Media obsequiousness

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/

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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

Journalists Enable Madmen?

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Article in Daily Beast by Jack Revell, 11/28/25

Headline:  “Rosie O’Donnell Rages at Reporters Enabling ‘Madman’ Trump”

Subhead:  “Trump’s long-time rival says journalists let him ‘verbally rape a woman’ with his ‘stupid person’ outburst.”

“. . .Reacting to a viral clip of the president berating a female reporter as ‘stupid’ on Thursday, O’Donnell said that White House journalists need to push back on Trump’s personal attacks.

“ ‘A decent person would stand up in spite of their job and say ‘I will not sit here and watch you verbally assault and attack and rape a woman,’ O’Donnell said.. .”

Read the full article at:

https://archive.ph/O1p1F#selection-1381.1-1391.160

New Reporters Party?

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Amos Barshad, 11/24/25

Headline:  “Partying at Mar-a-Lago with the New MAGA Media Stars”

Subhead:  “While major news outlets obsessed over the anticipated release of the Epstein files, Trump-friendly news influencers celebrated how far they’ve come.”

“. . .The event is a chance for the new right to gather and celebrate itself: While Trump freezes out or directly attacks legacy media, MAGA content creators exist in an influential, symbiotic relationship with the White House, where they are welcomed into the press room as never before. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/feature/james-okeefe-media-group-citizen-journalist-award-gala-maga-news-influencer-content-creator-mar-a-lago-trump-news.php

War and Media

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Article in FAIR by Ricardo Vaz, 11/19/25

Headline: “Corporate Media Parrot Dubious Drug Claims That Justify War on Venezuela”

“. . .Over the years, Western media have endorsed Washington’s Venezuela regime-change efforts at every turn, from cheerleading coup attempts to whitewashing deadly sanctions (FAIR.org, 6/13/22, 6/4/21, 1/22/20). Now, with a possible military operation that could have disastrous consequences, corporate outlets are making little effort to hold the US government accountable. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://fair.org/home/corporate-media-parrot-dubious-drug-claims-that-justify-war-on-venezuela/

Media Looking Away?

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Article in FAIR by Ari Paul, 11/17/25

Headline:  “For NYT, Trump’s Gulf Corruption Is the New Normal”

“. . .It is a hallmark of corrupt societies that institutions like the media simply accept that payoffs and the personal business interests of politicians supersede public service. A good example of this casual resignation to a corrupt regime came from the New York Times (11/15/25) under the headline ‘Trump Organization Is Said to Be in Talks on a Saudi Government Real Estate Deal.’ ”

Read the full article at:

https://fair.org/home/for-nyt-trumps-gulf-corruption-is-the-new-normal/

Media Grovel Proper Way.

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Article in The Guardian by Michael Savage, 11/12/25

Headline:  “BBC prepared to apologise to Trump to resolve billion-dollar legal threat”

Subhead:  “The US president has threatened the BBC with a lawsuit over the editing of a Trump speech in an edition of Panorama”

“The BBC is prepared to formally apologise to Donald Trump as part of its efforts to resolve his billion-dollar legal threat over its editing of one of his speeches, the Guardian understands. . . ”

“The BBC’s leadership is facing a looming deadline over how to reply to Trump’s legal threat, filed in a Florida court on Wednesday according to the White House. It follows the editing of a Trump speech in an edition of Panorama, which was a significant factor in the resignation of director general Tim Davie and Deborah Turness, its head of news. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/nov/12/bbc-prepared-to-apologise-to-trump-to-resolve-billion-dollar-legal-threat

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Article in AP by David Bader 11/11/25

Headline: “In Trump-dominated media world, editing video takes on new significance — as BBC uproar shows”

“In the space of a few months, one of the more straightforward journalistic tasks — editing tape for broadcast — has been behind a $16 million legal settlement, a network’s change in how it offers interviews on a news show and, now, the resignation of two top leaders at the BBC.

“The other common denominator: President Donald Trump.

“Britain’s BBC is reeling this week following the resignations of its director-general, Tim Davie, and news chief Deborah Turness amid accusations of bias in the editing of last year’s documentary, ‘Trump: A Second Chance.’ . . .”

Read the full article at:

https://apnews.com/article/bbc-trump-harris-cbs-editing-television-video-db6c37a1ce9aed0da96519069bf9d249