Selective Coverage

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Article in Common Dreams by Joseph Bouchard, 9/16/25

Headline:  “Trump’s Venezuela Boat Strikes Are War Crimes, So Where’s The Media?”

Subhead:  “Why hasn’t the mainstream media pressed the administration on these strikes being illegal and dangerous (and unpopular)?”

“On September 2, the Trump administration shared footage purporting to show a US strike on a Venezuelan fishing boat. Even if we take the incident entirely at face value (and there are a lot of reasons to question the video itself)—the US Navy attacked a fishing boat off Venezuela, killing 11 people. On Monday, another strike was allegedly conducted on a boat, killing three people. The way the media has handled these strikes is an indictment of the state of American neoliberal reporting in a neofascist age. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-boat-strikes-crimes

How to Respond to Reporters?

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Article in the New Republic by Greg Sargent, 11/110/25

Headline: “Trump Press Sec Seethes as Epstein Spin Falls Apart in Briefing Fiasco”

Subhead:  “As Karoline Leavitt’s responses to the latest Jeffrey Epstein revelations go awry, a media observer explains why the MAGA disinformation machine’s treatment of this scandal is more unnerving than usual.”

“. . .The upshot: White House spin looked comically awful throughout. Leavitt flashed anger at other points, accusing reporters of ignoring serious crimes and of being dishonest about Trump’s militarization of Washington, D.C. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://newrepublic.com/article/200234/trump-press-sec-seethes-epstein-spin-falls-apart-briefing-fiasco

No More Media Gate

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Article in AP by David Bauder, 9/10/25

Headline:  “Graphic video of Kirk shooting was everywhere online, showing how media gatekeeper role has changed”

“. . .For more than 150 years, news organizations like newspapers and television networks have long been accustomed to ‘gatekeeping’ when it comes to explicit content — making editorial decisions around violent events to decide what images and words appear on their platforms for their readers or viewers. But in the fragmented era of social media, smartphones and instant video uploads, editorial decisions by legacy media are less impactful than ever. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://apnews.com/article/charlie-kirk-video-graphic-online-social-media-6cfd4dfde356b960aeea69c01ea3ec34

Pants on Fire Not News?

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Article in The Nation by Chris Lehmann, 9/9/25

Headline:  “Why the Media Allows MAGA to Cover Up Their Lies With More Lies”

Subhead:  “The MAGA movement can “walk back” outrageous statements, and the press hardly asks a follow-up.”

“For all the justified focus on the second Trump administration’s authoritarian agenda, and the suite of debased governing protocols that go with it, the basic messaging apparatus behind it has received scant attention. As it happens, this past weekend supplied a pair of textbook illustrations showing how the MAGA power elite throttle the mediasphere to serve their purposes. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/walk-back-media-maga-trump-lies/

Reporters Trust Political Doctors?

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Article in AP by David Bauder, 9/3/25

Headline: “US media quickly forced to revisit a thorny question: How should a president’s health be covered?”

“. . .Beyond punditry, however, news outlets face serious questions about how to handle the story, much like they did with Biden. The physical signs that have been pointed out online should trigger serious probes into the president’s health. Some critics, like historian Garrett Graff, said it was puzzling that many in the media hadn’t treated it like a news story — although the timing over a holiday weekend surely made it more challenging.. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://apnews.com/article/trump-health-media-coverage-1541184240d9092f08159fa36a05a955

 

The End of History – on the Media?

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Article in New York Times by Mike Hale, 8/27/25

Headline:  “As PBS Stations Confront Cuts, American History Takes a Hit”

Subhead:   “The documentary series ‘American Experience’ begins an abbreviated schedule this week. A victim of the federal funding take-back, it has suspended production and laid off its staff.”

“The effect of the federal assault on public broadcasting in the United States has mostly been expressed in big numbers and dire forecasts: $1.1 billion taken back; the existence of more than 100 television and radio stations at risk.”

“But the cutbacks have already had one smaller, more immediate effect. WGBH, the bellwether public TV station in Boston, has laid off the 13 people who worked on the history series ‘American Experience’ and announced that no new documentaries will be produced for the show until further notice. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/arts/television/american-experience.html

Did Media Panic?

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Article in Mediaite by Ahmad Austin Jr., 8/28/25

Headline:  “CNBC Analyst Rips Media’s Trump Panic After Latest Jobs Report Turns Out Good: ‘Not Sending Any Smoke Signals’ “

“CNBC Analyst Rips Media’s Trump Panic After Latest Jobs Report Turns Out Good: ‘Not Sending Any Smoke Signals’ . . .”

“At the end of his report, Santelli noted how the drama surrounding President Donald Trump’s feud with the Federal Reserve — despite all the media attention — has had little impact on the economy itself. . .”

Read the ull article at:

https://www.mediaite.com/media/tv/cnbc-analyst-rips-medias-trump-panic-after-latest-jobs-report-turns-out-good-not-sending-any-smoke-signals/

Urgent Reporting Can Wait

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Article in FAIR by Janine Jackson, 8/19/25

Headline: “Media in Hiding From the Most Urgent Questions of the Day”

“. . . Corporate media are calling this kind of thing reporting, but reporting would keep at least one foot in the facts. So when White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller (X, 8/12/25) tweets that ‘crime stats in big blue cities are fake,’ would a press corps worth its salt say ‘some advocates dispute that,’ or would they show all the actual real-world data?

“Ideally, the blathering of a man who thinks that ‘the real rates of crime, chaos and dysfunction are orders of magnitude higher’ than that might be met with questions about, for one thing, whether he knows what ‘orders of magnitude’ means, but also, where is he looking for these official rates of ‘chaos and dysfunction’?

“But the press corps we have are engaged, like the New York Times, in hiding from the most urgent questions of the day. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://fair.org/home/media-in-hiding-from-the-most-urgent-questions-of-the-day/

Confusion by D.C. Federal Prosecutor?

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Article in Mediaite by Staff, 8/12/25

Headline:  “DC Reporter Confronts Jeanine Pirro on Trump Pardoning Cop-Beaters: ‘How Is This Not a Mixed Message?’ “

“U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro dismissed criticism from police of President Donald Trump’s January 6 pardons during an interview with Fox 5 reporter Jillian Smith about the administration’s decision to send the National Guard into Washington, D.C. to crack down on crime.

Smith pressed Pirro on the contradiction between the president’s pro-police messaging now and his sweeping pardons of rioters who assaulted cops during the January 6 Capitol attack. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.mediaite.com/crime/dc-reporter-confronts-jeanine-pirro-on-trump-pardoning-cop-beaters-how-is-this-not-a-mixed-message/

Legacy Media Missing the Story?

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Article in The New Republic by Perry Bacon, 8/7/25

Headline:  “The Media Keeps Ignoring the Truth About American Politics”

Subhead:  “As the Republican Party further radicalizes, mainstream news organizations are still trying to cover politics as they always have. But alternative news sources are emerging.”

“Republicans in Texas are trying to gerrymander congressional districts to give the GOP a greater advantage in the U.S. House of Representatives, potentially even preserving the party’s control of the lower chamber in next year’s midterm elections. And yet, the mainstream media keeps missing the radicalism of the Republican Party—in part because too few reporters and editors follow news at the state level. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://newrepublic.com/article/198873/republican-extremism-media-ignoring-truth-politics