Wars continue to rage overseas, our closest neighbor and ally to the north is furious with us, the U.S. economy is teetering, the country feels more divided than ever, and even the conservative chief justice of the Supreme Court is criticizing President Donald Trump these days.

And what was Trump complaining about on his Truth Social on Monday evening? Another media outlet, this time The Atlantic.

After essentially gutting Voice of America over the past several days, Trump took to Truth Social to blast away at The Atlantic and two of the best journalists in the business — Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer. Both worked at The Washington Post before moving over to The Atlantic.

Apparently, The Atlantic reached out to Trump for comment on a story. His response was nothing but insults directed at The Atlantic, Parker and Scherer. He called The Atlantic “a third-rate magazine” and then lobbed a bunch of unverified criticisms and petty, middle-school comments at Parker and Scherer. About The Atlantic, Trump wrote, “The Atlantic is doing terribly, losing a fortune, and will hopefully fold up and be gone in the not too distant future.”

That’s not true. As CNN’s Brian Stelter noted in his Reliable Sources newsletter, “The Atlantic is actually profitable and is on a bit of a hiring tear … the publication keeps staffing up and landing Trump-related scoops.”

I’m not going to get into all the details of his bellyaching and cheap shots directed at Parker and Scherer, but once again, Trump said something that remains as surprising as it is disconcerting. In his meandering criticism of Parker, Trump wrote, “To this date, she doesn’t even know that I won the Presidency THREE times.”

Here we are in 2025. Trump is president again. And he’s still falsely claiming he won the 2020 election? He’s still doing this?

And that brings us to … this story in the aforementioned Atlantic from András Pethő: “Trump’s Attempts to Muzzle the Press Look Familiar.” Pethő is co-founder and editor of Direkt36, an investigative journalism center in Hungary.

He writes in his piece, “As a Hungarian investigative journalist, I have had a firsthand view of how (Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor) Orban has built his own media universe while simultaneously placing a stranglehold on the independent press. As I watch from afar what’s happening to the free press in the United States during the first weeks of Trump’s second presidency — the verbal bullying, the legal harassment, the buckling by media owners in the face of threats — it all looks very familiar. The MAGA authorities have learned Orban’s lessons well.”

Pethő sees plenty of ominous signs about how the U.S. under Trump could fall down the same scary holes as Hungary when it comes to press freedoms, the bullying of the press and a country whose leader desires a media that only pushes his policies and agenda — more commonly known as state media.

But Pethő also finds some hope, writing, “If any good news can be learned from Hungary’s unhappy experience, it is that unless your country turns into a fully authoritarian regime similar to China or Russia, there are still ways for independent journalism to survive. Even in Hungary, some outlets manage to operate independently from the government. Many of them, including the one I run, rely primarily on their audience for support in the form of donations or subscriptions. We learned that it is easy for billionaires and media CEOs to be champions of press freedom when the risks are low, but that you can’t count on them when things get tough. So we rely on our readers instead. If they feel like what you are doing is valuable, they will be your real allies in confronting the suffocating power of autocracy.”

How’s the weather?

Each day, we hear about the deep cuts to the federal government made by President Donald Trump and his chainsaw-carrying right-hand man Elon Musk. And each day, we hear about how those cuts impact not just those who might have lost their jobs, but everyday Americans like you and me. They might even be about things that we take for granted and assumed would always be there. Like the weather report.

My Poynter colleague Angela Fu has a new piece out: “The source behind your local weather report is facing cuts. Meteorologists are sounding the alarm.”

Fu writes in her story about the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and how critical it is to meteorology and forecasting in our country. It’s also one of the agencies seeing cuts.

I asked Fu about her story. Here’s a brief Q&A with her from Tuesday:

Tom Jones: What are meteorologists saying about how these cuts at NOAA could affect the accuracy and timeliness of the weather forecasts people rely on?

Angela Fu: NOAA provides much of the data that powers the weather forecasts people get, so meteorologists are worried that continued cuts could disrupt that flow of information. If NOAA is collecting less data, then local meteorologists have less information to consult when creating the forecasts, which could affect accuracy.

Jones: I know some of the meteorologists that you talked to said they haven’t felt any negative impacts on their day-to-day work because of the DOGE cuts so far, but are they expecting these cuts to start affecting the forecasts viewers see at home?

Fu: The meteorologists I spoke to said that they’ve heard from employees within NOAA who are trying to maintain the agency’s work even as staffing is cut, essentially doing more with less. But they worry that if the cuts continue, NOAA might reach a breaking point, at which point the forecasts viewers see could be affected.

Jones: If NOAA were to go away or have its work severely compromised, is there an organization, maybe a private one, that could replace it? Or is it a case that if NOAA’s work is greatly limited, weather forecasts would just take a hit across the board?

Fu: According to the meteorologists I spoke to, the latter. NOAA’s work is pretty comprehensive. They have 122 offices across the country, and they, along with the Federal Aviation Administration, collect weather observations 24/7 at hundreds of airports. As one expert put it, NOAA is “the backbone of meteorology for the entire country.” All of the meteorologists I spoke to rely heavily on NOAA’s work to do their own jobs. That’s especially true during severe weather since NOAA is in charge of determining what counts as severe weather and when warnings or watches should be issued.

Jones: Last question, and it’s not an easy one: How concerned should the average person be about all this?

Fu: It’s hard to say because we don’t know the exact scope of the cuts or where they will stop. NOAA is reportedly trying to lay off another 1,000 people. NOAA has also rehired people who were recently cut. We do know that staffing shortages have already caused NOAA to pull back on some of its weather data collection. Meteorologists find that concerning, and it’s hard to imagine the situation improving if NOAA’s staffing continues to shrink.

My thanks to Angela. Now let’s continue with the newsletter …

Behaving badly

The New York Times’ Katie Robertson and Benjamin Mullin are reporting that The New Yorker cut ties with art critic Jackson Arn after complaints about his behavior at the magazine’s 100th-anniversary party in February.

Robertson and Mullin wrote that Arn “was accused of making inappropriate overtures to some of the attendees and appeared intoxicated at the celebration, according to the two people, one of whom witnessed his actions.”

Arn joined The New Yorker in 2023. He declined comment when reached by the Times.

Meanwhile …

Here’s more from the story of a well-known, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who left his positions as the executive editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop and as an associate professor of journalism at American University in Washington. Last week, Columbia Journalism Review’s Sewell Chan and Betsy Morais broke the news of how Wesley Lowery, formerly of The Washington Post and CBS News, stepped down following, CJR wrote, “a number of complaints against him, according to former colleagues, including at least three Title IX allegations, in which he was accused of improper behavior with colleagues and female students.”

CJR went on to write, “Lowery, in an interview with CJR, acknowledged that three complaints had been filed but said that the university never reached out to him as part of an investigation. He insisted that he did nothing wrong and said that he left his job voluntarily to return to reporting and writing.”

Then on Tuesday, The Washington Post had this story: “Star journalist Wesley Lowery faced Title IX complaints before leaving American University.” What’s interesting is that the story was written by Will Sommer, who left the Post earlier this month to join The Bulwark. So it would appear that Sommer was working on a story about Lowery before news broke last week that Lowery was stepping down.

In fact, Sommer wrote in the Post story, “His resignation came after The Post asked him and the university about complaints from students, professors and IRW’s partner journalists about his behavior.”

Sommer’s story has a few extra details and allegations that were not in the CJR story. Sommer wrote in his piece, “In an interview last week, a day before his exit was announced, Lowery denied the allegations made in the complaints. He said he was only contacted about one of the complaints, after the Title IX office declined to take it up. ‘I have never been under Title IX investigation,’ he said.”

Lowery also told the Post, “I’ve got a very clear track record of opening doors for people and never doing anything to close doors on anyone. That doesn’t excuse any behavior that makes anyone uncomfortable or causes any harm.”

Thanks but no thanks

ESPN Chair Jimmy Pitaro, shown here in 2022. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

If and when Bob Iger finally retires for good as Disney’s CEO, four internal candidates are viewed as potential successors. They include Disney Entertainment co-chairs Alan Bergman and Dana Walden, Disney Experiences chair Josh D’Amaro and ESPN chair Jimmy Pitaro. Many have seen Pitaro as the leading candidate to replace Iger.

But Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw reports that Pitaro has told friends and the Disney board that he is not interested in replacing Iger as Disney’s CEO. (Pitaro was not quoted in the story.)

Why not? Why would Pitaro not want the job?

Front Office Sports’ Ryan Glasspiegel writes, “Several media insiders with a keen understanding of ESPN and Disney spoke to Front Office Sports after the Bloomberg story came out. They did not claim to have communicated with Pitaro about why he apparently pulled his hat out of the ring to be Iger’s successor, but one pointed out that replacing Iger has already proved to be hazardous.”

That’s a reference to Bob Chapek, Iger’s hand-picked successor when Iger retired for the first time in February 2020. Chapek lasted less than three years, and Iger returned to the role in November 2022.

Glasspiegel wrote, “To borrow a sports analogy, it’s like succeeding Bill Belichick in New England. As the saying goes: ‘You don’t want to replace the guy — you want to replace the guy who replaces the guy.’”

It also should be mentioned that Pitaro reportedly loves his job at ESPN, which is still a really good job in the TV business.

Media tidbits

• For the Columbia Journalism Review, Liam Scott with “The Last Days at Voice of America.”
• And here’s The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler with “The White House’s flimsy attack on Voice of America.”
• Nieman Lab’s Joshua Benton with “Wired’s un-paywalling of stories built on public data is a reminder of its role in the information ecosystem.”
• The Guardian’s Angela Giuffrida with “Italian newspaper says it has published world’s first AI-generated edition.”
• The Washington Post’s Jeremy Barr with “The White House correspondents’ dinner is still on. Appetites vary.”
• MSNBC has named Robert Zeliger the new executive producer of “The Weekend,” which airs from 7 to 10 a.m. Eastern on Saturdays and Sundays. He was most recently a senior managing producer for MSNBC’s “The ReidOut,” which was canceled last month, prompting host Joy Reid to leave the network. Meanwhile, Joy Fowlin will be the executive producer of MSNBC’s “The Weekend: Primetime,” which airs from 6 to 9 p.m. Eastern on Saturdays and Sundays. For the past years, she has served as the executive producer for MSNBC’s “Jose Diaz-Balart Reports.”

Hot type

• The always-exceptional Dan Barry of The New York Times with “His Death Was Interrupted, Just as He Had Planned.”

More resources for journalists

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

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