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Important: Trump Launches Major Attack on Media

Trump is trying to take over CNN. He is radically changing the media landscape, and right now, not enough people are outraged about it.

Aaron Parnas Dec 11

We are witnessing a major shift in media this week as the Trump administration enters a new and far more aggressive phase of its long-running war on the press. After years of insults, lawsuits, and attempts to restrict access, the White House is now institutionalizing its attacks through an official government platform designed to publicly target individual journalists and news outlets—while simultaneously encouraging wealthy allies to pursue a takeover of CNN’s parent company to reshape its coverage from the inside. This is a direct attack on the free press, and not enough people are outraged by it.

I have lived this reality as an independent journalist, facing relentless attacks and repeated attempts to silence my work. They have not succeeded. If you value independent and unfiltered reporting, especially from journalists who refuse to bend to political pressure, please consider subscribing or supporting the work that keeps this journalism alive. I know I ask often, and to those who already support this effort, thank you. Independent journalism survives only when readers choose to stand with it.

I say this not as an abstract warning but from personal experience. As an independent reporter covering the Epstein files, I encounter the pressure of this administration’s hostility every day. Whenever I publish new findings—especially those that contradict official narratives—the harassment arrives instantly. Emails. Targeted messages. Online pile-ons. Attempts to discredit me personally. These attacks are not spontaneous. They are the predictable outcome of a political environment engineered to punish truth-telling.

The administration’s newest tool is a government-run “media bias” portal, a searchable database functioning as a modern enemies list. Reporters are listed by name. Outlets are branded as offenders. Ordinary scrutiny of government actions is reframed as dishonesty, bias, or “hostile misinformation.” Supporters are encouraged to submit articles that “misrepresent” the administration, effectively deputizing the public to help identify journalists for retaliation. Once your name appears in the database, the harassment becomes relentless—by design.

This is part of a much larger strategy. Agencies have tightened access rules, punishing reporters who refuse to accept gag-like restrictions. Networks that air unfavorable coverage face sudden regulatory attention. Trump’s lawsuits against news organizations are not about winning in court—they are about draining resources and instilling fear. Independent journalists, without corporate legal teams, operate at unique personal risk.

And now the administration is pursuing a deeper, structural shift: influencing who controls media companies themselves. Trump has privately encouraged the Ellison family—longtime allies—to pursue a takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN. The hostile bid is not a normal corporate play. It is a political one. If successful, it would place one of the country’s most influential newsrooms under owners aligned with the administration, accelerating a model used in Hungary, Serbia, and Russia, where governments didn’t have to shut down critical media—they simply took control of it through friendly oligarchs.

And today, he said he wants CNN sold:

This context makes Trump’s escalating rhetoric even more dangerous. On Tuesday, he openly boasted about calling Haiti and African nations “shithole countries”—a slur he previously denied—while further smearing Somalia as “filthy” and “disgusting.” He didn’t just revisit the remark; he reveled in it. This matters because it shows, in real time, why the press must call out leaders who lie. Trump spent years denying he made the comment. Now he uses it to applause. A functioning press is the only thing capable of documenting these shifts, exposing double-speak, and preventing political leaders from rewriting their own histories at will.

That is precisely why this administration works so hard to discredit journalists. When a president can reverse his own recorded truth—as easily as flipping a switch—he relies on a public too exhausted or intimidated to challenge him. The more he weakens the press, the more he controls the narrative.

For independent reporters, this is not theoretical. It shapes every day of our work. The outlets capable of amplifying or supporting investigative reporting are now forced to consider political retaliation. The hostile-acquisition strategy targeting CNN is only the beginning. If a government can’t silence journalists directly, it will attempt to silence the institutions around them.

All of these tactics—public shaming, regulatory threats, hostile takeovers, legal intimidation, coordinated harassment, and a leader who openly lies without consequence—form a unified strategy to shrink the space in which journalism can function. No single action ends press freedom on its own. But together, they create a system where speaking truth becomes both dangerous and rare.

I feel that reality every time I report on the Epstein files, knowing what will come next, knowing that the administration wants journalists to stop looking. But independent journalism exists precisely because we refuse to stop. We report anyway.

Trump’s first term supplied the rhetoric. His second term is building the machinery. The United States is no longer dealing with an administration that merely criticizes the press—it is confronting one that is actively working to weaken, intimidate, and, where possible, control it.

And that is why support for independent reporting matters now more than ever. Journalism will not survive this era by accident. It will survive because readers choose to defend it, stand with it, and support the voices still willing to confront the pressure head-on.

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