---
title: "Trump’s continued tensions with the media"
description: "Plus, Supreme Court to hear challenge to TikTok ban, legacy media turn to TikTok to expand their audience"
date: "2024-12-19"
authors:
  - name: "cstaubin"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/newsletter/the-briefing/trumps-continued-tensions-with-the-media/"
---

# Trump’s continued tensions with the media

**☀️ Happy Thursday!** *The Briefing is your guide to the world of news and information*.* [**Sign up here!**](https://www.pewresearch.org/sign-up-for-the-briefing/)*

*The Briefing will be on hiatus until Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. Happy Holidays! *❄️☃️

**In today*’*s email:**

- **Featured story:** Trump’s continued tensions with news organizations

- **In other news:** Supreme Court agrees to hear challenge raised against TikTok ban

- **Looking ahead:** Legacy media turns to TikTok to expand audience reach

- **Chart of the week:** About one-in-five Americans regularly get news from influencers on social media

🔥 **Featured story**

In a press conference this week, **President-elect Donald Trump** [suggested that he would continue](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-threatens-lawsuit-des-moines-register-poll-media/) to file **lawsuits against news organizations** after ABC News [settled a defamation suit](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/14/business/media/trump-abc-settlement.html) by agreeing to pay $15 million to Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum. Trump sued CBS News in October over a 60 Minutes interview with his general election opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, and he sued The Des Moines Register this week over a pre-election poll that showed him trailing Harris in Iowa. (He ultimately won the state by 13 percentage points.)

Trump’s tensions with the news media are not new. According to a [survey we conducted in March 2017](https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2017/04/04/most-say-tensions-between-trump-administration-and-news-media-hinder-access-to-political-news/), early in his first term as president, **83% of U.S. adults said the relationship between Trump and the media was generally unhealthy, **and 73% said these tensions were getting in the way of Americans’ access to important political news. Majorities of both Republicans and Democrats expressed these views.

📌 **In other news**

- **Supreme Court **will hear [challenge to TikTok ban](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-tiktok-ban-law/) on Jan. 10 before law takes effect

- **Spain **announces bill requiring [digital platforms to publicly correct false information](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/17/spain-introduces-bill-to-combat-online-fake-news)

- **Russian official** describes editors of Britain's Times newspaper as [“legitimate military targets” ](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/18/dmitry-medvedev-says-editors-of-the-times-are-legitimate-military-targets)

- **Los Angeles Times owner** [reportedly blocks criticism of Trump](https://www.status.news/p/patrick-soon-shiong-los-angeles-times-donald-trump-fcad) in opinion section

- [Candidates withdraw](https://www.axios.com/2024/12/17/washington-post-executive-editor-candidates-withdraw) from** Washington Post’s executive editor search**

- **Ozy Media** co-founder [Carlos Watson sentenced](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/16/business/media/carlos-watson-ozy-media-sentenced.html) to **nearly 10 years** in prison for attempt to defraud investors

- [Forbes stops hiring freelancers](https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/17/24322485/forbes-vetted-freelance-google-search-parasite-seo) for product reviews, citing **Google’s **parasite SEO policy

- **CNN **faces criticism after [claimed civilian prisoner rescued on camera](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/12/17/cnn-faces-backlash-over-staged-syrian-prisoner-rescue-report) is revealed as an intelligence officer for the Assad government

📅 **Looking ahead**

Legacy media brands are **turning to TikTok to reach younger audiences,** according to [new reporting from The Wall Street Journal](https://www.wsj.com/business/media/tiktok-young-news-publishers-936aa320?st=h2oMKh&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink). About four-in-ten U.S. adults under 30 (39%) say they regularly get news on TikTok, according to a [2024 Center survey](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/17/more-americans-regularly-get-news-on-tiktok-especially-young-adults/), much higher than the share of older Americans.

According to a [recent Center study](https://www.pewresearch.org/data-labs/2024/10/08/who-u-s-adults-follow-on-tiktok/), **fewer than 1% of accounts followed by U.S. adult TikTok users are those of journalists or media outlets.** And another study found that [most news influencers on TikTok](https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2024/11/18/news-influencers-on-tiktok/) (84%) **–** individuals with a large number of followers who regularly post about news or current events **–** have **no affiliation with a news organization.**

📊 **Chart of the week**

Our chart this week – one of the Center’s most [striking findings of 2024](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/12/06/striking-findings-from-2024/) **–** comes from our recent study on [news influencers](https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2024/11/18/americas-news-influencers/).

**About one-in-five U.S. adults (21%) say they regularly get news from news influencers,** defined as individuals who have a large following on social media and often post about news or political or social issues.

This is especially common among younger adults: 37% of those ages 18 to 29 say they regularly get news from influencers, compared with just 7% of those 65 and older.

![Bar chart showing almost 4 in 10 U.S. adults under 30 get news from news influencers](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/11/PJ_2024.11.18_news-influencers_0-01.png)

*👋 That’s all for this week. *

The Briefing is compiled by Pew Research Center staff, including Naomi Forman-Katz, Jacob Liedke, Sarah Naseer, Christopher St. Aubin, Luxuan Wang and Emily Tomasik. It is edited by Michael Lipka and copy edited by David Kent.

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