Media obsequiousness

Is FCC Making Money for. . .?

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Article in Free Press by Staff, 1/14/26

Headline:  “Chairman Carr’s Corruption of the FCC Requires Greater Congressional Action and Oversight”

“Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr dodged accountability during a House Commerce Committee oversight hearing on Wednesday.

“Throughout the hearing, Carr refused to answer questions about his efforts to weaponize the agency in service of President Donald Trump. His record includes helping the White House silence the president’s critics in the media, install so-called “bias monitors” inside private media companies and enrich Trump. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.freepress.net/news/chairman-carrs-corruption-fcc-requires-greater-congressional-action-and-oversight

See No Evil?

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Article in FAIR by Drew Favakeh, 1/13/26

Headline:  “ACTION ALERT: Why Didn’t NYT, WaPo Report What They Knew About Venezuelan Invasion?”

“When the Trump administration invaded Venezuela and kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, the New York Times and Washington Post framed it as a surprise. . .”

“But word quickly got out that it was not a surprise to either paper. Semafor (1/3/26), an outlet co-founded by former Times media columnist Ben Smith, reported that both the Times and Post ‘learned of a secret US raid on Venezuela soon before it was scheduled to begin,’ but chose not to report on it, to ‘avoid endangering US troops.’ . .”

Read the full article at:

https://fair.org/home/action-alert-why-didnt-nyt-wapo-report-what-they-knew-about-venezuelan-invasion/

Media Covering Venezuela?

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Article in The Nation by Jack Mirkinson, 1/9/26

Headline:  “The Media’s Coverage of the Venezuelan Coup Has Been Dreadful”

Subhead:  “War may be the health of state, but it’s death to honest journalism.”

“We live in a turbulent, unpredictable world. Few things feel certain. But there are some truths we can hold fast to. The sun will rise. We’ll grow older each day. And the media will bend over backward to celebrate US imperialism.

“For evidence of this, just review the past week’s coverage of President Donald Trump’s illegal abduction and overthrow of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Once the kidnapping operation swung into gear, our most prominent newsrooms obediently adopted their time-honored patterns: indulging war lust, sidestepping or downplaying the rule of law, and uncritically cheerleading yet another violent foreign intervention by the US military. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/media-venezuela-tony-dokoupil/

And Media Went – “Ho-Hum”

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Article in The Hartman Report by Thom Hartman, 1/6/26

Headline:  “Is Mad King Trump Losing His Sanity?”

Subhead: “Mad kings rarely stop themselves: They’re stopped when the opeopl; aroung decide the country matters more than the crown . . .”

“. . .When Trump held his press conference announcing the invasion of Venezuela and the arrest of Nicolás Maduro, a reporter asked the most basic question imaginable: Who is running Venezuela now and going forward. . .?

“. . .That moment should have set off loud alarms throughout Washington and should have shot across our media like a meteorite. Instead, it drifted by as simply another strange episode in a presidency that’s taught us to pretend the abnormal is now normal. . .”

read the full article at:

https://hartmannreport.com/p/is-mad-king-trump-losing-his-sanity-625

Some Media Support Trump’s Invasion

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Article in FAIR by Ari Paul, 1/6/26

Headline:  “Editorial Boards Cheer Trump Doctrine in Venezuela” 

Article shows stance of newspapers including Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Dallas Morning News, Miami Herald, and The Chicago Tribune toward the attack on Venezuela.

Read the full article at:

https://fair.org/home/editorial-boards-cheer-trump-doctrine-in-venezuela/

Did CBS News Jump the Shark?

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Article in Status by Oliver Darcy, 1/6/26

Headline:  “The Dokoupil Debacle”

Subhead:  “A chaotic on-air rollout, cringe social media posts, and MAGA-friendly editorial choices have turned Tony Dokoupil’s ‘CBS Evening News’ debut into a source of embarrassment and growing alarm inside the network’s newsroom.”

“On Tuesday evening, newly installed ‘CBS Evening News’  anchor Tony Dokoupil closed out just his second official broadcast with a surreal segment: a glowing tribute to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. . .”

“Even under normal circumstances, an ostensibly objective newsman’s lighthearted praise of a cabinet member’s political portfolio would have been jarring. But it was particularly striking in context of the last several days. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.status.news/p/tony-dokoupil-cbs-evening-news-rollout

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Article in The New Republic by Edith Olmstead, 1/6/26

Headline:  “Bari Weiss’s New CBS Project Debuts—and Is a Total Disaster”

Subhead:   “The CBS Evening News launch didn’t exactly go to plan.

“First day, big problems here. . .”

“During his first foray into evening news Monday, Dokoupil face-planted while transitioning out of a story on Venezuela while Bari Weiss, the right-wing shill tapped to become editor in chief of CBS News, reportedly looked on from the control room. . .”

https://newrepublic.com/post/204977/bari-weiss-cbs-evening-news-tony-dokoupil-major-issues

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Article in Poynter by Tom Jones, 1/6/26

Headline:  “CBS News’ new era begins with press freedom concerns and technical stumbles”

Subhead:  “Tony Dokoupil’s rushed anchor debut and a Venezuela interview that sidestepped Pentagon press restrictions mark an uneasy start to the Bari Weiss era”

“. . .CBS not only sat down with Hegseth, it allowed him to define a U.S. military operation in Venezuela as a ‘law enforcement’ action, argue Congress need not be notified, and openly discuss American oil interests, all without confronting the administration’s crackdown on the press itself.”

read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2026/tony-dokoupil-cbs-evening-news-new-host/

All Hail Legacy Media!

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Article in AlterNet by Earl Stephens, 12/27/25

Headline:  “Veteran journalist issues ruthless takedown of legacy media”

“. . .As many of you are aware, Trump and his lying, subservient Republican Orcs are in a war against the truth, and trying to crush anybody who dares report it. On Sunday, CBS News once again fell at the orange fascist’s fat little feet and spiked a story that was set to run on the once-venerable 60 Minutes news program, about the “the brutal and tortuous conditions” of his detention camps .

“This was only the latest surrender by our diminishing legacy media to the convicted felon who attacked us on January 6, 2021. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.alternet.org/alternet-exclusives/legacy-media-2026/

Press Aren’t Coming to Take Him Away, Ha Ha

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Article in The Hill by Chris Truax, 12/19/25

Headline:  “All I want for Christmas is for the media to be honest about Trump”

“. . .Disinhibition can manifest itself in several ways, including ‘socially inappropriate behavior’ and a ‘loss of manners/decorum.’ People in the early stage of Alzheimer’s can begin to lose their social filter and their ability to control their impulses. They may make gratuitous, rude comments, exhibit racism or have sudden bouts of anger. These are all behaviors that Trump has recently displayed. . .”

“And yet, the media reports on Trump as if he were some sort of avant garde political performance artist challenging bourgeois values and outmoded conventions. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/5655223-trump-dementia-behavior-concerns/

Media Now Ashamed?

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Article in Daily Kos by News Corpse, 12/18/25

Headline:  “ENOUGH! American Media Disgraced Itself Again By Airing Trump’s Lie-Riddled Harangue-a-Thon”

“Wednesday night Donald Trump delivered a primetime address from the White House that was billed as an important communication to the American people concerning matters that would be of great interest to them. And every major national network carried the speech live. Ordinarily those networks don’t give up that valuable airtime unless they have been assured that there is a valid justification for it.

“However, on this occasion, the networks don’t appear to have done even a perfunctory review of what the content of Trump’s speech would be. Consequently, they greenlit his speech. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/12/18/2359078/-ENOUGH-American-Media-Disgraced-Itself-Again-By-Airing-Trump-s-Lie-Riddled-Harangue-a-Thon?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

“THE PRESIDENT IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY. . .”

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Article in The Guardian by Arwa Mahdawi, 12/15/25

Headline:  “It’s the media’s job to hold power to account. This year, too many got into bed with it instead”

Subhead:  “The lines between advertising, public relations and journalism have become dangerously blurred”

“. . .Journalists should work without fear or favor. Whether writing about foreign policy or new technology, our focus should be on the truth, not cozying up to the powerful or making corporations look good.

“And yet here we are, in a world where the lines between advertising, public relations and journalism are dangerously blurred; where once-respected media institutions have been hijacked by billionaires like Jeff Bezos, the Murdoch family, and Larry Ellison and turned into strategic megaphones. Where politicians are sold to the public with the same cynical strategies with which ad-people market alcohol. Guinness is good for you? Authoritarianism is even better!. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/dec/15/its-the-medias-job-to-hold-power-to-account-this-year-too-many-got-into-bed-with-it-instead