaced.
Radioactive Governance offers an ethnographic look at how the disaster was handled by Japan. Unlike prior nuclear-related narratives, such as those surrounding Chernobyl or Hiroshima, which focused on themes of harm, trauma, and victimization, the Japanese government consistently put forward a discourse of minimal or no radiation-related dangers, a gradual bringing home of former evacuees, a restarting of nuclear power plants, and the promotion of a resilient mindset in the face of adversity. This narrative worked to counter other understandings of recovery, such as those of worried citizens unsuccessfully fighting for permanent evacuation because they were afraid to go back to their homes.
Providing a rich theorization of how both governments and citizens shape narratives about catastrophic events, Radioactive Governance not only displays how Fukushima became a story of hope and resilience rather than of victimization, but also how radioactive governance shifted from the nuclear secrecy that characterized the Cold War era to relying on international organizations and domestic citizens to co-manage the aftermath of disasters.
What does this political moment in our country call for? The MAGA president and right-wing Supreme Court are shredding the Constitution at lightning speed, with the full acquiescence of Trump’s merry band of sycophants in Congress. Masked men are kidnapping people off the streets, disappearing them to detention centers across the country, and deporting them to countries our State Department warns travelers not to visit. Meanwhile, protesters against this lawlessness are attacked by federal troops with “less-lethal” weapons.
An estimated 7 million peaceful protesters took to the streets on October 18, in the second-largest demonstration in US history (after the first Earth Day in 1970), demanding accountability and a return to democracy and the rule of law. In a system of government where citizens can only use the ballot box every two to six years to show how they feel about their electeds, that’s something you’d think would warrant journalistic attention.
Yet at the nation’s paper of record—whose headquarters sat literally a stone’s throw away from the New York City No Kings march route—the protest was deemed not important enough for a front-page story. Two small below-the-fold photos were offered instead (10/19/25), with the accompanying article buried on page 23.
It’s true that the New York Times has a history of downplaying protests (FAIR.org, 9/24/25, 9/12/25, 1/25/24). But it’s also true that it’s only certain kinds of protests that they downplay. When right-wingers under the banner of the Tea Party movement held in 2009 what the Times (9/12/09) described as “the largest rally against President [Barack] Obama since he took office,” they drew a crowd two orders of magnitude smaller than No Kings, but its coverage got the same placement from the paper: front-page photo, article inside. Just one month after the Tea Party rally, a major LGBTQ march of equal or possibly even double the size was not noted on the paper’s front page at all (Extra!, 12/09).
The Times isn’t exactly an outlier in that respect; nearly all corporate media have a long history of downplaying major protests over women’s rights, war, genocide and the climate crisis, while offering much more ink and airtime to right-wing rallies like the Promise Keepers and the Tea Party.
But the Times deserves special attention—partly because it’s seen as the standard-bearing “liberal” newspaper in the country. And as the standard-bearer, it sees its role as establishing the ideological boundaries of the Democratic Party, most notably by drawing the line in the sand on the left that the Democrats must not cross. And this in turn is why, two days after the massive pro-democracy marches, the New York Times editorial board published a forceful message of its own—not against fascism, but against progressivism.
‘The center is the way to win’
In both its news and opinion sections, year after year, the New York Times‘ mantra has been that for electoral success, Democrats have to move to the right, and any electoral losses must be caused by excessive progressivism (Extra!, 7–8/06; FAIR.org, 5/27/15, 7/6/17, 11/14/19, 7/16/21). In a sprawling new iteration of this “move to the center” motto, the paper’s editorial board (10/20/25) announced: “The Partisans Are Wrong: Moving to the Center Is the Way to Win.”
The piece frames itself as talking to “partisans,” but it makes only the faintest nods to Republicans, and the last 2,000 of its 3,000-odd words are directly targeting Democrats. It opens:
American politics today can seem to be dominated by extremes. President Trump is carrying out far-right policies, while some of the country’s highest-profile Democrats identify as democratic socialists. Moderation sometimes feels outdated.
You could probably just stop right there, based on the absurdity of comparing the “extremes” of Trump’s unprecedented authoritarianism to democratic socialist Democrats. New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, the highest-profile of the latter at the moment (and certainly top of mind for the city’s largest newspaper), has focused his campaign on freezing the rent, making city buses free and adding 2% to the tax bills of the wealthiest 1%……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Captured by elites
The example the Times offers of how moving to the center will make Democrats more “credible” and “effective” in confronting Trump is that “most voters disapprove of Mr. Trump’s immigration policies—and nonetheless trust his party on the issue more than they trust Democrats.” A more “moderate” position on immigration would make Democrats better able to “combat” him on the issue
But when the Times itself calls Biden’s immigration policies “lax”—when they were far more cruel and draconian than any recent president besides Trump—and frames them as the other side of the extremist coin to Trump’s “cruel immigration enforcement,” it shapes that public perception. It’s hardly a surprise that many voters think the Democrats are “too liberal,” when that’s what all of the country’s biggest news outlets have hammered into their heads for decades.
In fact, a recent poll shows that the Times‘ advice is fundamentally self-defeating. The paper is correct that Democrats’ approval ratings are abysmal, and also that some polls show voters say Democrats are “too left wing and too focused on niche issues.” But those polls give respondents prewritten choices, suggesting to them what the appropriate answer might be, which can skew responses. What happens if you ask voters directly what they think about the party, and let them fill in the blanks themselves? A recent poll of Rust Belt (read: swing state) voters did just that, and analyzed the unprompted answers. Here’s what they found (Jacobin, 10/15/25):
Contrary to many analyses that have blamed Democrats for holding extreme positions on social and cultural issues that alienated swing voters, the dominant theme we observed was voters’ anger at the Democratic Party for failing to deliver. Among Democratic and independent respondents, the most common critique of the Democratic Party was its perceived inability to carry out policies that help ordinary people.
………………………. And what happens when you ask them directly about progressive policies? Turns out that, on many issues, voters are much more progressive than the Times would have readers believe. Polls regularly show large majorities in favor of a wealth tax, a $15 or higher minimum wage, and Medicare for All, all key progressive demands that corporate media regularly lambaste.
Anti-democratic power grab
Equally important, the Times‘ argument imagines that a Democratic push to the center can overcome the structural obstacles to competitive elections that this authoritarian movement is rapidly laying down. Trump and his allies are working furiously to undermine election integrity for their own benefit, using a variety of strategies that the Brennan Center for Justice (8/3/25) details:
attempting to rewrite election rules to burden voters and usurp control of election systems;
targeting or threatening to target election officials and others who keep elections free and fair;
supporting people who undermine election administration; and
retreating from the federal government’s role of protecting voters and the election process.
GOP-controlled states are ramming through new gerrymandered maps at Trump’s behest to generate more safe seats. And the Voting Rights Act is currently before a Supreme Court that seems eager to eviscerate what little remains of it, which would allow further gerrymandering to give the GOP up to 19 more House seats.
Will it be possible in 2026 for Democrats to win at the ballot box, regardless of ideology? That’s very much up for debate. It certainly appears to be Trump’s goal to make it impossible, no matter how popular Democratic candidates might be.
Yet nowhere in its lengthy tirade against progressives does the Times mention this anti-democratic electoral power grab. It’s a key omission, and it brings us back to the paper’s downplaying of the No Kings protests. The Times in its editorial laments that Trump “threatens American democracy,” but it imagines the ship can be righted by retaking Congress with centrist Democrats.
If the Democrats have shown us anything under Trump 2.0, it’s that seeking to moderate and accommodate—as they did in confirming his extremist cabinet nominees and failing to block his first continuing resolution in the spring—only gives Trump and his enablers more power. Stopping the authoritarian machine is going to require all the levers of democracy that can be pulled—not just at the ballot box, but also on the streets. https://fair.org/home/as-millions-march-against-fascism-nyt-warns-against-progressives/
Malcolm Ferguson (New Republic, 10/22/25): “It should alarm every American that the defense secretary is making an effort to fill the press corps with people who will never hold him accountable.”
When the Pentagon announced that reporters would only be credentialed if they pledged not to report on documents not expressly released by official press handlers, free press advocates, including FAIR (9/23/25), denounced the directive as an assault on the First Amendment.
The impact of this rule cannot be understated—any reporter agreeing to such terms is essentially a deputized public relations lackey.
Many journalists, thankfully, displayed solidarity with each other and the idea of a free press when they resisted the state’s new censorship efforts. “Dozens of reporters turned in access badges and exited the Pentagon…rather than agree to government-imposed restrictions on their work,” reported the AP (10/15/25).
A flyer with the words “journalism is not a crime” appeared Tuesday on the wall outside the “Correspondents’ Corridor” where journalists operate at the Pentagon. It was a silent protest of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s new policy that severely restricts press access.
The policy criminalizes routine reporting, according to media lawyers and advocates, so news outlets are refusing to abide by it. Instead, they are giving up their access to the building, while vowing to continue thoroughly covering Hegseth and the military from outside the Pentagon’s five walls.
Reuters (10/15/25) noted that it and at least 30 other outlets refused to sign the pledge, citing the others:
Associated Press, Bloomberg News, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, CBS, NBC, ABC, NPR, Axios, Politico, the Guardian, the Atlantic, The Hill, Newsmax, Breaking Defense and Task & Purpose.
Good on these outlets for showing some spine against an administration for whom anti-media bellicosity has been a central feature of its authoritarian impulse. It’s a sign that perhaps at least some of them can toughen up against the administration’s threats against democratic and constitutional order. Even some outlets on the right–Murdoch properties Fox News and Wall Street Journal, and Christopher Ruddy’s Newsmax–declined to be part of Hegseth’s captive news corps.
‘The new Pentagon press corps’
However, the Pentagon is touting the success of its draconian order. “Today, the Department of War is announcing the next generation of the Pentagon press corps,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced on X (10/22/25):
Over 60 journalists, representing a broad spectrum of new media outlets and independent journalists, have signed the Pentagon’s media access policy and will be joining the new Pentagon press corps….
New media outlets and independent journalists have created the formula to circumvent the lies of the mainstream media and get real news directly to the American people. Their reach and impact collectively are far more effective and balanced than the self-righteous media who chose to self-deport from the Pentagon. Americans have largely abandoned digesting their news through the lens of activists who masquerade as journalists in the mainstream media. We look forward to beginning a fresh relationship with members of the new Pentagon press corps.
In fact, this “broad spectrum” of outlets represents the fringes of the right, including One America Network, Epoch Times, Gateway Pundit, Human Events, LindellTV, Frontlines and the National Pulse (New York Times, 10/22/25).
These outlets are old and new. Human Events shaped its worldview in early Cold War nationalism. Frontlines is a project of the late Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA. LindellTV is the brainchild of MyPillow CEO and 2020 election denialist Mike Lindell (Guardian, 5/4/25; BBC, 6/19/25).
The Times quoted LindellTV bragging about its elevation into the halls of power in twisted, Orwellian speak: “We are officially part of the new Pentagon press corps, this is a major win for free speech and real journalism.”
The Gateway Pundit blog has been around since 2004, long enough to have pushed birther conspiracy theories before it promoted 2020 stolen election theories. National Pulse (slogan: “radically independent”) is more recent, founded and edited by a former chief advisor to British far-right leader Nigel Farage.
One America Network, which FAIR founder Jeff Cohen observed “makes Fox News sound like Democracy Now!,” was founded in 2013 so that AT&T could add a second right-wing network to its DirecTV platform (FAIR.org, 10/15/21). Epoch Times is affiliated with China’s Falun Gong movement, and comes to its Trumpy politics through Chinese anti-Communism.
Conspiracy outlet InfoWars—famous for losing a $1.4 billion defamation judgement for falsely stating the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was faked (Reuters, 10/14/25), as well as something about chemicals turning frogs gay (InfoWars, 8/28/24)—is also reportedly in the revamped press pool. “Breanna Morello is responsible for covering the Pentagon on behalf of Infowars and will do so from outside of DC,” the Hill (10/23/25) reported.
‘Maximum lethality
This new directive didn’t come about in a vacuum; the Pentagon is closing its doors to the press, and by extension the rest of the public, at a time of ramping up violence off the coasts of South America (AP, 10/22/25) and elsewhere. Hegseth couldn’t have been clearer in his recent speech to the military’s top officers when he said the Pentagon’s only mission was “warfighting, preparing for war and preparing to win, unrelenting and uncompromising in that pursuit,” highlighting a focus on “common sense, maximum lethality and authority for warfighters.”
President Donald Trump, despite his claims of ending wars (CNN, 10/17/25), is certainly acting like he wants more war in the future, a crucial development for the public. “Trump Beats the Drums of War for Direct Action in Venezuela,” rang a headline in the Washington Post (10/22/25), with the subhead:
The administration has surged warships, planes and troops to the Caribbean for drug interdiction. Some see the ultimate goal as toppling Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
The Trump administration has already carried out attacks on Iran (Axios, 6/22/25) and Yemen (BBC, 4/18/25). And the administration “continues to expand troop deployments to US cities, escalating a campaign to assert military power at home with little precedent in US history” (Bloomberg, 10/6/25).
The Economist (10/23/25) warned that the Trump administration, which has invoked cartel violence to justify the president’s lethal hostility toward Venezuela (Center for Strategic and International Studies, 10/3/25), was turning the War on Drugs into a full-scale, international military campaign with little restraint. The magazine said:
Past presidents have also stretched their powers to wage wars and even to start them. Indeed, Mr. Trump is gesturing at precedents they set. But “this administration is going further, and going further with less public, detailed defense of what they’re doing,” says Peter Feaver, a political scientist at Duke University. “I think the biggest difference is that Congress is not holding this administration to account in the way that they did even to Trump 1.0, let alone to Biden and to Bush.”
Just because Mr. Trump has labeled some migrants and even leftist opponents as “terrorists” does not mean he will use the armed forces against them. But right now, it’s not clear what, besides his own inclinations, might prevent him.
This new loyalty pledge has now chipped away at another restraint: the press. It is true, as many FAIR readers know, that the Pentagon has sold wars to the public through the establishment media without these draconian credentialing pledges (Extra!, 1–2/90, 11–12/90, 7–8/99; FAIR.org, 3/19/07). However, what we are likely to see now is an army of meme-obsessed, MAGA sycophants posing as independent journalists obediently copy-and-pasting Pentagon press releases into articles, selling an imperialist agenda to the president’s right-wing, nationalist base. That’s chilling news for those of us living here, and for any country that might sit in the crosshairs of the Trump administration’s imperial ambitions.
There is some hope that military reporters will continue to do their jobs and receive information from the inside via channels that exist outside the actual walls of the Pentagon. Atlantic correspondent Nancy Youseff (10/15/25), one of the recently departed from the official pool, said “mid-level troops have been reaching out to me, unsolicited, and promising that they would keep providing journalists with information” in order to “uphold the values embedded in the Constitution.”
If legacy publications are truly horrified by these developments, they will get more creative in their methods of reporting when it comes to the Pentagon’s advances. That can result in more critical and less obedient coverage of the war machine, which would be a good thing, for once.
The awarding of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuelan far-right leader María Corina Machado took nearly everyone by surprise (with the exception of insiders who apparently used advance knowledge to profit on betting markets—New York Times, 10/10/25).
The Nobel Committee justified the award on the basis of Machado’s “tireless work promoting democratic rights” and “her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.” However, Machado’s track record paints a very different picture (Sovereign Media, 10/11/25; Venezuelanalysis, 7/8/24).
Whitewashed profiles
The Nobel Prize meant corporate outlets had to give their readers an idea of Machado’s political trajectory. And though some had profile pieces (Reuters, 10/10/25; New York Times, 10/10/25), there was a concerted effort to conceal the most unsavory elements. The Financial Times (10/10/25) euphemistically stated that Machado “enter[ed] politics in opposition to Hugo Chávez”—president of Venezuela from 1999 through 2013—while the Guardian (10/10/25) summed up that she has been “involved in politics for more than two decades.”
No establishment outlet mentioned Machado’s first relevant political action: supporting the short-lived April 2002 coup against the Chávez government, and signing the infamous “Carmona Decree.” In one fell swoop, this decree did away with all democratically elected institutions, annulled the 1999 Constitution, and established a de facto dictatorship headed by the leader of Venezuela’s corporate business lobby. Machado later denied signing the decree, though her name appeared on a list published by Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Machado has gone as far as to cheerlead the Trump administration extrajudicially executing her fellow citizens, arguing that the lethal US strikes in the Caribbean, which have killed at least 30 people, are “saving lives, not only Venezuelan lives, but also life of American people” (Daily Beast, 10/10/25).
But it is not just Machado using her new platform to promote US military intervention. The Washington Post editorial board (10/10/25) openly expressed that US interests would be “better served” with a “reliable American partner” like Machado. True to form, the Wall Street Journal (10/10/25, 10/12/25) also used Machado’s award to double down on calls for Trump to bomb Venezuela in the name of “freedom” and “democracy.”
The warmonger lineup was complete with the New York Times’ Bret Stephens (10/10/25), who never needs excuses to endorse the murder of Venezuelans in the name of US interests (FAIR.org, 2/12/25). In this case, Stephens claimed that regime change is the only option to address the “catastrophe of Chavismo,” even if it means “full-scale military confrontation.”
The Nobel Peace Prize has long lost any credibility when it comes to upholding actual peace. With Machado’s award, it followed a recent tradition of aligning itself with Western foreign policy. And even more predictable was the corporate media seizing the opportunity to advance its war and regime-change propaganda against Venezuela. https://fair.org/home/western-media-use-peace-prize-to-fuel-war-propaganda/
the media unceasingly grant Israel space to present deceitful arguments as credible, without ever emphasizing that Hamas is not the one that is dropping 153 tons of bombs in one day during a supposed “ceasefire.”
In the ten days following the implementation of the ostensible truce, the Israeli military reportedly killed at least 97 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 230, violating the ceasefire agreement no fewer than 80 times. One might have expected, then, to see a headline or two along the lines of, I dunno, “Israel Violates Ceasefire”—or maybe “So Much for ‘Peace’ in Gaza.”
No such headlines turned up in the Western corporate media—not that there weren’t some pretty spectacular violations to choose from. On October 17, for example, 11 members of the Abu Shaaban family, including seven children and three women, were blasted to bits in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighborhood while attempting to reach their home. According to the Israelis, the family’s vehicle had trespassed over the so-called “yellow line,” the invisible boundary arbitrarily demarcating the more than 50% of Gazan territory still occupied by the genocidal army.
Then on October 19, Israel bombed the living daylights out of central and southern Gaza and killed dozens after alleging a ceasefire violation by Hamas—an allegation that not even Trump found convincing, but that enabled such impressively passive headlines as “Strikes Hit Gaza After Truce Violations Alleged” (Guardian, 10/19/25). Once the carnage was complete, the BBC (10/19/25) assured readers that “Israel Says It Will Return to Ceasefire After Gaza Strikes.” For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed the Knesset that the Israeli military had dropped 153 tons of bombs on Gaza during this particular, um, pause in the ceasefire.
While most media outlets consistently describe the ceasefire as “fragile” (NBC News, 10/20/25) and “delicate” (ABC News, 10/20/25), they somehow can’t bring themselves to state the obvious: If you don’t cease firing, it’s not a ceasefire. Of course, the refusal to call a spade a spade should perhaps come as no surprise from an industry that continues to peddle the narrative of a “ceasefire” in Lebanon despite acknowledging “near-daily strikes” (New York Times, 7/9/25) on the country by Israel and the killing of some 250 people in the first seven months following the truce declaration last Novemberin the first seven months following the truce declaration last November.
‘Both sides have accused the other’
There is also the pernicious media tendency of allowing equal weight to ceasefire breach allegations by Israel and Hamas given the former’s mendacious—not to mention genocidal—track record. This mendaciousness has been on display for decades, most prominently in Israel’s eternal claim to be fighting “terrorists”—a fight that somehow never fails to kill thousands upon thousands of civilians; at least 20,000 of those killed in the latest two-year showdown were children, with a whole lot more presumed to be buried beneath the rubble. In the episode involving the Abu Shaaban family, the Israelis invoked a typicallie from their vast arsenal: a “suspicious vehicle” had approached Israeli troops “in a way that caused an imminent threat to them”—so they killed the family, and that was that.
And yet the media unceasingly grant Israel space to present deceitful arguments as credible, without ever emphasizing that Hamas is not the one that is dropping 153 tons of bombs in one day during a supposed “ceasefire.”
Case in point: an NBC News dispatch (10/19/25) titled “Israel and Hamas trade accusations of ceasefire violations,” in which we are told that “both sides have accused the other of violating the terms of the deal.” The next sentence outlines Israel’s primary ongoing gripe regarding Hamas’s alleged ceasefire transgressions: “Israel says Hamas is delaying the release of the bodies of hostages held inside Gaza, while Hamas says it will take time to search for and recover remains.”
In accordance with the ceasefire agreement, Hamas promptly returned all living hostages in its possession to Israel, and it has returned the remains of several more. But the group has said it is unable to recover the remaining bodies because they lie under formidable quantities of rubble, thanks to Israel’s recent pulverization of the enclave. Rather than allowing the necessary machinery into Gaza to assist with excavating the remains that Israel so urgently demands, Netanyahu has instead announced that the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt will remain closed until Hamas “fulfills” its part of the deal.
Any logical observer might conclude that Israel is actively endeavoring to sabotage the “ceasefire.” But the corporate media are not in the business of logical observation. In its writeup, titled “Hamas Returns Bodies as Fragile Gaza Ceasefire Holds,” the Financial Times presents as entirely legitimate an arrangement in which “Israeli officials have accused Hamas of returning the bodies too slowly, and threatened to limit the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza in an effort to pressure the militant group to accelerate the returns” (10/19/25).
Anyway, nothing to see here: just some more casual enforced starvation and illegal aid deprivation in an already famine-stricken territory. It’s all in a day’s work during a “fragile ceasefire.”
Ceasefire ‘holding’?
In the aftermath of the Abu Shaaban family massacre, CNN reported (10/17/25) that the ceasefire was “holding”—albeit not without “coming under strain,” naming as the first culprit the “failure of Hamas to return all the bodies.” The question of the return of the bodies occupied the first 10 paragraphs of the piece, so that when CNN also named “the initially slow entry of aid” into Gaza and the “continued, if isolated, incidents of killings of Palestinians in Israeli strikes” as contributing to the “strain,” it had already been made clear to the reader which facet of the alleged violations was the most important.
The next day, NBC News employed a similarly diplomatic approach to Israel’s ongoing lethal operations, noting that “even as the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel holds, Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces” (10/18/25). Again, the media are apparently incapable of coming right out and stating that Israel has unequivocally violated the ceasefire, or that a ceasefire is not a ceasefire if one side is permitted to engage in continued slaughter.
According to the delusions of the Washington Post (10/15/25), meanwhile, Israel is “largely restrained from attacking Hamas under the ceasefire sponsored by Trump,” resulting in a situation in which “Hamas’s enduring grip has significant implications for the future of Gaza and President Donald Trump’s peace plan.” As usual, Israel is let off the hook for its campaign to literally annihilate Gaza’s future.
And yet this particular intervention by the Post is at least less batshit crazy than another one courtesy of columnist George F. Will (10/13/25), who has determined that “primary credit for the Gaza ceasefire” goes to the Israeli army and Netanyahu.
I would advise anyone with blood pressure problems to avoid so much as glancing at the column in question, but the gist of his argument is basically that genocide was a “necessary precondition for the cessation of warfare.” (Secondary credit goes to the US for “enabl[ing] Israel’s victory by not restraining its self-defense.”) It would seem, of course, that not launching a genocide in the first place might be an easier way to avoid warfare—a “cessation” of which has not been achieved in Gaza anyway.
“Greatest threat” to peace?
Indeed, while most corporate media commentary is not as transparently deranged as Will’s, there persists the notion that it is Hamas, not Israel, that is the greatest obstacle to peace—see, for instance, CNN‘s (10/17/25) “Why Hamas Remains the Greatest Threat to Trump’s Gaza Plan.” When Reuters (10/19/25) listed the “formidable obstacles to Trump’s plan to end the war,” it named “Hamas disarming, the governance of Gaza, the make-up of an international ‘stabilization force,’ and moves towards the creation of a Palestinian state” that have yet to be resolved. Notice which actor is missing.
A typical Associated Press dispatch (10/13/25) headlined “Despite Momentous Ceasefire, the Path for Lasting Peace and Rebuilding in Gaza Is Precipitous” explains that “how and when Hamas is to disarm, and where its arms will go, are unclear, as are plans for Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza.” Never do such articles find the need to point out that Israel is a state whose very existence is predicated on ethnic cleansing and perpetual war—or to cite such relevant findings as the determination by a United Nations commission of inquiry that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.
The Genocide Convention defines the phenomenon as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” Such acts include “killing members of the group,” “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group,” and “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
The inconceivable bodily and mental devastation that Israel has deliberately inflicted on the people of Gaza clearly continues despite Trump’s announcement that the war in Gaza is “over.” And as Israel continues to violate the so-called “ceasefire” while attempting to redirect blame to justify its own unceasing aggression, the media’s lack of scrutiny only abets those violations.
But more damning is the complete erasure of Machado’s outspoken support for Israel, even amidst the recent genocide. Venezuela’s far-right leader has repeatedlypraised Israel’s defense of “Western values” and “freedom,” while her party established an alliance with Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud in 2020. In 2018, Machado penned a letter to the Israeli prime minister, asking him to lead a foreign intervention to “dismantle the criminal Venezuelan regime.”
The awarding of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuelan far-right leader María Corina Machado took nearly everyone by surprise (with the exception of insiders who apparently used advance knowledge to profit on betting markets—New York Times, 10/10/25).
The Nobel Committee justified the award on the basis of Machado’s “tireless work promoting democratic rights” and “her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.” However, Machado’s track record paints a very different picture (Sovereign Media, 10/11/25; Venezuelanalysis, 7/8/24).
Rather than scrutinize the opposition politician’s credentials, the media establishment seized the opportunity to whitewash the most unpeaceful elements in her background in order to advance its cynical pro–regime change agenda targeting Venezuela’s socialist government (FAIR.org, 2/12/25, 1/11/23, 6/13/22, 4/15/20). Not coincidentally, Machado’s award coincided with an escalation of US military threats against Venezuela, meaning that corporate pundits used a “peace” prize as a platform for war propaganda.
Whitewashed profiles
The Nobel Prize meant corporate outlets had to give their readers an idea of Machado’s political trajectory. And though some had profile pieces (Reuters, 10/10/25; New York Times, 10/10/25), there was a concerted effort to conceal the most unsavory elements. The Financial Times (10/10/25) euphemistically stated that Machado “enter[ed] politics in opposition to Hugo Chávez”—president of Venezuela from 1999 through 2013—while the Guardian (10/10/25) summed up that she has been “involved in politics for more than two decades.”
No establishment outlet mentioned Machado’s first relevant political action: supporting the short-lived April 2002 coup against the Chávez government, and signing the infamous “Carmona Decree.” In one fell swoop, this decree did away with all democratically elected institutions, annulled the 1999 Constitution, and established a de facto dictatorship headed by the leader of Venezuela’s corporate business lobby. Machado later denied signing the decree, though her name appeared on a list published by Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional.
Looking past the undemocratic debut, establishment journalists instead started the story with the mid-2002 creation of Súmate, calling it an NGO dedicated to election monitoring or transparency (Bloomberg, 10/10/25; Washington Post, 10/10/25; Reuters, 10/10/25; New York Times, 10/10/25). Yet they did not mention that this alleged quest to safeguard democracy was funded by the US, or that the opposition made unfounded fraud claims after failing to unseat Chávez in a 2004 recall referendum (Venezuelanalysis, 8/21/04, 9/9/04).
Machado’s second act was also the antithesis of peace and democracy, as the opposition politician led the 2014 “La Salida” (“The Exit”) campaign of street violence to overthrow the Nicolás Maduro administration, leaving dozens dead. That same year, in order to denounce the Venezuelan government, she acted as an “alternate ambassador” for Panama at a meeting of the Organization of American States (BBC, 3/25/15). The stunt led to Machado losing her parliamentary seat.
Yet instead of scrutinizing the new laureate’s less-than-peaceful actions, corporate outlets chose to ignore or misrepresent them as “denouncing the regime’s abuses” (Washington Post, 10/10/25), “participating in anti-regime protests” (New York Times, 10/10/25) or “allegations she’d tried to foment a coup” (Bloomberg, 10/10/25). Only the Associated Press (10/10/25) offered a minimal concession that the Machado-led “anti-government protests…at times turned violent.”
Another key aspect of the opposition operator’s political career has been outspoken advocacy for US sanctions, which have caused economic devastation and led to tens of thousands of deaths (CEPR, 4/25/19). But Western media ignored Machado’s lobbying for collective punishment of the Venezuelan people—with the New York Times (10/16/25) a notable exception.
The US-backed figure has also made no secret of her plans to repress her political opponents. Machado is on the record making thinly veiled threats to “eradicate socialism,” and pledging to “neutralize” destabilizing groups should she eventually take power. Factoring in the Venezuelan far right’s history of racist violence (Venezuelanalysis, 3/28/14, 7/30/17), it is not unreasonable to predict a dirty war against Chavistas if Machado ever reached Miraflores.
The company you keep
The reporting on the Nobel Peace Prize plainly described Machado as belonging to the Venezuelan opposition, but few outlets bothered to disclose her political views, apart from euphemistically labeling her a “conservative” (New York Times, 10/10/25; Guardian, 10/10/25) or a supporter of “economic liberalism” (New York Times, 10/16/25; Reuters, 10/10/25).
Machado has heaped praise on far-right former presidents Álvaro Uribe of Colombia, who was responsible for serious human rights violations, and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, who tried to foment a coup.
In February, Machado sent a video message during a “Patriots for Europe” summit, calling for far-right leaders’ support and openly referring to them as “allies.” The high-profile gathering featured neo-fascist parties like Spain’s Vox, Italy’s Lega and France’s Rassemblement National (RN). The same media establishment that paints the likes of Hungary’s Viktor Orban as a threat to democracy (Guardian, 2/7/25; NPR, 4/22/25) chose to ignore Machado’s quite open alignment with his politics.
But more damning is the complete erasure of Machado’s outspoken support for Israel, even amidst the recent genocide. Venezuela’s far-right leader has repeatedlypraised Israel’s defense of “Western values” and “freedom,” while her party established an alliance with Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud in 2020. In 2018, Machado penned a letter to the Israeli prime minister, asking him to lead a foreign intervention to “dismantle the criminal Venezuelan regime.”
At a time when the US/Israeli genocide in Palestine has sparked outrage around the world, no corporate outlet found it relevant to mention that this year’s “peace” laureate did not utter a single word of condemnation. On the contrary, according to Netanyahu himself, Machado told the prime minister she “appreciates” his “resolute” actions in a recent congratulatory phone call. Unsurprisingly, only Reuters (10/17/25) briefly reported on the Nobel laureate’s war criminal ally.
Beating the war drums
The media establishment’s careful whitewashing of Machado’s undemocratic past and genocidal allies is particularly damning, given the present context of a US military buildup and overt threats against Venezuela. One of the US-backed politician’s most persistent habits has been calling for a foreign intervention against her country (Sovereign Media, 10/11/25).
In the wake of her peace prize, Machado has wasted no time in lobbying for violent regime change. In a BBC interview (10/11/25), she argued that Venezuela needs to be “liberated” via a “coordination of internal and external forces,” an expression she also used in an interview with El País (10/10/25)
Borrowing a page from US administration’s book of redefining concepts such as “imminent threat” or “civilian,” Machado bombastically claimed that the Maduro government “has declared a war” against the Venezuelan people, and urged Trump to help her side “win” this war (BBC, 10/11/25; Infobae, 10/11/25; CNN, 10/15/25). The opposition leader has latched onto the administration’s “narcoterrorism” fairy tale that has been debunked over the years (FAIR.org, 9/24/19; Venezuelanalysis, 9/2/25), just like she supported the White House’s Tren de Aragua narrative, even if it meant a gruesome crackdown against Venezuelan migrants.
Machado has gone as far as to cheerlead the Trump administration extrajudicially executing her fellow citizens, arguing that the lethal US strikes in the Caribbean, which have killed at least 30 people, are “saving lives, not only Venezuelan lives, but also life of American people” (Daily Beast, 10/10/25).
But it is not just Machado using her new platform to promote US military intervention. The Washington Post editorial board (10/10/25) openly expressed that US interests would be “better served” with a “reliable American partner” like Machado. True to form, the Wall Street Journal (10/10/25, 10/12/25) also used Machado’s award to double down on calls for Trump to bomb Venezuela in the name of “freedom” and “democracy.”
The warmonger lineup was complete with the New York Times’ Bret Stephens (10/10/25), who never needs excuses to endorse the murder of Venezuelans in the name of US interests (FAIR.org, 2/12/25). In this case, Stephens claimed that regime change is the only option to address the “catastrophe of Chavismo,” even if it means “full-scale military confrontation.”
The Nobel Peace Prize has long lost any credibility when it comes to upholding actual peace. With Machado’s award, it followed a recent tradition of aligning itself with Western foreign policy. And even more predictable was the corporate media seizing the opportunity to advance its war and regime-change propaganda against Venezuela.
New book, No To Nuclear, delivers serious anti-nuclear messages with a little fun as well.
Linda Pentz Gunter, Oct 23, 2025
On October 18, the people of the United States came out in record numbers to protest the presidency of Donald Trump and his unacceptable descent into dictatorship. No Kings day saw seven million people on US streets across the country, many in costume — whether the now ubiquitous inflatable frogs, Tyrannosauruses against Tyranny or your favorite ‘Aunt Tifa’.
My book will be published next March by Pluto Press but you are encouraged to pre-order your copies now using this form.
In it, I describe the defiance of French anti-nuclear activists in a country that has a long history of often colorful rebellion. Sometimes it’s human “owls” residing in trees under threat at a proposed nuclear waste site. Or stubborn goats, “hard-headed activists” proclaiming their “right to graze in peace” rather than see their pastures plowed up for another nuclear fuel pool at the La Hague reprocessing center. At every turn, the French deliver “considerable numbers, abundant creativity — and sometimes a lot of useful tractors as well.”
It’s a reminder that even though our task to eliminate nuclear power and nuclear weapons can sometimes — even often — feel insurmountable, it’s important to inspire and uplift, just as the millions who protested No Kings last weekend did to their own spirits and that of countless others.
No To Nuclear is intended to provide a chapter-by-chapter indictment of nuclear power (and its connection to nuclear weapons), debunking the mythology around both sectors. There is a lot of serious material in those 220-plus pages and it’s heavily focused on the persistent human right violations by every aspect of the nuclear complex. But I hope some of the stories will bring a smile, too, along with a hefty dose of optimism that we will win this one in the end.
If you’d like to set up a book event in person or online, please contact me at linda@beyondnuclear.org. Thank you! Linda Pentz Gunter
‘Our world is combustible’: Kathryn Bigelow on AI, Andy Warhol and nuclear Armageddon
The record-breaking Oscar winner explains how her new film, A House of Dynamite – starring Idris Elba as the US president – is rooted in her cold war childhood and the urgent threats we all face todayFri 17 Oct 2025 15.00 AEDTShare
Kathryn Bigelow has been thinking about death: hers, and mine, and yours as well. History will always remember her as the first woman to win a best director Oscar, which she did in 2010 for The Hurt Locker. But in her new film, A House of Dynamite, history may not have long to run. It is the story of a nuclear missile, launched at an American city. The rest is about what happens next. Bigelow would like you to consider Armageddon.
“Someone I know said the bomb for the audience is realising this is possible,” she says. She smiles. “I’m glad if people come away from the movie as concerned as I am.”
Today, though, her bearing is Zen. Almost six feet and wearing tinted sunglasses, she looks like a rock star, and younger than 73. Her own memories of the nuclear era stretch back to the early 1960s, and a cold-war childhood in California. School involved “duck and cover” drills, teaching kids to stay safe in a nuclear attack. “I grew up hiding under my desk. Of course, I was too young to understand what I was doing down there.”
A House of Dynamite is a belated answer. Bigelow’s previous movie, Detroit, was a 60s true story, an account of racist police violence. Now she is back in the period she most likes making films about: right now. It is an age of ironies. On our phones, nothing is beyond the pale, and everything makes us furious. And all, she says, while ignoring a nuclear stockpile able to render our online dramas irrelevant. “It’s the one thing we never mention, much less question. It’s crickets out there. It isn’t on TikTok, so it doesn’t exist.”
The movie, then, reminds us of a terrifying fact of life. “Our world is combustible. And it’s extraordinary to me how that ever became normalised.”
The cast includes Rebecca Ferguson as a White House security analyst and Idris Elba as the US president. Rich with closely researched detail, the film shows us the same nightmare experienced by multiple characters. Who fired the missile is never clear. Retaliatory strikes are still prepared. The film does exactly what its director intends. It makes everything else you might be thinking about feel absolutely trivial……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
She says she sees a clear relationship between her hot potato films of the past 20 years and her new one. K-19 left her haunted by nuclear ghosts. Then, while others had their say about her, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty sharpened her self-image as a film-maker adjacent to journalism. “The films start with my own curiosity, and then there’s a desire to provide access to information the public doesn’t have that I think might be important.”
The other link, of course, is the military. A retired three-star general acted as a consultant on A House of Dynamite. She points out she has never sought endorsement from the Pentagon. Indeed, the story is more than sceptical about the accepted wisdom of mutually assured destruction – and the billions spent maintaining it. “Our nuclear armoury is a fallible structure,” Bigelow says. “Within it are men and women working thanklessly behind the scenes, whose competence means you and I can sit and have this conversation. But competence doesn’t mean they’re infallible.”……………………………………………………………………… https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oct/17/kathryn-bigelow-ai-andy-warhol-nuclear-armageddon-a-house-of-dynamite
The Atlantic, Associated Press, Breaking Defense, CNN, Defense One, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Hill, The New York Times, NPR, Newsmax, Politico, Reuters, Task & Purpose, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Examiner, The Washington Post, and The Washington Times all announced that they would not agree to the policy. (Media outlets had until 5 p.m. on October 14 or else they would likely lose access to the Pentagon.)
Nearly all media organizations refused to sign a censorship policy at the Pentagon that imposes greater control over credentialed reporters and the information that they publish.
The policy, championed by Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth, was first proposed in mid-September. It resulted in an immediate backlash because the policy required reporters to pledge not to share any military information, including unclassified information, unless that information is officially approved for release.
On October 6, the Pentagon revised the policy [PDF]. It changed to “military members” must seek approval from an “appropriate authorizing official” before releasing information to the press. However, the department added, “Any solicitation of [military] personnel to commit criminal acts would not be considered protected activity under the 1st Amendment.”
The Atlantic, Associated Press, Breaking Defense, CNN, Defense One, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Hill, The New York Times, NPR, Newsmax, Politico, Reuters, Task & Purpose, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Examiner, The Washington Post, and The Washington Times all announced that they would not agree to the policy. (Media outlets had until 5 p.m. on October 14 or else they would likely lose access to the Pentagon.) ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… https://thedissenter.org/media-refuse-to-sign-up-as-propagandists-for-trumps-pentagon/
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