Jen Psaki highlighted the amount of evidence that came from Trump, Dana Bash sparred with Rep. Jim Jordan, and Bill Barr offered a blunt assessment. Email not displaying correctly?
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** OPINION
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Good morning, everyone. Tom Jones is on vacation, but the team at Poynter is keeping tabs on the latest media news and analysis. Here’s what you need to know today.


** One topic dominated the Sunday news shows: Trump’s indictment
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Former President Donald Trump speaks during the North Carolina Republican Party Convention in Greensboro, N.C., June 10, 2023. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)

This week’s Sunday morning news shows largely focused on one topic: the federal indictment of former President Donald Trump over his handling of classified documents.

News broke Thursday night that Trump will face charges over taking classified documents to Mar-a-Lago after he left office and then obstructing the government from getting them back. On Friday, the Department of Justice released the unsealed federal indictment, with 37 felony counts related to the mishandling of classified documents, obstructing justice and making false statements.

On her MSNBC show, Jen Psaki said the 49 pages of the indictment are “quite riveting actually” and show that Trump faces “real legal peril.”

“The case against him is comprehensive, filled with damning evidence sourced directly from Trump aides, lawyers and even audio recordings from the former president himself,” she said. “… What the special council has laid out so far is serious: credible allegations of a former president knowingly taking some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets on his way out of office and then lying and obfuscating in an attempt to keep them for himself.”

Harvard Law professor emeritus Laurence Tribe appeared on Ali Velshi’s MSNBC show and urged viewers to actually read the indictment.

“You just read it and it blows your mind away,” he said. “… Virtually all of the evidence in here comes right from Donald Trump's mouth: recordings, messages, transcriptions. The part that doesn’t come straight from Donald Trump comes mostly from his lawyer.”

On CNN’s “State of the Union,” host Dana Bash clashed with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who insisted Trump had declassified the documents and thus did not break any laws. Bash repeatedly pressed him for evidence.

“(Trump) said he declassified this material,” Jordan said. “He can put it wherever he wants and handle it however he wants.”

“But he says, point blank, on tape as president, ‘I could have declassified it. Now I can’t,'” Bash said. “He says in his own words. It’s on tape as part of this indictment that he did not declassify the material. Therefore, it is classified.”

Similarly, on ABC’s “This Week,” George Stephanopoulos clashed with Sen. Lindsey Graham. The Republican from South Carolina tried to compare Trump’s handling of classified material with Hillary Clinton’s use of private email servers during her time as secretary of state. Stephanopoulos noted that Clinton was fully investigated and it was found that she did not intentionally hold back documents.

“Yeah, right,” Graham shot back.

Stephanopoulos then noted that Trump had four years as president to bring a case against her and did not do so.


** Barr’s stunning Fox News analysis
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“Fox News Sunday” had a remarkable interview with William Barr, the former attorney general under Trump.

Speaking with host Shannon Bream about Trump’s indictment, Barr laid out an unfavorable future for his former boss.

“If even half of it is true, then he’s toast,” Barr said. “I mean, it’s a very detailed indictment, and it’s very, very damning. And this idea of presenting Trump as a victim here — a victim of a witch hunt — is ridiculous.”

Barr said Trump had been a victim in the past and had faced “phony claims” and noted that he had defended Trump during those times.

“But this is much different,” Barr said. “He’s not a victim here. He was totally wrong that he had a right to have those documents. Those documents are among the most sensive secrets that the country has. They have to be in the custody of the archivist. He had no right to retain them. And he kept them in a way at Mar-a-Lago that anyone who really cares about national security, your stomach would churn at it.”

Bream asked Barr about Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton also having classified documents in their possession.

“There are two big lies that are out there right now. One is, ‘Oh, these other presidents took all these documents.’ … And the second thing is this idea that the president has complete authority to declare any document personal is facially ridiculous.”

In response, on his Truth Social platform, Trump said people should turn off Fox News when Barr is on and called his former attorney general a “disgruntled former employee” and “gutless pig.”


** Big tech ‘bleeding local news publishers dry’
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It’s not unusual to read a guest column in a newspaper extolling the value of local journalism. A guest column that places the blame of local news’ struggles on Big Tech from a former Google employee is a different story.

In a piece called “Local journalists should benefit when companies use their work ([link removed]) ” for The Des Moines Register, Scott Syroka reviews the decline of local journalism and what happens without it: “the powerful are left unaccountable and the rest of us are left worse off for it.” But why is local journalism declining?

“The conventional wisdom argues the reason for this precipitous drop is because newspapers and other media organizations were slow to transition to the internet economy, most especially digital advertising. They dragged their feet and got outcompeted, leading to declining revenue, and required cuts in staff,” Syroka writes. “I used to believe this oft-repeated and easy-to-understand tale, too. So imagine my surprise when I learned that what I believed to be true, wasn’t. Or at least it wasn’t fully true.”

Syroka then writes the “abuse of monopoly power” is a major reason for local news’ struggles.

“Giant corporations like Facebook and Google are bleeding local news publishers dry because they’re able to use their market size to prevent the little guys from making a profit.”

It’s an illuminating column and worth your time. Give it a read.


** Media tidbits
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* In a big scoop for Semafor, Max Tani with “How Warner used CNN to lobby Andrew Cuomo ([link removed]) .”
* For Alabama Public Radio, Cori Yonge with “A citizen journalist in Alabama steps in to serve a news desert ([link removed]) .”
* Troubling news from The Times of Israel: “TV reporter attacked while covering LGBTQ memorial for woman killed in north ([link removed]) .”

Today’s edition of the Poynter Report was written by Ren LaForme.


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