☀️ Happy Thursday! The Briefing is your guide to the world of news and information. Sign up here!
In today’s email:
- Featured story: Trump sues WSJ over Epstein reporting
- In other news: CBS to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
- Looking ahead: Alden Global-affiliated publisher makes bid to buy The Dallas Morning News
- Chart of the week: In 2014, one-in-ten online adults used The Colbert Report as a news source
🔥 Featured story
President Donald Trump is suing The Wall Street Journal and its owners, including Rupert Murdoch, for $10 billion. The lawsuit accuses the news organization of defamation over a story it published last week reporting that Trump wrote a suggestive birthday message in 2003 for Jeffrey Epstein, who was later convicted of sexual offenses involving children. Since then, the Journal reported that in May, Attorney General Pam Bondi told Trump that his name appears several times in Epstein investigation documents.
Three-in-ten Americans trust The Wall Street Journal as a source of news – twice the share who say they distrust it (15%), according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say they trust the source (37% vs. 23%), although similar shares of Republicans say they trust (23%) The Wall Street Journal as say they distrust (21%) it.
📌 In other news
- CBS announces decision to cancel Stephen Colbert’s Late Show amid financial challenges, criticism of Trump-Paramount settlement
- News agencies say journalists in Gaza facing starvation
- Google rolls out AI summaries in its Discover news feed and looking to partner with news orgs for a new AI project
- French President Emmanuel Macron sues conservative news influencer Candace Owens for defamation
- LA Times owner announces plans to make the outlet a publicly traded company
- Cuts to NPR and PBS will likely hit rural Americans the hardest; top NPR editor announces resignation
- New study looks at the types of sources AI chatbots are citing
- Court leaves in place White House limits on The Associated Press
- Washington Post TikTok star to go independent
📅 Looking ahead
Weeks after agreeing to an acquisition deal with Hearst, The Dallas Morning News received a bid from MediaNews Group, a newspaper publisher owned by the investment firm Alden Global Capital. While MediaNews Group said it would ensure the print edition of The Dallas Morning News continues, the publisher has implemented cost-cutting measures, including layoffs, at other newspapers. The Dallas Morning News has experienced many of the same financial difficulties as other local newspapers, offering voluntary buyouts for some staff in 2023.
A majority of Americans said in a Center survey from last year that they think their local news outlets are doing very or somewhat well financially. However, this share had decreased somewhat in recent years. At the time of the survey, 63% of U.S. adults said they think their local news outlets are doing very or somewhat well financially, down from 71% who said the same in 2018.
CORRECTION (July 25, 2025): A previous version of this newsletter referred to Alden Global Capital as a hedge fund. It is an investment firm.
📊 Chart of the week
After CBS announced the upcoming cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, we look back at a 2014 Center survey about Colbert’s previous show, The Colbert Report.
At the time, one-in-ten U.S. adult internet users said they had gotten news from the show in the past week, and 15% trusted the show for news. Young men ages 18 to 29 were the most likely to say they got news from and trusted the show.
👋 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, Emily Tomasik, Joanne Haner, and Mary Randolph. It is edited by Michael Lipka and copy edited by Rebecca Leppert.
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