Media

1. NYT’s Kahn on Trump
2. NPR’s Maher on DEI
3. CNN’s Thompson on trust
4. Kelly on Bezos
5. Baier on facts

Welcome to Semafor Media, where we are pivoting to events.

President Donald Trump’s chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, closed out Semafor’s Innovating to Restore Trust in News summit on Thursday, and our conversation drew quite a bit of attention from people following the Trump administration’s approach to speech and the media. When I asked Carr about the apparent politicization of some of his decisions, he said that — in his view — Democrats had set a precedent by politicizing the agency, and he was merely following that precedent. You can watch that part of the conversation here. (“Contrary to FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s insinuation yesterday, two wrongs don’t make a right,” the free speech group FIRE’s lead tech counsel responded.)

Carr stuck around for the reception (as did one of his targets, NPR CEO Katherine Maher — quite a party) and I caught up with him afterward to ask the question that had slipped my mind on stage. I asked what he’d tell his friends at Fox News when a future Democratic administration used his precedent to attack them. Carr answered that he is merely doing his constitutional job — but also allowed that there might be some space for Congress to enact a kind of negotiated, mutual disarmament in the space of media regulation. Peace in our time?

The Wall Street Journal’s Emma Tucker, meanwhile, captured pretty clearly an editor’s job in this political environment, or any: “It’s very easy to start being afraid of what the consequences of something you’re going to publish might be, but I think it’s really important that you don’t do that.”

Also today: Joe Kahn on a “fact-challenged” White House, Maher on the FCC, and Puck’s Matt Belloni and Variety’s Dan D’Addario on this year’s Oscars.

Kahn on Trump as reporting ‘opportunity’

Trump’s second term has been good for the business of The New York Times — so far.

“This guy makes a lot of news and it’s really interesting. And some of it is fact-challenged, and we have to correct that in as much of real time as we possibly can. But there are also opening-up lines of inquiry into federal agencies and the functions of government that none of us have thought about since civics class, and it’s now part of the news cycle,” Kahn, the Times’ executive editor, told Ben Thursday.

“Is it good for the news business? I think it probably is, it’s raising awareness, it’s raising people’s attention to what’s happening in our country. In that sense, from the perspective of journalism, it’s an amazing journalistic opportunity.”

Maher’s plans for NPR’s diversity

The CEO of NPR says it does not plan to replace its departing chief diversity officer amid a crackdown by the Trump administration on DEI efforts.

“Our plan is to actually move some of that work into our operations and strategy work with the goal of continuing to think about how we reach a really diverse audience, because that is where America is going, from an intergenerational standpoint,” Maher told Max on Thursday.

Her comments came as NPR is girding itself for a fight with conservatives in government who are attacking the network on multiple fronts — including a FCC probe into whether its sponsorships cross the line into advertising. “We feel really confident that we have worked throughout the years to comply with FCC guidelines. We have a robust process and we’ll look to see what happens with the inquiry,” Maher said.

The 97th Academy Awards are this weekend, giving us a glimpse into the past and future of Hollywood and the entertainment industry. For an insider’s take on the state of the business and how the Academy works, Ben and Max bring on Matt Belloni, founding partner of Puck and host of the podcast The Town. They talk about Netflix’s Oscars strategy with Emilia Pérez, the disconnect between the Academy’s interests and what happens on stage, whether Hollywood will take a rightward turn, and why the Oscars still matter in 2025. Matt also talks about his own career arc, from working behind-the-scenes at the Hollywood Reporter to being recognized for his voice, plus his predictions for this weekend’s awards.

Listen to the latest episode of Mixed Signals now.

Thompson on the ‘age of deference’

CNN’s Mark Thompson arrived with a bone to pick with the framing of the event and the general concern about dire polling from Gallup showing a dramatic decline in trust in news.

“I’d rather have a questioning audience than a compliant audience which is kind of deferential to media,” he said. “And I worry that, on the whole, there was an age of deference, where the great network news and the Times of London would be automatically believed in.”

The media, he added, should “use a box of Kleenex to dry our eyes about the loss of traditional trust and try and figure out how we’re going to rebuild, in some ways, a more adult relationship” with audiences.

He also signaled his network’s future direction: “We have this great legacy platform, cable TV, but the future of CNN and the growth of CNN is not going to happen on that platform,” he said.

Kelly unimpressed with Bezos’ conversion

I asked Megyn Kelly whether she saw Jeff Bezos’ abrupt shifts at the Washington Post as ballsy or weak. “Closer to weak,” she said. “He’s doing what Joe [Scarborough] and Mika [Brzezinski] did — he’s bending the knee. It’s the same thing as their trip to Mar-a-Lago.” She continued: “He hasn’t had a change of heart. Give me a break.”

But Kelly, who campaigned for Trump, said she thinks the gambit will work: “Trump and [Bezos] will be fine — but that doesn’t make any difference at all to someone like me, who is actually looking for sincerity.”

The former Fox star also said on her podcast that she thought the interview was “tense” and that I was “condescending.” I didn’t think it was, but you can watch her excruciating mashup of my questions to see if you agree.

— Ben Smith

Baier on playing goalie

Fox News host Jesse Waters recently offered a pretty bleak summary of how the news works now: “Someone says something on social media, Musk retweets it, Rogan podcasts it, Fox broadcasts it, and by the time it reaches everybody, millions of people have seen it.”

Special Report anchor Bret Baier, who hails from Fox’s news division, told us how he thinks about it: “My job … is to be like an ice hockey goalie trying to prevent the bad pucks from getting through, and there’s a lot of bad pucks that come at you on social media and elsewhere.” News is, of course, totally reactive in its nature — but that’s a fairly accurate description of how far up the news cycle food chain you have to go before you encounter a verified fact.

Our former Mixed Signals co-host Nayeema Raza has launched her own watchable podcast: Smart Girl Dumb Questions.

Her first guest is Mark Cuban, on the question: Can billionaires save us? Other dumb questions on the agenda: the difference between the $100 million and $1 billion lifestyle, what unfettered capitalism might learn from the NBA, how billionaires became the new billboard, and why we care what Mark Cuban thinks. (“Every podcast needs a guest.”)

Tune in to Smart Girl Dumb Questions on Apple, Spotify or YouTube.

Daniel D’Addario is Variety’s chief correspondent and the author of The Talent.

⁛ News

Second opinions: The Washington Post is advising its reporters to be particularly clinical in their descriptions of Elon Musk’s efforts to radically cut costs at federal agencies. During a staff meeting this week, executive editor Matt Murray cautioned the Post against describing Musk as “gutting” the federal government, and said the paper’s journalists should not reflexively use loaded language like “crucial” to describe government programs unless the term is supported. A source familiar with the situation told Semafor that editors regularly guide the newsroom through the better use of clear, non-loaded language, regardless of the subject matter or administration.

While the paper has reduced the scope and scale of its opinion section and editorials, its competitor in New York is doubling down on its editorial board. In an email first reported by Semafor, Times opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury referenced Bezos’ recent decision to narrow the focus on the Post’s opinion section only to editorials that promote free markets and civil liberties. “I know that some publications have retreated from having editorials or an editorial board in recent years. A.G. and I have chosen to do the opposite,” Kingsbury wrote. “We believe that The Times’s editorial board can be a crucial voice in these challenging times.”

Reader revolt: Some 75,000 subscribers have canceled their Post subscriptions in the wake of Bezos’ changes to the op-ed section.

Owned and operated: During his conversation with Max on Thursday, Mehdi Hasan said his news outlet, Zeteo, has had “great growth” since its debut last year, racking up more than 360,000 Substack subscribers (with a significant fraction paying, though Hasan demurred on how many) and some 670,000 YouTube subscribers. Much of that audience comes to see Hasan, a proudly confrontational interviewer, square off with his guests on-camera. But he told Semafor he doesn’t feel pressured to cater to the YouTube political smackdown format: “If it goes viral, great for revenue, but it’s not like I’m trying to impress anyone. I like owning people because I like owning people, unfortunately, not because of the clicks.”

⁌ TV

Shallow pool: Newsmax owner Chris Ruddy privately advised Trump’s communications team against its attempts to control which reporters join the White House’s traveling press pool, per The Atlantic. Ruddy warned that the current White House’s restrictions could be repeated by a future Democratic administration.

⁜ Tech

Listening: YouTube said 1 billion users, an eighth of the world’s population, consumed podcast content on the platform last month. In an interview with Semafor this week, YouTube head of news Tim Katz credited some of the growth to changes the platform has made in recent years, including better recommendations for discovery and improved monetization for podcasters, and the fact that major celebrities, like LeBron James and the Kelce brothers, have started posting more regularly to their YouTube accounts.

Subscriber struggles: Patreon surveyed 1,000 creators about the state of their businesses. Many felt that it was harder to reach fans than it was five years ago, blaming that on algorithmic feeds on platforms like TikTok and X, which increasingly recommend content from people that users don’t follow.

☊ Audio

Manosphere: Trump is staffing his administration with podcast bros, including Dan Bongino, an extremely online podcaster who is not a fan of media reporters (including those who author this newsletter).

US President Donald Trump got elected promising relief for voters’ pocketbooks, but he’s already running into harsh economic reality, Semafor’s Eleanor Mueller, Burgess Everett, and Shelby Talcott reported.

“The tariff regimen has to be right, or it’s going to be inflationary,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who faces a tough 2026 reelection race, warned. Congressional Republicans are still a long way from openly critiquing the president, but the fact there’s any daylight just five weeks in may betray deeper fault lines to come.