Media obsequiousness

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

Sainthood for New Pentagon Press Corps?

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Article in The Intercept by Katherine Krueger, 12/13/25

Headline:  “The Brand-New Pentagon Press Corps Is Gaga for Hegseth”

Subhead:  “The Department of War has cracked the code on making the perfect press corps by welcoming in only its biggest cheerleaders.”

“The welcome was so warm it could’ve been the first day of school for a new class of kindergartners, and with the so-called reporters’ level of skepticism for the administration, they might as well have been.

” ‘I would also like to take a moment today to welcome all of you here to the Pentagon briefing room as official new members of the Pentagon press corps. We’re glad to have you,’ Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said in her December 2 briefing. . .”

“Wilson also said that ‘legacy media chose to self-deport from this building,’ a cute way of noting that dozens of news organizations — among them the New York Times, the Washington Post, the major broadcast news outlets, and even Fox News and Newsmax — gave up their press passes rather than sign on to the administration’s blatantly anti-First Amendment set of rules for reporting on Pete Hegseth’s Department of War. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://theintercept.com/2025/12/13/hegseth-new-pentagon-press-reporters/

Not Only Media . . .

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From Political Dictionary

Article in FAIR by Jim Naureckas, 12/10/25

Headline:  “FBI Is Making an Enemies List—and Most Corporate Media Didn’t Even Check It Once”

“The Trump FBI is drawing up an enemies list that could encompass well over half the US public. . .”

“Congratulations—you may be headed for Attorney General Pam Bondi’s “list of groups or entities engaging in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism. ‘Terrorism,’ of course, is the magic word that strips you of all sorts of legal protections, especially in the post-9/11 era. . .”

“. . .virtually no corporate media outlets covered this. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://fair.org/home/fbi-is-making-an-enemies-list-and-most-corporate-media-didnt-even-check-it-once/

Media Assist in Lies?

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Article in The Contrarian by Josh Levs, 12/3/25

Headline:  “The Media Helped Trump Spread a Lie After the National Guard Shooting”

Subhead:  “The job of the media is to provide truth, which equals facts plus context.”

“The shooting of two National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., last week should have led to bipartisan action—specifically, an immediate commitment to shoring up protections for these men and women who volunteer to serve. Instead, it became President Donald Trump’s latest opportunity to spread a made-up number to Americans. And the legacy media, as always, helped him. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/the-media-helped-trump-spread-a-lie

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Article in Politico by Daniel Block, 12/2/25

Headline:  “News Organizations Are Bowing to Trump. This Small Magazine Knows How to Resist.”

Subhead:  “U.S. media outlets could learn some lessons from The Caravan.”

“. . .In India, the crackdown has been effective: the country’s mainstream media now rarely critiques Modi. In the United States, the press is also starting to pull some of its punches. But if India’s trajectory is cause for alarm, it also provides some reason for hope. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/12/01/lessons-on-surviving-autocracy-from-one-small-indian-magazine-00667380