Oh for crying out loud, now what is Elon Musk up to?

The chief of Twitter — or the “Chief Twit” as he calls himself — seems to be taking this whole dustup with NPR personally.

First, he slapped a “state-affiliated” tag on NPR’s Twitter page. NPR responded by saying it would no longer tweet from its official accounts. This all happened last month. NPR is not state-run media like you would find in Russia or China, so Musk later changed the label to “government funded.” This is also inaccurate.

At the time, NPR put out a statement saying, “We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility and the public’s understanding of our editorial independence. We are turning away from Twitter but not from our audiences and communities.”

NPR’s plan to not tweet remains in place, and apparently that is bothering Musk. In an email to NPR technology reporter Bobby Allyn this week, Musk wrote, “So is NPR going to start posting on Twitter again, or should we reassign @NPR to another company?”

That is a dangerous threat, possibly exposing NPR to imitators who could seriously damage the outlet’s reputation.

Why is Musk doing this? We know why. He’s acting like a toddler who was told he couldn’t have a cookie before dinner. But what’s the excuse he is using?

Musk’s argument seems to be that NPR’s account is dormant. But Allyn notes that under Twitter’s terms of service, an account’s inactivity is based on logins, not tweets. If an account is not logged in at least every 30 days, that “prolonged inactivity” can result in it being permanently removed.

Allyn wrote, “Musk did not answer when asked whether he planned to change the platform’s definition of inactivity and he declined to say what prompted his new questions about NPR’s lack of participation on Twitter.”

In another email to Allyn, Musk wrote, “Our policy is to recycle handles that are definitively dormant. Same policy applies to all accounts. No special treatment for NPR.”

After Allyn’s original story appeared online, Musk wrote Allyn another email with the subject line: “You suck.” There was no text in the body of the email, Allyn reported.

For a guy who preaches about freedoms, including freedom of speech, he sure gets bent out of shape whenever someone expresses their opinions or takes a stance. But is any of this surprising?

Trump and CNN

Earlier this week, I wrote how I was OK with CNN’s choice to have a town hall with Donald Trump. Not because he’s the former president, but because he is, at the moment, the leading candidate to be the Republican nominee for president in 2024. As long as moderator Kaitlan Collins can fact-check him and keep him from rambling on with dangerous conspiracies and lies, CNN absolutely should be interested in having Trump on its airways.

I received plenty of pushback from readers who see it as CNN “normalizing” Trump, claiming that’s what the network did prior to the 2016 election.

Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi writes about Trump going on CNN in “CNN and Trump set aside beef for ‘town hall,’ and both draw fire for it.”

Political scholar Norman Ornstein tells Farhi that Trump could end up the big winner out of this, saying the CNN invitation is “a godsend — a network he hates bowing down to him and giving him attention and airtime.”

Ornstein said that Trump can “bluster and filibuster” if he gets any tough questions from the audience and if things go wrong for him? Ornstein said, “He can blame the biased CNN.”

World Press Freedom Day

Wednesday was World Press Freedom Day. But as The Washington Post’s editorial board wrote, there is little to celebrate at the moment.

In 2022, 67 journalists and media workers across the globe were killed, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Nine journalists have already been killed this year, and nearly 600 are imprisoned, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in Russia.

The Post editorial board wrote, “Besides Mr. Gershkovich, as of December 2022, at least 19 journalists are known to be imprisoned in Russia, many for their reporting on the war.” Meanwhile, Hong Kong has 13 journalists/media workers in prison.

And while we see the media punished, harmed and killed across the globe in the world in places such as Iran, China, Myanmar and Turkey, let’s not pretend the United States is a safe haven for the media.

The Post editorial board wrote, “The United States, despite its cherished First Amendment right to a free press, has not been immune from the global trend lines. The United States ranks only 42nd on the Reporters Without Borders index, as the group noted ‘press freedom violations are increasing at a troubling rate.’ The report said American reporters increasingly face unprovoked physical attacks, harassment and intimidation in the field. Former president Donald Trump’s verbal assaults against so-called fake news have fostered a climate of intimidation.”

They also mention all the financial struggles that have forced many media outlets to either shut down or have significant layoffs.

The board wrote, “So this is a sober 30th anniversary for World Press Freedom Day. The media industry is facing myriad threats and challenges. But a free press and access to truthful information remain essential to free societies, and journalists need to be respected and protected. Governments and citizens should be reminded of that not just on May 3 but every day, both overseas and right here at home.”

More World Press Freedom Day links

• The Wall Street Journal’s Caitlin Ostroff with “World Press Freedom Day Is Marked by Rising Threats Against Reporters.”
• The Guardian’s Oliver Holmes with “Media freedom in dire state in record number of countries, report finds.”

The mystery of George Polk’s murder

In honor of World Press Freedom Day, CBS News Radio released a trailer for an upcoming documentary about CBS News correspondent George Polk. The audio documentary will air on CBS News Radio stations over Memorial Day weekend.

It was 75 years ago this spring that Polk was executed — shot in the back of the head with his hands and feet tied and thrown into the Aegean Sea — while covering the Greek civil war. His bloated body was discovered a week later by a fisherman.

CBS News White House correspondent Steven Portnoy investigates the mystery behind the still-unsolved murder of Polk.

These days, Polk’s name lives on through the George Polk Awards, awarded by Long Island University in recognition of investigative and brave reporting.

Hurting without Tucker Carlson

Tucker Carlson, shown here in July 2022. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

Tucker Carlson’s absence is hurting Fox News’ ratings. Take Tuesday night. As media reporter Brian Stelter notes, the 8 p.m. slot that used to be occupied by Carlson had an average audience of 1.48 million on Tuesday night. That seems to be the roundabout number the 8 p.m. slot is getting these days with fill-in hosts. Carlson typically drew about 3 million.

So, half of the Carlson audience has disappeared. Meanwhile, with Carlson’s lead-in, the shows later in prime time — the ones hosted by Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham — are being hurt, too. Their numbers have lost about a quarter of their audiences.

And while we’re on the topic of Carlson …

Still lots of buzz about Carlson’s redacted text message that had been included in the Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against Fox News. The New York Times’ Jeremy W. Peters, Michael S. Schmidt and Jim Rutenberg first reported that the text had Fox News executives nervous and helped lead to his firing.

In the text to a producer in the hours after the Jan. 6 insurrection, Carlson said he watched a video where three “Trump guys” were beating up an “Antifa kid.” He wrote, “Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight.”

He then went on to say he, at first, was rooting for the one being beaten to be killed before adding, “I should be bothered by it. I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed. If I don’t care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?”

However, a few on social media are wondering if this is truly the reason why Carlson was fired. Journalist Molly Jong-Fast, for example, tweeted, “Nothing I’ve seen leaked so far strikes me as the real reason Tucker Carlson got fired.”

Media columnist Margaret Sullivan retweeted Jong-Fast and wrote, “Articulating what many of us feel here, @MollyJongFast.”

As CNN’s Oliver Darcy wrote, “While the message is jarring to read, regular viewers of Carlson’s highly rated primetime show are unlikely to be taken aback. Carlson’s show was notorious for its anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric. For instance, Carlson proudly — and repeatedly — promoted on his program the Great Replacement theory, a fringe conspiracy embraced by the white supremacist community.”

In other words, why now? Why would this particular text be the reason Carlson was fired?

Media tidbits

• The Pulitzer Prizes will be announced on Monday. Roy Harris writes his annual preview for Poynter.
• Nicole Avery Nichols has been named the top editor at the Detroit Free Press. She becomes the first Black woman to run that newsroom in its 191-year-old history. Nichols succeeds Peter Bhatia, who stepped down at the end of last year. Nichols joins the Free Press from Chalkbeat, where she had been editor for the past two years. But before that, she had an extensive career in journalism in Detroit, working at both the Free Press and Detroit News. The Free Press’ JC Reindl has more.
• This writers’ strike in Hollywood could last a while. Variety’s Cynthia Littleton and Gene Maddaus with “Strike Chaos Consumes Hollywood: What Made Studios Balk and Writers Walk.”
• Meanwhile, Los Angeles Times culture columnist and critic Mary McNamara with “Streamers profited when ‘the idiot box’ became art. They forgot writers made it that way.”

Hot type

• For The Atlantic, Chris Heath with “How Tom Hanks Became Tom Hanks.”
• Washington Post sports columnist Barry Svrluga writes about a pitcher for the Washington Nationals in “The Kuhls made it to MLB together. They’ll fight cancer the same way.”

More resources for journalists

• Subscribe to Poynter’s Friday newsletter, Open Tabs with Poynter managing editor Ren LaForme, and get behind-the-scenes stories only available to subscribers.
• Telling the Stories of Faith and the Faithful — New York City, May 12 (Seminar) — Register by April 21.
• Transform your newsroom’s reporting on crime and criminal justice with our 24-week online seminar. Apply by April 21.
• Editorial Integrity and Leadership Initiative — (Sept. – April, 2024) (Hybrid) — Apply by May 15.

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.

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