Media Misinformation

Article in The Guardian by Anna Betts, 1/12/25

Headline:  “AP excoriates White House barring of reporters as ‘alarming precedent’ “

Subhead:  “Editor Julie Pace writes to Trump’s chief of staff about ban on its journalists after AP declines to use ‘Gulf of America’ “

“The executive editor of the Associated Press sent a letter to the White House on Wednesday criticizing its decision to block two of its journalists from attending press events on Tuesday after the outlet refused to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as ‘the Gulf of America’ ”.

“I write on behalf of The Associated Press, an independent global news organization that reaches billions of people every day, to object in the strongest possible terms to the actions taken by the Trump administration against AP yesterday,” Julie Pace, the AP’s executive editor, wrote in the letter addressed to Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff.

“The issue here is free speech – a fundamental pillar of American democracy and a value of the utmost importance to all Americans, regardless of political persuasion, occupation or industry.”

Pace said that on Tuesday, the White House barred AP journalists from attending two press events with Donald Trump, “following an apparent complaint over AP’s editorial decisions regarding the Gulf of Mexico, which President Trump renamed the Gulf of America”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/12/ap-white-house

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Article in The Hill by Dominick Mastrangelo, 2/12/25

Headline:  “Leavitt defends banning AP from Oval Office over ‘Gulf of America’ stance’ “

“White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended a decision by the White House on Tuesday to keep The Associated Press out of the pool of reporters allowed inside the Oval Office to cover an executive order signing with President Trump and billionaire Elon Musk.

“We reserve the right to decide who gets to go into the Oval Office,” Leavitt said during a briefing with reporters on Wednesday when asked about the move, calling it a “privilege to cover the White House.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5141155-karoline-leavitt-ap-oval-office-gulf-of-america/

Article in Media Matters by Gideon Taaffe, 2/11/25

Headline:  “Right-wing media want you to think stopping infectious diseases and feeding the poor is woke”

“Right-wing media are focused on culture war battles as the Trump administration suspends lifesaving work from the U.S. Agency for International Development, cherry-picking USAID programs to dismiss the agency as ‘woke,’ ‘radical,’ and ‘overwhelmingly hard left.’ In reality, USAID is responsible for providing health care and nutritional aid to thousands of the world’s vulnerable people, many living in war-torn regions.”

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/right-wing-media-want-you-think-stopping-infectious-diseases-and-feeding-poor-woke

Article in Mediaite by Colby Hall, 2/5/25

Headline:  “Fox News Adds Lara Trump as Host”

Subhead:  “Daughter-in-law to President Donald Trump and former RNC Chair, Lara Trump, is joining Fox News — where she will host a Saturday evening show.”

“The New York Times broke the news Wednesday afternoon, announcing the equal parts stunning and not-at-all surprising news that Trump would be joining the largely right-of-center cable news network that has long enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship with all things Trump.”

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/just-in-fox-news-adds-lara-trump-as-host/

Article in Mediaite by Alex Griffing, 1/31/25

Headline: ” ‘American Media First!’ Marjorie Taylor Greene Rips Reporter’s Accent, Calls ‘To Throw Out All The Foreign Press’ “

“Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) offered her take on White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s Friday briefing and wildly called for the foreign press to be removed from the briefing room after a reporter with a French accent caught her attention.

“Greene shared a post from the briefing from a MAGA influence with over a million followers who praised Leavitt, ‘Dear Lord these reporters haven’t got the memo yet. Karoline Leavitt is not here to play around. She was pressed about DEI in the aviation field and her answer was PERFECT!’ ”

https://www.mediaite.com/politics/american-media-first-marjorie-taylor-greene-rips-reporters-accent-calls-to-throw-out-all-the-foreign-press/

Article in The New Republic by Jason Linkins, 1/25/25

Headline:  “The Washington Post Commits an Unpardonable January 6 Sin”

Subhead:  “Jeff Bezos’s increasingly meretricious newspaper stooped to publish a pathetic “both-sides” defense of the violent mob that stormed the Capitol.”

“Well, I hate to say I told you so. Back in December, I warned that Donald Trump’s plan to pardon the January 6 insurrectionists was going to be greeted by the media with prewritten takes about how President Biden’s own use of the pardon power justified a decision to free a violent mob. Today, The Washington Post’s editorial board, tasked with the mission of obtaining 200 million paying users while simultaneously following owner Jeff Bezos’s directive to make the venerable newspaper substantially more mendacious, made me look prescient.

“ ‘The outgoing and incoming presidents both abused their pardon powers on Monday, undermining the rule of law and setting dangerous precedents that perpetuate America’s divisions,’ they wrote. . .”

“To put it charitably, this is a bungle from the editorial board. In the first place, the editors demonstrate a real inability to follow cause and effect chains; here asserting that the ‘the trouble’ began with Biden’s preemptive pardons, when the use of the term ‘preemptive’ clearly suggests a precipitating event. In this case, somebody forgot the well-documented history of Donald Trump publicly announcing his plans to persecute members of Biden’s family and administration, over and over again. Just this week, Trump intimated in an interview that he might go after Biden specifically because he wasn’t corrupt enough to pardon himself on the way out the door.”

https://newrepublic.com/post/190626/washington-post-january-6-pardon