Chinese state media are celebrating President Donald Trump’s move to gut Voice of America and other U.S. government-funded news outlets that push back against authoritarian regimes.

When narrative becomes weapon, media becomes battleground. Trump’s second term isn’t just a return to power—it’s a full-scale war on truth.

Much of what the U.S. president has done to curb independent media echoes the Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán’s playbook.

In his book Murder the Truth, author David Enrich explores how Justice Thomas' words coincide with a surge in legal threats and litigation against journalists and media outlets.

Before Trump’s inauguration, the US government supported independent journalism in more than 30 countries. Most of this funding was channelled through USAID. According to a USAID factsheet recently mentioned by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and now taken offline, the agency funded training and support for 6,200 journalists and assisted 707 outlets.

Leavitt insisted the change was a “long overdue” corrective to an “outdated” system, which gave “left wing stenographers” a “monopoly” on access. But the real message behind the move was plain: The Trump administration will punish news organizations for unfavorable coverage and uncomfortable questions.

After years of warnings about what Donald Trump would do if he returned to power, the president is dismantling institutions, warping law enforcement agencies, seeking retribution on his critics, treating undocumented immigrants with cruelty, imposing and threatening seismic tariffs, and openly musing about seizing foreign territories. The American experiment is convulsing before our eyes.

And yet, you wouldn't quite realize it from the tone of the news coverage.

Trump’s courts-based intimidation campaign against the press descends from handiwork of one of his most prominent Silicon Valley backers, venture capitalist and neo-reactionary ghoul Peter Thiel.

The oil, coal, and gas industries are now effectively running all branches of government.

The brave few who stood up to the magnates of the Gilded Age came to mind this month, when Ann Telnaes, a Washington Post cartoonist, resigned over the paper’s refusal to publish a cartoon in which she skewered today’s titans of industry—­Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Post, among them.

When an authoritarian regime takes over, NGOs, advocacy nonprofits, and activist organizations face significant threats.

Unlike commercial news organizations, it would be accessible, explanatory, committed to fighting disinformation, and crusading.

After escaping the country undetected with nearly two dozen newsroom colleagues and family members, they made their way to a refugee camp in Albania. Then, they got to work rebuilding the newsroom they had left behind.

Hundreds of thousands of posts lauding Mr. Trump’s victory filled Truth Social, the social platform that the president-elect owns. Speculation about what the new administration would accomplish ran rampant on X, which is owned by Elon Musk. Gab, Parler and other right-wing social media sites were flooded with thousands of memes glorifying Mr. Trump.

Hint: It's Dangerously Corroded