Investigations and Harassment

Trump sues the BBC

President Donald Trump sued the BBC for defamation over a 2024 documentary the British public broadcaster produced that featured an edited clip of a speech he made on Jan. 6, 2021. The lawsuit, which demands $10 billion in damages and was filed in federal court in Miami, also accuses the BBC of violating state laws prohibiting “deceptive and unfair trade practices” and claims the outlet sought to influence the 2024 presidential election. The documentary in question splices two segments of Trump’s speech, giving the impression that he had directly encouraged his supporters to engage in violence. The BBC had previously apologized for the edit, and top officials at the organization resigned in November. Trump had previously sued The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal for defamation.  

State Department orders officers to deny H-1B visas to those working in fact-checking

The State Department sent a memo to its consular officers ordering them to review the resumes and LinkedIn profiles of H-1B visa applicants and their accompanying family members for any evidence that they have worked in “areas that include activities such as misinformation, disinformation, content moderation, fact-checking, compliance and online safety, among others,” Reuters reported. H-1B visas are granted to foreign nationals seeking to work in the United States. The aim of the new policy is to identify and deny visas to anyone who engages in “censorship or attempted censorship of protected expression,” according to the memo. That justification echoes a common conservative talking point that fact-checking and identifying misinformation and disinformation is an act of censorship — one that journalists working in the fact-checking space deny. The Trump administration has previously revoked visas of people who engage in speech the administration disfavors including, most prominently, university students who have expressed support for Palestine and its people.

White House launches ‘media bias portal’

The White House launched a webpage with a list of media outlets and journalists it alleges have published “false and misleading” stories. Each entry in the list includes an article the White House claims is false, the names of the journalist who wrote it and the outlet they work for, a correction from the White House and a source for the correction — oftentimes a link to a statement from a member of the administration. The list includes large national newsrooms, like The Washington Post and CBS News, as well as smaller local outlets like Wisconsin Public Radio and the New Jersey Monitor. The website also includes a form allowing users to submit “tips” — links to “biased” articles. The list aims to “combat the baseless lies, purposely omitted context, and outright left-wing lunacy of the Fake News Media,” according to the White House.

FCC launches investigation into NPR and PBS

Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr sent a letter to chief executives at NPR and PBS, inquiring whether any American broadcasters had aired a controversial BBC clip of a President Donald Trump speech from Jan. 6, 2021. The clip, which came from a 2024 documentary called “Trump: A Second Chance?”, spliced together separate portions of Trump’s speech to give the impression that he called for violence in the hours leading up to the attack on the United States Capitol. Two top officials at the BBC apologized for the clip and resigned. Carr told NPR and PBS that he was investigating “whether any FCC regulations have been implicated by the BBC’s misleading and deceptive conduct” and asked them to send him video and transcripts of any broadcasts of the BBC clip that aired in the United States.

Trump formally threatens to sue the BBC over editing of his Jan. 6 remarks

President Donald Trump sent the BBC a demand letter threatening to sue the British public service broadcaster for $1 billion if it did not immediately retract a “defamatory” statement included in a 2024 documentary called “Trump: A Second Chance?” The statement in question involves the BBC’s decision to splice together quotes he made more than 50 minutes apart during a speech on Jan. 6, 2021. Those edits gave the impression that Trump had directly encouraged his supporters to engage in violence. The letter demanded that the BBC retract the documentary, issue an apology and “appropriately compensate” Trump. If the BBC did not comply within five days, the letter threatened, Trump would sue them for no less than $1 billion in damages. The same day the BBC received the letter, two of its top executives — BBC News CEO Deborah Turness and director general Tim Davie — resigned. Trump has previously sued two other outlets for defamation during his second term, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Trump refiles lawsuit against The New York Times for negative pre-2024 election coverage

After his first attempt at suing The New York Times for defamation was tossed out by a federal judge, President Donald Trump refiled his $15 billion suit. Trump’s original 85-page complaint, filed Sept. 15, was deemed “improper and impermissible” by Judge Steven Merryday, who said it violated a rule that complaints be “simple, concise and direct.” Merryday gave Trump 28 days to refile a shorter complaint. The new complaint, clocking in at 40 pages, drops one of the Times reporters named in the original lawsuit. It continues to argue, however, that the Times, three of its reporters and Penguin Random House defamed him over the course of two articles and a book published fall 2024. The alleged defamatory statements concern Trump’s rise to power and include reporting about his time on “The Apprentice,” his family’s acquisition of wealth and his education. Both the Times and Penguin Random House have called the lawsuit meritless.

Trump sues The New York Times over negative pre-2024 election coverage

President Donald Trump sued The New York Times for defamation, alleging that its journalists had made “malicious, defamatory and damaging” claims about him and his businesses in three articles published in the months leading up to the 2024 presidential election. In the lawsuit, Trump also named Penguin Random House, which published a book by two Times journalists in September 2024 called, “Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success.” The $15 billion lawsuit, filed in federal court in Florida, came less than a week after Trump threatened to sue the Times over its coverage of a lewd birthday message Trump allegedly sent convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in 2003. The Times called the lawsuit meritless. 

More from Poynter:

• Legal experts doubt Trump’s chances in his $15B defamation suit against The New York Times

US Agency for Global Media fires Voice of America director

The U.S. Agency for Global Media fired Voice of America director Michael Abramowitz after he refused to accept a position as chief management officer at VOA’s transmitting station in Greenville, North Carolina. In a court filing, Abramowitz said the proposed reassignment and decision to fire him was illegal since the law states he can only be removed from his position as VOA director with the approval of the International Broadcasting Advisory Board. President Donald Trump dismissed all the board’s members during his first week in office, and it has not been active since. As VOA director, Abramowitz repeatedly pushed back against the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle his outlet, which relies on government funding to provide reliable news to audiences in countries that lack press freedoms. In March, he sued the administration for placing all of VOA’s employees on leave in an attempt to shut it down. 

More from Poynter:

• Trump gutted Voice of America. Six staff members are fighting back.
• What the attempted dismantling of Voice of America means for press freedom in the US and the world
• President Trump’s latest press target: Voice of America

FCC launches investigation into Comcast and NBCUniversal

Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr sent Comcast a letter informing the company that he has asked the FCC to investigate its “relationships with its local broadcast TV affiliates.” He alleged that national programmers like Comcast have exerted increasing control over their local stations, and he stated that he has heard “numerous reports” of NBC, which is owned by Comcast, attempting to “extract onerous financial and operational concessions” from its local stations. Comcast said in a statement that it plans to cooperate with the investigation and that it is “proud” of its decades of support for its local stations. The investigation marks the second the FCC has opened into Comcast during President Donald Trump’s second term. In February, the FCC opened an investigation into the company for “promoting invidious forms of (diversity, equity and inclusion).”

Trump sues the Wall Street Journal over its coverage of his ties to Jeffrey Epstein

President Donald Trump sued The Wall Street Journal for defamation one day after the paper reported that Trump had given convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein a “bawdy” birthday letter in 2003. In his lawsuit, Trump said that the letter does not exist and demanded $20 billion in damages over two counts of defamation. The Journal, however, has stood by its reporting. Trump’s lawsuit names both of the Journal reporters who worked on the original story, as well as Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul who founded the Journal’s parent company, which also owns Fox News.  

More from Poynter:

• Trump sues Murdoch’s Journal and sends a familiar warning to the rest of the press
• An open letter to Rupert Murdoch urging action to protect our free press
• The Trump administration goes on the attack against The Wall Street Journal

Trump sues three Corporation for Public Broadcasting board members

The Trump administration sued three members of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting board after they refused to leave their posts at the White House’s direction. President Donald Trump first attempted to fire the board members in April. But the members — two of whom were appointed to their position by former President Joe Biden and one of whom was appointed by Trump during his first term and later reappointed by Biden — refused to leave. Instead, CPB sued Trump, arguing that the president does not have the authority to fire its board members since CPB is an independent nonprofit and not a government agency. Trump’s countersuit marked the latest in a series of attempts to exert more control over the organization, which is responsible for distributing federal funds to NPR, PBS and more than 1,500 local public broadcasting stations. In its lawsuit, the administration demanded the court remove the three board members and order them to return any salary they’ve received since April.

Trump bars Harvard from sponsoring international scholars — including journalism fellowship recipients

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem informed Harvard University that her department is revoking the university’s ability to sponsor visas for international students. International journalists accepted into the university’s prestigious Nieman Fellowship program cannot enter the U.S. without a J- visa — one of the two visa types Harvard was barred from sponsoring. 

Federal Trade Commission launches investigation of Media Matters

The Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation into Media Matters for allegedly colluding with advertisers. As part of its investigation, the FTC requested the outlet’s budgets and certain communications. Media Matters is a liberal nonprofit outlet that produces reporting and studies on conservative misinformation. It is currently locked in dueling lawsuits with billionaire Elon Musk, who sued the outlet for defamation in 2023 after it published a report finding that advertisements on X appeared next to pro-Nazi posts. The FTC demanded that Media Matters turn over documents related to the lawsuit as part of the investigation.

Department of Justice investigates Harvard Law Review

The Department of Justice sent a letter to Harvard University stating that it was investigating alleged discrimination against white men at the Harvard Law Review. The Law Review is a legal journal run by students at Harvard Law School and is independent from the university. The Department of Education and Department of Health and Human Services had previously opened an investigation into the journal in April over potential violations of Title VI, which prohibits recipients of federal funds from discriminating on the basis of race, color or national origin. In letters to the university, the Department of Justice noted that it had a “cooperating witness” at the journal, which The New York Times identified as a Law Review editor who was offered a job to work for White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.

Trump attempts to fire three members of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s board

White House Presidential Personnel Office deputy director Trent Morse emailed three members of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s five-person board, informing them that President Donald Trump had terminated their positions. Two of the members were appointed by former President Joe Biden, and one was appointed by Trump during his first term and later reappointed by Biden. The firings were likely an attempt to reshape CPB so that it would stop funding NPR, PBS and other public broadcasting stations. Though its board members are appointed by the president, CPB is an independent nonprofit — a status that means it is not subject to the president’s authority, according to a lawsuit CPB filed shortly after the firings.