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MEDIA BITS AND BYTES — OCTOBER 28, 2025
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October 28, 2025
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_ Unions demand freedom from surveillance _
, Doaa Eladl/Web We Want via Flickr
* What Were America’s Journalists Thinking?
* Unions Sue Feds Over Speech-Based Surveillance
* Women Are Wary of AI
* CBS News Rots Away Before Our Eyes
* Chinese Social Media and Gen Z
* Special Solidarity in Indiana
* NYT Covers No Kings (Barely)
* Defunding Local Public Stations
* UK: Why and How Opinion Journalism Stinks
* Nostalgic for AI Slop
WHAT WERE AMERICA’S JOURNALISTS THINKING?
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By Mark Jacob
Stop the Presses
Even though Trump says it should be illegal for news networks to
criticize him, let’s keep avoiding the obvious fact that he’s
building a dictatorship. After all, if the news gets too negative,
that would be bad for engagement.
UNIONS SUE FEDS OVER SPEECH-BASED SURVEILLANCE
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By Matt Bracken
FedScoop
A trio of labor unions is suing the Departments of State and Homeland
Security over what they say is an interagency technology surveillance
program that targets citizens and noncitizens with viewpoints that
differ from the Trump administration and effectively suppresses their
speech online.
WOMEN ARE WARY OF AI
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By Andi Zeisler
Salon
The encouragement toward more widespread adoption ignores one reason
women might be side-eyeing AI omnipresence: The virtual revolution has
repeatedly made them targets of real-world aggression.
CBS NEWS ROTS AWAY BEFORE OUR EYES
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By Justin Baragona
Independent
John Dickerson revealed Monday that he was not only leaving the
weeknight news broadcast within the next two months but that his time
at the Tiffany Network was coming to an end after 16 years.
Dickerson’s departure comes as Bari Weiss, the network’s new
“anti-woke” editor-in-chief, has been openly looking to revamp
CBS News’ perennially third-place evening program.
CHINESE SOCIAL MEDIA AND GEN Z
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By Yun Sheng
London Review of Books
Chinese Gen Z-ers have a digital solution for every mental health
issue. They talk to AI chatbots about their frustrations and
negative feelings. They find loving virtual boyfriends and girlfriends
in video games.
SPECIAL SOLIDARITY IN INDIANA
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By Kevin Gosztola
The Dissenter
Indiana University Media School administrators shut down printing of
the school’s student newspaper after firing the newspaper’s chief
adviser. The brazen act of censorship sparked widespread media
coverage and a show of solidarity from student journalists at Purdue
University, which is the school’s rival.
NYT COVERS NO KINGS (BARELY)
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By Riddhi Setty
Columbia Journalism Review
Media critics called out the conspicuous absence of a lead story
covering the historic No Kings demonstrations in the Sunday _New York
Times _October 19, which ran two small images of the protests below
the fold, along with a teaser to the story on page A23.
DEFUNDING LOCAL PUBLIC STATIONS
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By Amy Kroin
Free Press
A _New York Times_ analysis found that 245 stations in rural
communities were at risk of closure. Rural stations were far more
dependent on CPB funding than many urban stations. At a time when
media consolidation has decimated local news, public-media stations
are often the only source of local journalism.
UK: WHY AND HOW OPINION JOURNALISM STINKS
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By Juliet Jacques
Novara Media
By 2025, most of the millennial writers who emerged in the late 2000s
and early 2010s could no longer be found in legacy media, exhausted by
the low pay and constant pressure to mine their own lives for
material, or alienated by editorial lines taken on the 2019 election,
Palestine or trans rights.
Nostalgic for AI Slop
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By Sarah Krichel
The Tyee
The unceremonious launch and use of a tool that lets us hand over our
faces and voices to generative AI with the toggle of a button —
agreeing to terms and conditions we likely don’t understand —
seems to mark a shift away from any principles we once held around how
we use generative AI, and how it, as a result, uses us.
* Journalists
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* Donald Trump
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* surveillance
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* State Department
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* Department of Homeland Security
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* United Auto Workers
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* Communication Workers of America
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* American Federation of Teachers
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* Women
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* artificial intelligence
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* CBS News
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* JOHN DICKERSON
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* Bari Weiss
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* China
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* social media
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* gen z
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* Indiana University
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* Purdue University
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* censorship
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* new york times
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* No Kings Day
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* local broadcasting
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* public broadcasting
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* Rural communities
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* UK
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* opinion journalism
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* AI slop
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