The Briefing
☀️ Happy Thursday! The Briefing is your guide to the world of news and information. Sign up here!
In today’s email:
- Featured story: Coverage of Mississippi’s Senate race and confidence in voting enforcement
- New from Pew Research Center: Majorities of Americans say social media companies and U.S. news organizations have too much power and influence in politics
- In other news: Left-leaning digital news site Salon shuts down
- Looking ahead: Ongoing developments in defamation lawsuits filed by Trump, Kash Patel
- Chart of the week: Republicans and Democrats agree that social media companies have too much political power, but they differ on news organizations
🔥 Featured story
For the first time in 44 years, Mississippi has elected a Democrat – Scott Colom – to the U.S. Senate, following a close race that concluded with days of vote-counting. Amid results coverage, the Mississippi Free Press sought to help readers understand the state’s voting systems, including the complex way provisional ballots are counted there.
In a national survey conducted about a month before Election Day, most U.S. registered voters (80%) said they were at least somewhat confident that all legally qualified voters would be able to cast a ballot if they wanted to. This view was shared by majorities of voters who back both Republican and Democratic candidates for Congress, although the former expressed more confidence (90% vs. 72%).
Differences by party were bigger on confidence that noncitizens would be stopped from casting ballots. While 90% of registered voters who supported Democratic candidates said they were at least somewhat confident that a noncitizen would be stopped if they tried to cast a ballot, half as many Republican supporters (45%) expressed the same sentiment.
🚨 New from Pew Research Center
About seven-in-ten U.S. adults (69%) say social media companies have too much influence in politics today, while 55% say the same about news organizations, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis from the Pew-Knight Initiative. Meanwhile, relatively few Americans say these institutions have too little influence – just 6% say this about social media companies and 14% about news organizations.
📌 In other news
- Left-leaning digital news site Salon shuts down after more than 30 years
- Right-wing activist and influencer Laura Loomer reportedly accepted payments for political social media posts
- Newsmax buys two Spanish-language radio stations in South Florida
- Court orders DOJ to narrow request for journalists’ LinkedIn records as department seeks to expose national security leaks
- Appeals court rules that Voice of America director was illegally fired by former agency head Kari Lake
- Ex-lieutenant governor sues Wisconsin newspaper for defamation after articles allege sexual assault, claims reporter who investigated had an intimate relationship with him
- Left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz expands U.S. coverage as it seeks to gain more American readers
- Palestinian journalist who is a citizen of Israel arrested without being charged with a crime
- Reporters Without Borders calls for impeachment of FCC Chair Brendan Carr; nominee for FCC commissioner faces questions from Congress
- New investigation looks at local news websites that seem to be using former reporters’ names to publish AI content
📅 Looking ahead
A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC can proceed – but dismissed a claim regarding unfair business practices. Meanwhile, FBI Director Kash Patel’s $250 million defamation case against The Atlantic faced a setback this week when a federal judge froze much of the legal discovery.
Americans balance multiple considerations when thinking about issues of press freedom like those raised in the lawsuits. While most U.S. adults say freedom of the press is extremely or very important to the well-being of society, 53% say it is more important to prevent inaccurate reporting, even if it limits freedom of the press, according to a June 2026 survey from the Pew-Knight Initiative.
Meanwhile, most Americans said last year that the people they get news from should definitely (41%) or probably (31%) keep an eye on powerful people in their daily work. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say this should definitely be part of their work (52% vs. 31%).
📊 Chart of the week
Republicans and Democrats largely agree that social media companies have too much power in politics, but they differ in their views of U.S. news organizations, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis from the Pew-Knight Initiative.
Roughly seven-in-ten Republicans (71%) and Democrats (69%), including independents who lean toward each party, say social media companies have too much political influence. But Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say news organizations have too much power in politics (69% vs. 43%).
| Rep/Lean Rep | Dem/Lean Dem | |
|---|---|---|
| Social media companies | 71 | 69 |
| U.S. news organizations | 69 | 43 |
👋 That’s all for this week.
The Briefing is compiled by Pew Research Center staff, including Naomi Forman-Katz, Christopher St. Aubin, Emily Tomasik, Joanne Haner, and Sawyer Reed. It is edited by Michael Lipka and copy edited by Anna Jackson.
Do you like this newsletter? Email us at journalism@pewresearch.org or fill out this two-question survey to tell us what you think.
