Media News Daily: Top Stories for 12/26/2025

Journalist John Carreyrou Sues AI Giants Over Copyright Violations

Investigative journalist John Carreyrou, along with five other authors, has filed a federal lawsuit in California against xAI, Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Meta, and Perplexity. The suit alleges the companies illegally used copyrighted books to train their AI models without permission or compensation to the authors. This marks the first case to name Elon Musk’s xAI as a defendant. The complaint criticizes previous class-action settlements, such as Anthropic’s $1.5 billion payout in August, as insufficient compared to potential statutory damages of $150,000 per infringed work. None of the companies responded to media inquiries, and plaintiffs have rejected settlements that dilute individual claims. (Read More) (Reuters Rating)

Violence Against Journalists Surges Amid Trump’s Immigration Crackdowns

Assaults on U.S. journalists have spiked in 2025, with 170 attacks reported—nearly equaling the total from 2022–2024 combined—largely during protests against the Trump administration’s immigration policies. According to the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the violence has often been perpetrated by law enforcement during events documenting government crackdowns. Press freedom advocates cite escalating anti-media rhetoric from President Trump as contributing to the hostile environment, though they stop short of directly linking his words to specific incidents. Several journalists, including Nick Stern and Raven Geary, have suffered severe injuries and are pursuing legal action. A judge recently issued a temporary restraining order to protect journalists from excessive force, which the government is appealing. (Read More) (The Guardian Rating)

Kinzinger Cancels Paramount Subscription Over CBS Decision to Pull Story

Former Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) publicly canceled his Paramount Plus subscription, protesting CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss’s decision not to air a “60 Minutes” segment on alleged abuses in a Salvadoran prison used by the Trump administration for deported Venezuelan migrants. Kinzinger accused Weiss, recently appointed following Paramount’s acquisition of her outlet The Free Press, of aligning CBS with pro-Trump editorial decisions. Critics claim the story was pulled for political reasons, while Weiss stated it was not ready for broadcast. Kinzinger has been an outspoken Trump critic since his vote to impeach the president in 2021. Paramount has not commented. (Read More) (The Hill Rating)