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Federal press access battles. Corporate consolidation. Editorial shifts. In the US, the boundaries of press freedom and corporate influence are being redefined.
The Insight provides you the full picture of facts and viewpoints on a top issue for Americans each week, powered by your questions and balanced answers from our multipartisan news team.
The Questions
What happened with the recent changes to press pool access and White House coverage?
On Friday, Sept. 18, President Donald Trump banned CNN (Lean Left bias), Politico (Lean Left), and MS NOW (Left) from the White House saying, “Media outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES” when covering the Trump administration or the US.
Following the announcement, ABC News (Lean Left bias), CBS News (Lean Left), Fox News (Right), and NBC News (Lean Left) pulled themselves from the White House television pool, while the banned outlets filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration.
RELATED: Why Are Fox and Newsmax Defending AP?
On Monday, the Trump administration launched Trump TV, a 24/7 stream available on YouTube, the White House website and the White House app.
And on Thursday, the White House reinstated journalists from the three banned outlets after a federal judge deemed Trump’s actions unconstitutional.
After banning the three outlets from the White House, the Trump administration released a statement arguing the First Amendment allows the media to publish news, but doesn’t “entitle them to a hard pass, briefing room seat, or place in the press pool.”
In an interview with PBS (Lean Left), Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, argued these attacks on free press resemble similar calls from authoritarian regimes. She said, “It's intended to stir up public distrust of the media and to perpetuate a government-led narrative.” Ginsberg said that if this is the path the administration wants to take, “there's nothing stopping a new administration taking a similar action against news outlets that it doesn't like.”
The White House argued this has already happened. In its statement, the Trump administration listed instances when previous presidents, including Obama and Biden, had threatened to strip outlets of their access and restricted or blocked outlets from events.
In an opinion for Townhall (Right), opinion writer Kurt Schlichter also dismissed concerns that the Trump administration was attempting to control the narrative by calling the backlash “hyperventilation” for what he calls “regime media.” Schlichter argued that the “whole frenzy of faux outrage” over Trump banning the media is “illustrative” of how Democrats work, and reflects media entitlement more than authoritarianism. He emphasized that most Americans probably don’t care about the ban and “you don’t have to care” either.
What major media companies have had significant shakeups recently?
One outlet that has made headlines very often for editorial shakeups and allegations of bias over the past year-plus is CBS News (Lean Left).
Most notably, Bari Weiss (Center) – a former legacy media commentator who founded The Free Press (Lean Right) in 2021 – took over editorial operations last October when CBS’ parent, Paramount, acquired The Free Press for $150 million. Under Weiss’ watch, the network has undergone many changes, including buying out existing staffers and elevating members of her Free Press and the firing of veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley.
Though many have suspected CBS took a rightward turn after Weiss took over, rigorous reviewing from AllSides has determined the publication has retained its Lean Left rating. Back in June, AllSides dedicated a full edition of The Insight to developments at CBS – read it here.
There have also been some major changes at other big publications.
In February, The Washington Post (Lean Left bias) laid off 300 reporters – about a third of its staff – and scaled back significantly on its sports, local, and foreign affairs sections. The move came after the paper logged over $275 million in losses from 2023 to 2025.
In May, Associated Press (Lean Left) laid off 20 and bought out 40 of its staffers. Around the same time, some editorial shuffling was done as well, including new appointments to director roles in the US and Jerusalem.
Also in May, James Murdoch’s holding company Lupa Systems acquired roughly half of Vox Media in a deal valued at more than $300 million. Then, last month, Vox (Left) reportedly laid off four staffers and shifted its editorial focus “to free up resources for areas the company considers central to its journalism, audience and future growth,” according to TheWrap (Center).
Earlier in September, Ben Mullin of The New York Times (Lean Left) reported that USA Today (Lean Left) was cutting staff and reorganizing some team members. The outlet didn’t specify how many staffers were affected, though the news made noise on X and Reddit, with a few Reddit users claiming to be staffers who were affected.
A few weeks later, Mullin reported that Forbes (Center) said it was laying off “a small percentage” of its staff due to a lackluster first half of 2026 in terms of revenue.
All of these scalebacks come as both news sites and websites at large suffer tumbling page traffic, partly due to the rise of AI chatbots and how they’re replacing traditional web searches.
How might the massive consolidation of legacy studios impact the larger media ecosystem?
This week, Paramount cleared the final hurdle to merge with Warner Bros. – which owns CNN (Lean Left) – after resolving an antitrust lawsuit delaying the acquisition.
The New York Post (Right) editorial board said the "unnecessary Paramount drama" now has a "Hollywood happy ending."
"It's ironic that the same crowd that accuses President Donald Trump of trying to control the media by pulling White House access wants to control the media by controlling who owns what," the board said.
Opinion writer Brian Steinberg for Variety (Lean Left) expressed concern over Paramount’s "controversial" management of CBS News, saying it "has not been good for the business of the news unit" and gives CNN personnel "reason to worry." Since Bari Weiss took over CBS as editor in chief, Steinberg explained, there has been "unnecessary scrutiny to news reports, and anchors have made public entreaties on Instagram when people post notes suggesting that Weiss' background as a digital entrepreneur and provocative opinion writer have muddied the newsgathering network."
RELATED: Paramount-Warner Bros Merger Could Put Bari Weiss In Charge of CNN
A private equity partner at Apollo Global Management, which provided one-third of the financing for the merger, said, “We were at a crossroads in the industry, where if that deal hadn’t gotten done … Netflix was gonna take over the world. Now, you’re seeing the pendulum really swing back to more traditional media, which is kind of ironic.”
A statement from the Writers Guild of America, which filed another antitrust lawsuit against the merger that was also settled, read: "Though we were not successful in blocking the merger, our advocacy brought more attention to the harms that this merger—and others like it—will cause. We will continue to fight the harms of industry consolidation.
"As the number of outlets to sell our work to and the corresponding diversity of programming shrinks, we need industry-wide structural separation between streamers and studios in order to promote competition in programming, like the Financial Interest and Syndication Rules once required in broadcast television. We will continue to fight for these goals."
Is the pendulum swinging from “liberal media bias” to “conservative media bias”?
Our ratings have long noted that most of the largest U.S. news companies, with the exception of Fox News (Right), lean to the left. This remains true.
However, for some people, the recent changes at CBS and elsewhere have put a dent in that perception.
We recently changed the rating for The Washington Post Editorial Board from Lean Left to Lean Right, a significant shift that reflects its recent focus on free-market economics and skepticism of government regulation under owner Jeff Bezos.
Many on the right might see this trend as an overdue recalibration of mass media that will eventually appeal to a wider audience. Many on the left worry that major media companies are becoming less independent, especially under the current administration.
However the media might change overall, reading beyond your bubble and seeking out multiple points of view remains critical.
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