☀️ Happy Thursday! The Briefing is your guide to the world of news and information. Sign up here!
In today’s email:
- Featured story: Trump administration shutters office countering foreign disinformation
- In other news: New White House policy restricts wire services’ access to the president
- Looking ahead: Trump admin to request that Congress rescind federal funds for CPB
- Chart of the week: Americans are now less likely to say the government or tech companies should restrict violent content online
🔥 Featured story
The Trump administration is shuttering the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI) Hub, a small office in the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy that tracks and counters foreign disinformation campaigns. Republican lawmakers have previously alleged that the office was involved in censoring American conservative voices, though prior lawsuits against the office have not succeeded.
A new Pew Research Center study asked Americans whether the U.S. government should take steps to restrict false information online, or if freedom of information should be protected. About half of Americans (51%) say the U.S. government should take steps to restrict false information online, even if it limits freedom of information. This has ticked down slightly from 55% in 2023.
📌 In other news
- New White House policy limits wire services’ access to Trump
- Nonprofit newsroom Houston Landing to close after two years
- TikTok to launch Footnotes, its own version of X’s Community Notes
- A look at regional hubs as a model for local news reporting
- Retrial begins in the defamation case brought by Sarah Palin against The New York Times
- Russia jails four journalists for allegedly working with anti-corruption group founded by Alexei Navalny
- Palestinian photojournalist killed in Israeli strike on Gaza
📅 Looking ahead
The Trump administration will request that Congress rescind funding already approved for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the publicly funded nonprofit that partially funds NPR and PBS. The request to cut funding is expected to be sent later this month when lawmakers return from recess.
According to a Center survey conducted in March, about a quarter of U.S. adults (24%) say Congress should remove federal funding from NPR and PBS. Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to support ending federal funding for public media. Among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents, 44% say Congress should end funding for NPR and PBS, while 19% say funding should continue and 37% say they are not sure. By contrast, 5% of Democrats and Democratic leaners say federal funding for NPR and PBS should be cut off, while 69% say funding should continue and 26% are not sure.
📊 Chart of the week
Our chart this week looks at Americans’ attitudes toward restricting violent content online. According to our new analysis, about half of U.S. adults (52%) support the government taking steps to restrict extremely violent content online, down from 60% in 2023. And 58% say tech companies should take action to restrict this content on their platforms, a decline from 71% two years ago.
👋 That’s all for this week.
The Briefing is compiled by Pew Research Center staff, including Naomi Forman-Katz, Jacob Liedke, Christopher St. Aubin, Luxuan Wang and Emily Tomasik. It is edited by Kirsten Eddy and copy edited by Rebecca Leppert.
Do you like this newsletter? Email us at journalism@pewresearch.org or fill out this two-question survey to tell us what you think.
