Newspaper Gets it Right

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Article in Poynter by Tom Jones, 3/4/26

Headline:  “Opinion | Inside The Star Tribune’s coverage of the Minneapolis immigration raids”

Subhead:  “Publisher and CEO Steve Grove shares how the paper balanced aggressive reporting with care for journalists covering a deeply personal story”

“One of the biggest news stories of 2026 has been the immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis, and the protests that have gone along with those operations. Some 4,000 federal agents descended on the Twin Cities back in January, sparking a story that gathered massive national attention.

“The story tragically gained even more attention on Jan. 7 when Renee Good, a poet and mother of three, was shot and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. Two weeks later, an ICU nurse named Alex Pretti was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent.

“As I said, this was a huge national story. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2026/minnesota-star-tribune-coverage-ice-raids/

No Bad News Allowed!

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Article in Daily Kos by Oliver Willis, 3/4/26

Headline:  “Hegseth cares more about ‘fake’ media coverage than dead troops”

“On Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth railed against accurate reporting on the deaths of American soldiers that have occurred thanks to President Donald Trump’s decision to attack Iran.

“Speaking to reporters at a press conference, Hegseth parroted Trump’s use of the phrase “fake news” to describe fact-based reporting on news reflecting negatively on the administration. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/3/4/2371618/-Hegseth-cares-more-about-fake-media-coverage-than-dead-troops

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Article in Mediaite by Willa Pope Robbins, 4/4/26

Headline: ” ‘WTF?’ Dan Abrams Slams Trump Administration’s Attacks on Media for Reporting Soldiers’ Deaths”

“Mediaite founder Dan Abrams called out Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s attacks on the media’s coverage of Iran on Wednesday, slamming the secretary for “insulting” the fallen U.S. service members in his attempts to blame news outlets for negative reporting on the conflict. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/wtf-dan-abrams-slams-trump-administrations-attacks-on-media-for-reporting-soldiers-deaths/

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Article in Huffpost by Graeme Demianyk, 3/4/26

Headline: “Pete Hegseth Complains Reporting On Dead Troops Is Trying To ‘Make The President Look Bad’ “

Subhead:  “The defense secretary bemoaned the ‘tragic things’ that make ‘front page news.’ “

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday suggested the media’s reporting of American troops killed after the U.S. went to war with Iran is only to make President Donald Trump “look bad.”

“In an astonishing attack on journalists during a news briefing at the Pentagon, the former Fox News host and Army veteran was touting the early achievements of Trump’s conflict in the Middle East when he complained about ‘tragic things’ making ‘front page news.’. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hegseth-troops-killed-media-trump_n_69a87b30e4b0865be0c6d334?origin=home-whats-happening-unit

Slithering Around All The Media

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Article in The Ringer by Brian Phillipsm 3/3/26

Headline:  “The Terrifying Tentacles of Paramount’s Media Empire”

Subhead:  “The Ellisons are building a multicorporate network of data mining, surveillance, news, and entertainment. What could possibly go wrong?”

“What are the Ellisons building? I wonder if even they know. Last week, the news broke that the superbillionaire family had beaten out Netflix—or sort of beaten out Netflix? after Netflix had initially won?? and then the Ellisons swooped in and reversed the outcome through a combination of no-holds-barred political maneuvering and saying the biggest number???—in the battle to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery and its sprawling stable of media assets. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theringer.com/2026/03/03/media/paramount-warner-bros-discovery-larry-ellison-david-merger-netflix7:37 PM 3/5/2026

Media Projecting War on Someone Else?

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Article in FAIR by Julie Hollar, 3/4/26

Headline: ” ‘What Do Americans Think?’—and by ‘Americans,’ We Mean Right-Wing Texans”

Subhead:  “Media are still trying to turn Trump’s decision into a problem for the party that didn’t launch the unpopular war rather than for the one that did.”

“Polling before and immediately after President Donald Trump’s Iran attacks has shown clear public opposition to war with Iran. . .”

“While public opposition to the war since it began has received fairly widespread coverage, at the New York Times, public opinion was framed in an entirely different way: The paper spotlighted six right-wing Texans in a piece (3/2/26) purporting to illustrate the question . . .”

“It’s one of the most egregious examples yet of the Times‘ ongoing series we like to call ‘Trump Supporters Support Trump’ (e.g., FAIR.org, 2/15/17, 7/24/19, 2/4/26). Frankly, it’s hard to come up with any explanation for this wildly skewed framing, other than offering a sop to right-wing critics of the paper. . . .”

Read the full article at:

https://fair.org/home/what-do-americans-think-and-by-americans-we-mean-right-wing-texans/

Media Sue Government for a Change

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Article in Columbia Journalism Review by Ivan L Nagy, 3/4/26

Headline: “The New York Times Takes the Pentagon to Court”

Subhead:  “As the US wages war on Iran, journalists’ fight for access enters a new phase.”

“. . .Hegseth and Caine spoke for twenty-nine minutes, then opened the floor for questions. . .In the first few rows of the briefing room, MAGA-friendly reporters passed the microphone to one another for a total of thirteen minutes before Hegseth and Caine left the stage. (Kingsley Wilson, the Pentagon press secretary, denied that Hegseth had chosen the questioners in advance. . .”

“In December, the Times sued the Defense Department, Hegseth, and Sean Parnell, the department’s chief spokesman, arguing that the reporting guidelines violate the First Amendment. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.cjr.org/news/new-york-times-takes-pentagon-court-hegseth-parnell-lawsuit.php

Open-Ended Media?

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Article in Media Matters by Payton Armstrong, 3/4/26

Headline: “Christian media figures have claimed that the Iran war could signal “the second coming” or the ‘End Times’ and said ‘we are watching incredible prophecy in this time come to pass’ “

“Right-wing Christian media are praising President Donald Trump’s decision to join Israel in launching military strikes against Iran, with some figures likening Trump to Cyrus the Great and Constantine the Great and claiming that ‘we are watching incredible prophecy in this time come to pass.’. . .”

Read the full article at”

https://www.mediamatters.org/us-iran-relations/christian-media-figures-have-claimed-iran-war-could-signal-second-coming-or-end

CNN and MAGA Mouthpiece

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Article in Daily Beast by Ewan Palmer, 3/3/26

Headline:  “CNN Staff Furious After MAGA Pundit Boosts Trump War Propaganda”

Subhead:  “The complaints about Scott Jennings were so severe that senior leaders at the network were called in.”

“CNN’s MAGA mouthpiece Scott Jennings left journalists at the network furious after he shared Iran war propaganda from Donald Trump that contradicted their own reporting.

Several staff complaints were made against Jennings, a firebrand figure who is often rude and dismissive during his CNN appearances, after he claimed he received intel about why the president had launched an attack on Iran, according to Status. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/cnn-staff-furious-after-maga-pundit-scott-jennings-boosts-donald-trump-iran-war-propaganda/

Did Media Forget Epstein?

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Article in Mediaite by Sean JAmes, 3/3/26

Headline: ” ‘Propaganda Slop’: Lightning Rod Journalist Calls Epstein Saga the ‘Worst Covered Story’ in Decades”

“Prominent Substack writer Michael Tracey argued that the Jeffrey Epstein saga stands out as the ‘worst covered story’ in decades in a new feature story published by The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday.

THR dubbed Tracey the ‘Face of Epstein Skepticism’ in its headline, and with good reason. Tracey has fought the widespread belief that Epstein was running a massive pedophile network for rich politicians and celebrities on both his Substack blog and on X, where users frequently rip him for questioning how sordid Epstein really was. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.mediaite.com/media/propaganda-slop-lightning-rod-journalist-calls-epstein-saga-the-worst-covered-story-in-decades/

War Concerns Show Up in Media

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Article in Poynter by Tom Jones, 3/3/26

Headline: “Opinion | As coverage intensifies, polls show Americans are uneasy about the Iran strikes”

Subhead:  “Nearly six in 10 Americans oppose the strikes and just as many don’t believe President Trump has a clear plan for handling the situation”

“. . .A CNN poll shows 59% of Americans disapprove of the attack. The poll also found that 60% of Americans don’t believe President Donald Trump has ‘a clear plan for handling the situation’. . .’

“Meanwhile, The Washington Post texted 1,000 Americans to get their thoughts on the attack. The results: 45% opposed, 39% supported and 17% were unsure. In addition, 47% said the U.S. should stop military strikes, compared to 25% who said they should continue.. .”

“The New York Times ran interesting side-by-side videos on its homepage on Monday. As I just referenced above, there was a clip of Trump saying, ‘I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.’ Again, that was in 2024. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2026/trump-negative-polling-iran-strikes/

Trump IS MAGA Media?

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Article in The hill by Dominick Mastrangelo, 3/3/26

Headline:  “Trump knocks Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly over Iran criticism: ‘MAGA is Trump’ “

“President Trump and his allies are pushing back on a number of top conservative media figures typically loyal to him who have questioned ongoing U.S. military action in Iran amid fears of a prolonged war in the Middle East.

“The president said former Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, both of whom have publicly broken with him over U.S. military operations in Iran, do not represent the view among his base of supporters.

“ ‘I think that MAGA is Trump — MAGA’s not the other two,’ Trump said, adding of Kelly specifically that ‘she was critical of me for years and I didn’t lose. I won all three times by a lot.’. . .”

Read the full article at:
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5764439-donald-trump-tucker-carlson-megyn-kelly-iran-conflict/