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The Mainstream Media Is Catastrophically Failing To Meet The Moment
from the you're-missing-every-big-story dept
Earlier today we wrote about Trump’s extraordinary admission that he was basing military deployment decisions on old Fox News footage and lies from his advisors. But there’s an even more damning story here: how that revelation almost never saw the light of day because of journalistic cowardice.
The smoking gun quote came from Trump’s phone interview with NBC’s Yamiche Alcindor:
“I spoke to the governor, she was very nice,” Trump said. “But I said, ‘Well wait a minute, am I watching things on television that are different from what’s happening? My people tell me different.’ They are literally attacking and there are fires all over the place…it looks like terrible.”
This is an absolutely nuclear quote.
But note that we linked to the local KGW affiliate report on it and not NBC’s.
And that’s because NBC didn’t even mention the quote at all in its own coverage. As Dan Froomkin highlighted in his article about all this, NBC ran two stories by Alcindor (with Alexandra Marquez) about her interview with Trump, neither of which mentioned that bombshell of a quote.
Instead, it was only because NBC apparently sent the full transcript to affiliates that Evan Watson at KGW picked it up and ran a story about it.
But that raises a ton of questions, including how could NBC and Alcindor not see this as a story? And what is wrong with the mainstream media that it basically skipped over this?
The quote is devastating. It reveals a president who is either completely detached from reality, easily manipulated by advisors feeding him false information, or being deliberately deceived by old Fox News footage (as we now know was happening). It raises fundamental questions about who is actually running the country and whether the person with access to nuclear codes can distinguish between television clips from five years ago and reality. As we detailed yesterday, this quote reveals everything about how Trump ended up threatening military action against an American city based on five-year-old Fox News b-roll.
NBC’s failure to see the story in this is journalistic malpractice of the highest order. When the President admits he can’t tell the difference between Fox News b-roll and reality, that’s not a throwaway line—it’s the story.
But it’s also part of a much larger pattern of media cowardice that’s actively damaging public trust in journalism. The problem isn’t just burying important quotes—it’s the widespread adoption of “view from nowhere” reporting that treats even the most basic facts as matters of debate.
Take this astounding example from a recent New York Times piece about Trump’s use of military force against boats in the Caribbean.
Some legal experts have called it a crime to summarily kill civilians not directly taking part in hostilities, even if they are believed to be smuggling drugs.
“Some legal experts?” Are you kidding me? Summarily executing civilians is a war crime under international law. This isn’t a matter of debate among competing schools of legal thought. There isn’t another camp of legal experts arguing that, actually, murdering civilians is totally fine. The Times is creating false balance where none exists, making it sound like there’s some reasonable disagreement about whether mass murder constitutes a crime.
Or consider this gem from CNN, fact-checking Trump’s claim that he reduced prescription drug prices by 1500%:
Trump has unveiled a number of moves aimed at cutting drug prices in recent months, but he has yet to move the needle on reducing costs – much less slashing them by 1,500%, which is mathematically impossible, experts say.
Experts say? You need experts to tell you that 1500% is more than 100%? This is elementary school math. A 100% reduction means something is free. A 1500% reduction would mean pharmaceutical companies are paying you a decent sum of money to take their pills. You don’t need to consult the National Academy of Sciences to determine this is bullshit—you need to remember fourth grade.
This kind of reporting is journalistic malpractice disguised as objectivity. When reporters feel compelled to add “experts say” to basic mathematical facts or treat war crimes as matters of legitimate debate, they’re not being neutral—they’re actively misleading their audience into believing basic facts are up for debate among “experts.”
The pattern is clear: mainstream media has become so terrified of appearing biased that they’ve abandoned their basic responsibility to clearly communicate truth to the public. They’d rather hide behind the false comfort of “some say” and “experts disagree” than plainly state obvious facts.
This isn’t objectivity—it’s cowardice. And it’s precisely why trust in media continues to crater.
There’s an old joke in the journalism field (with disputes over where it originated from) but the line is “if one person says it’s raining and another says it’s not, the journalist should look outside and report the truth” rather than suggesting whether or not it’s raining is a matter of dispute.
We’re seeing the opposite from the mainstream media these days.
When the President of the United States admits he can’t distinguish between television and reality, that’s not a “both sides” story, or a cute anecdote not worth mentioning. When someone claims to have reduced costs by 1500%, that’s not a matter requiring expert consultation—it’s a mathematical impossibility. When military officials discuss summarily executing civilians, that’s not a policy debate—it’s war crimes.
The public deserves better than this mealy-mouthed nonsense. They deserve reporters who can recognize when they’re witnessing something extraordinary and have the courage to say so clearly. They deserve news organizations that understand the difference between false balance and actual journalism.
Instead, we get reporters who bury the most important quotes of their own interviews and editors who think basic arithmetic requires expert verification. Is it any wonder people are losing faith in institutions that seem incapable of simply stating reality on its own terms?
The media keeps wondering why trust in journalism is at historic lows. Here’s a thought: maybe it’s because when the President reveals he’s making military decisions based on old Fox News footage and lies from his advisors, the reporter who got that admission decides it’s not worth mentioning. Or maybe it’s because the likes of CNN and the NY Times are so worried about angry people attacking them for calling bullshit on the President that they have to cower behind “experts say” on basic objective facts.
That’s not journalism. That’s stenography. And the American people can tell the difference, even when their media apparently cannot.
Filed Under: donald trump, experts say, journalism, view from nowhere, yamiche alcindor
Companies: cnn, nbc, ny times
Comments on “The Mainstream Media Is Catastrophically Failing To Meet The Moment”
You already covered Journalism 101 in the article, so here’s Journalism 102: It’s also a journalist’s job to report which one of the two lied about the weather.
Re:
If only there were regulations in place to force Journalists to perform the activities that you believe are, and what I believe their job should be.
But absent those regulations their actual job is to get paid, nothing more nothing less, and they’ll do whatever gets them paid with the least trouble.
Re: Re:
If there were such regulations, we wouldn’t have a free press, regardless of how badly they fuck up. Are you trying to come off as a right-wing provocateur playing a center-left liberal in an attempt to move the Overton Window on government censorship of speech, or is that an accidental side effect of your bullshit positions?
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Re: Re: Re: Bullshit position
On the burning boat, arguing that fire regulations are a bad thing.
Think more, argue less. Understand how you got where you are before explaining that this is the only route.
Re: Re: Re:2
Please explain how the government telling the press exactly how to do their job—right down to the wording of every article and headline—makes the press more free. I’ll wait.
Re: Re: Re:2
Holy shit. The current administration set the fire that is burning the boat! They aren’t the ones to solve the fire problem!
Re: Re: Re:3
And the next administration should put laws in place to prevent the boat from being lit on fire again.
Re: Re: Re:4
How would that stop the administration after that from annulling those laws and setting the boat on fire again?
Re: Re: Re:5
Republicans are highly unelectable without their media apparatus spreading a tidal wave of lies, hate, and hateful lies.
If we banned Fox News and other Republican propaganda mills… They’d lose every election and would never be in a position where they’d have the power to repeal the laws against them lighting the boat on fire.
Who wants to vote for someone who’s platform is, literally, “I will make you personally poorer in exchange for making the people you hate even more poor, in order to enrich the people I actually like”, at least if they’re not being hyped up on race war bullshit?
Re: Re: Re:6
Can you guarantee that with the certainty of God?
Re: Re: Re:7
“The certainty of God”. No, because God doesn’t exist.
But enough certainty for man? Yes. Several places where there are laws about this sort of thing have weathered assaults on their democracy similar to the one Republiscum are performing on the US democracy which much more successful.
Re: Re: Re:8
Just to be clear, let me lay this out for you: You’re saying you can guarantee—without any doubt in your mind—that the destruction of Fox News, OANN, Newsmax, and other Republican-friendly media outlets will inherently prevent any victory by any Republican in any democratic election across the entire nation, no matter how high or low the office is within the hierarchy of government, until the end of the party, the country, and/or humanity. Am I getting that right?
Oh, and, uh, sidebar question: How do you plan to stop new ones from cropping up and throwing your plans into disarray?
🙄
Re: Re: Re:4
There already are laws against it. It’s just that conservatives in Congress and SCOTUS are complicit in the burning instead of shutting it down. Laws don’t matter if they’re not enforced.
Re: Re:
Readers and audiences for media can voice their perspectives about what they think journalists should be doing and how they should be doing it without the need to demand regulations.
The idea that journalism is only done for money is demonstrably false. Plenty of journalists aren’t paid directly for their work. Yes, mainstream journalists get employment with large companies, but there are independent journalists who aren’t guaranteed a pay out. Some publications are done for free or covered by donations and grants rather than through ads or subscriptions, or through a combination thereof.
The idea that a journalist should worry only about pay betrays the ethos of being a journalist entirely. If it’s just for pay, that’s a propagandist. You’re just reporting what makes money or provides your employer and their friends with power and influence, not “news.”
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Re: Re:
Your Overton window is actually literally retarded.
Reports I’ve read mentioning literacy/numeracy over yonder suggest to me there’s a non-zero chance they did indeed not know how percentages work. Hell, take a look at these numbers, for literacy (2024-2025):
Source: https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/2024-2025-literacy-statistics
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I dont see anything that suggests all of the above can’t be true,
they obviously categorise people with a literacy level of 5th or 6th grade as literate rather then illiterate
Re: Re:
They’re not saying that the stats given on literacy are incoherent. They’re saying that many Americans have a substandard level of literacy, and that it’s reasonable to think that this also means that many Americans don’t know how percentages work.
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What?
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Only 34% of adults lacking literacy proficiency were born outside the US.
Did they really ask mathematicians?
“…much less slashing them by 1,500%, which is mathematically impossible, experts say.”
Do you think the CNN fact-checker actually called up local math professors, or do you think the fact-checker’s eyes rolled their eyes and typed “, experts say” out of habit?
Reminds me of one of my favorite headlines, “Something Went Wrong in Plane Crash, Experts Say.”
I think there are two influences at play here:
1- Defensive journalism. The ‘view from nowhere’ and citing ‘experts’ on even inane details is an attempt to avoid lawsuits. Even a quickly tossed suit is thousands in attorney fees, and a lot of lost person-hours, so they pull their rhetorical punches and hide behind sources. (I didn’t say you were lying, I said someone said you were lying.)
2- The access game. DC journalism has long been an elaborate dance, with honest reporting at the bottom of the priority list. Everything is about making sure you don’t get frozen out of those juicy ‘source familiar with the matter’ leaks and ‘exclusive interviews.’ Push too hard, call out too strongly, and you are out in the cold.
The problem is that this has been the case for a very long time. Now, though, Trump and MAGA’s antics have blown up the polite little gossip clubs and media ownership has come into the hands of shareholders and billionaires more interested in steady profit than squishy ideas like ‘truth’ and ‘freedoms’.
It’s always amusing
that the main stream folks writing these both sides and sanewashing of him seem to believe that they are not part of the enemies within he declared war on today.
These motherfuckers spent two years screaming that Joe Biden was too senile to be president.
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Joe Biden being to senile to be president, does not exclude Donald Trump from being to Senile to be president,
Both can be true, its not a OR.
Re: Re:
I don’t think he was implying an either/or situation; he was basically saying that they’re hypocrites.
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The coverage given to one, and not the other, is the problem. Particularly given that Trump has been largely incoherent for years now.
Both can be true, but they can’t both be true while also justifying how the coverage went.
Re: Re:
Back at it again, i see.
Are you determined to wildly misunderstand things, or what?
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Maybe there’s a horseshoe here!
At a certain point of extreme senility, you cross over into extra super sane and capable!
Re: Re:
Lol,
Strings don’t underflow/overflow like Ints.
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As it turns out that was only because Biden isn’t a republican.
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The mainstream media has been hilariously left leaning (to the degree of yes, lying about Trump a lot) and your complaining they’re NOT BIASED ENOUGH is just the funniest fffing thing.
You’ve really become a parody at this point.
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It’s pretty telling that you view my request that journalists actually report the truth as “asking for more bias.” Literally nothing I wrote was asking for “bias.”
Nice admission though that you view reality as too biased for your fragile cultish identity politics. You’re a joke.
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It really hasn’t been. If it were, the New York Times would be hailed for its positive coverage of transgender issues instead of being pilloried for the conservative-friendly anti-trans slant of its actual coverage of said issues.
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Feel free to cite the last time a major news organization advocated explicitly for the seizing of the means of production from capitalists.
Or does left-leaning to you mean, “they didn’t kiss Trump’s ass enough?”
Re: Re:
These chucklefucks never know what any of the things they’re so vehemently against actually IS
Whether you like it or not
If you offer an average person that if they’ll accept a 100% surcharge, you’ll give them a 60% rebate, most will decline.
Even though it would be a net win for them. What Trump presumably is talking about is the equivalent of reversing a 1500$ surcharge. Which happens to be a 93.75$ reduction.
There are some mathematics that simply are a nuisance to a layperson. Another favorite of mine is a train going 100kph going from A to B and 300kph going back from B to A. What was its average speed? The answer turns out to be 150kph.
Now it doesn’t take a stable genius (which sounds like a nickname for a calculating horse) to realize that a 1500% reduction is out of line. And someone who is as weak with numbers as that should not be setting tariffs on an “emergency basis”, more succinctly called a “whim”.
Math can be tricky, so if it isn’t your specialty and you happen to be the president of the U.S.A., it might be smart to let somebody with a basic proficiency in numbers vet your statements before you utter them. Because if you are a moron in that department, ad-libbing without necessity is just being stupid.
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Except there was no reference to surcharges or rebates. Trump was talking about convincing drug manufacturers to lower prices for the US so the upfront cost would just be lower.
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Don’t forget that another big plank of this ship of fools was that trump would make the drug companies raise prices in europe specifically to make things cost more there, to punish them or something. Meat thrown to his base because how dare dem yuuuuroo-peeings be allowed to pay less? Having the drug makers make less profit was never the point either, that would be commie talk, obviously.
Re: Re:
He’s saying people don’t really “get” percentages. Which is true, unfortunately.
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Another favorite of mine is a train going 100kph going from A to B and 300kph going back from B to A. What was its average speed? The answer turns out to be 150kph.
Show us how you figured 150kph average, please. The way I figure the average speed is 200kph. Simple calculation, (100 + 300 = 400) / 2 = 200. How is this calculation wrong?
Re: Re: Because you calculated the wrong average.
You calculated the average of two speeds. Speed is distance per time. Averaging two speeds is only valid if you spent equal time at each of the two speeds.
However, it is clearly stated that those speeds were maintained for the same distance, not the same time.
That means that the return trip took 1/3 of the time of the forward trip, meaning the whole trip was done in 4/3 of the time of the forward trip. So you have 2 times the distance in 4/3 of the time, making for 3/2 the original speed as average, namely 150kph.
Put differently: when both legs cover the same distance, what you can average straightforwardly is not the speed (distance per time) but the pace (time per distance).
Re: Re:
It’s the timey wimey things that trip people up.
Re: math can be tricky
Not so sure about that. Come, let us reason together, starting with a price tag of $50.
1. base price = 50
2. add 100% surcharge, 50 + 50 = 100
3. rebate 60% of that surcharge, 100 – 30 = 70
4. compare final price, 70 > 50
So, yeah, it is a net win. The victory goes to the vendor, not for the buyer. I can understand why some buyers might be reluctant to agree to your offer.
Like Masnick, I’ve been pulling my hair out over the low quality of mainstream media journalism for some time now. If Joe Biden mumbled once in a debate, that immediately sparks “questions” over the mental state of Biden. Yet, if Trump goes on a senile rant, mainstream media’s reaction is to “explain” what he said and “better understand” his point of view. Zero question about the mental competence of Trump. Zero mention that Trump was having yet another senile moment. It’s all political cover for any right wing politician.
Just today, I was watching reports about the insane rant by Trump, talking about how he intends on using the cities he is targeting for political reasons as military training grounds for military personnel. Trump is literally rehashing the “enemy from within” insanity to justify using the military to attack American’s. The media’s reaction here in Canada, “Gee, that sounds somewhat concerning. Is there a reason to be worried?” I’m like, “Dude! What the actual fuck is wrong with you??? Is there any actual doubt that this is terrifying? Trump is literally pushing to sick the military on perceived domestic political foes and you are sitting there, navel gazing and rubbing your chins and saying that this is kind of an interesting thing to say.”
The worst part about this is that I know the damaging implications of all of this normalization. In any sane scenario, the media would be screaming about how the nation is under attack from an insane mad man, but because the mainstream media normalized activity like government disappearing people from the city streets or arresting politicians for basic free speech activity, military takeovers of city streets is now somehow just an “interesting political move”. It… seriously makes me want to swear at the media all day long.
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The sad thing is that they’ve always been bad. Sometimes ridiculously bad. But they definitely have been getting worse.
In other news: pigs eat tripe.
The media are serving a market. Investing into quality only makes sense when consumers value it.
Your complaints about the media make as much sense as blaming the cooks when there isn’t a single restaurant in town selling anything other than cheap junk food.
It is not the junk food joints that are running the good restaurants into oblivion. It is the patrons.
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That would be true if there was an actual free market. There isn’t. Multiple social media sites regularly suppress news links via their algorithms (Facebook, X/Twitter) and Google is strangling traffic to independent publishers through AI Overview and AI Mode. The reality is that users can’t find independent sources that offer high quality journalism through the normal channels for the most part simply because those sources are actively being hidden from them.
Traditional media sources are holding on to their monopolies on the traditional airwaves. Consumers aren’t able to make a free choice of which media to consume because the system acts as though anything other than mainstream media doesn’t actually exist.
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The patrons didn’t ask for lower quality; the restaurant just started serving it because they believed they could get away with it. And they could.
To put it another way, this isn’t just the fault of the readers.
Re: Re: This is capitalism
Where is the point in throwing pearl before swine?
Well, of course that is the essence of education. But news outlets are corporations that need to be profitable. They aren’t government-sponsored pillars of education.
Not that the actual government-sponsored education is imbuing the students with a yearning for veritable knowledge that would make them reject sub-par news.
Re: Re: Re:
TV news wasn’t always intended to be a profitable enterprise. News reporting was a public service required by the terms of each station’s broadcast license. If the licensee (station) didn’t serve the public interest, it could lose its license. It was also required to provide “equal time for responsible opposing viewpoints”.
This was all turned upside down when Reagan eviscerated the Fairness Doctrine.
How to avoid a lawsuit...
Experts say…
But sadly, the news outlets are paying Trump multi-million dollar settlements anyway.
I think it is hilarious that you put so much stock into corporate institutions and are now flailing because you somehow didn’t realize the corporate institutions don’t care about you. Like pottery…
Beaten into submission
The moment a major media outlet reports an embarrassing fact about the administration, Trump threatens to sue for a gajillion dollars. Sometimes he follows through on the threat. So owners and management are terrified to say anything critical, even if it’s obviously true.
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Damn… if only these big news orgs had some lawyers on staff to help deal with these sorts of issues… (/s)(too obvious?)
The king is mad...
…and yet no can say that the king is mad. His every pronouncement is earnest truth no matter the evidence of eyes and ears, and must not be challenged. The king is mad, and could easily kill us all, but his truth is the only truth. The king is mad and will try to kill us all out of madness or petty spite or whim, and yet no one stands up to shout “the king is mad”.
It’s worse. They regularly whitewash his comments to make them sound more sane than they are, and have since Trump I. The view from nowhere stuff is also problematic, but many of these decisions go beyond that, to actively shaping coverage to help him.
To quote Michael Tae Sweeney: They like Trump and want him to win.
If only. They’d be out of business.
I’ve long had a disturbing suspicion that this may be the inverse of Hanlon’s Razor. The reason I say this is that journalists rarely ever take politicians’ words at face value, but also because usually journalists react to any whiff of scandal like a dog with its ears pointing forward. Especially anything involving “Trump says something dumb/deranged/nonsensical”.
Usually journalists jump over themselves to try to explain what Trump “really meant”, right?
Where you tend to see journalists behave like this is when they’re sympathetic to a cause because they’ve bought into a narrative, intentionally or not.
I don’t think it needs to be any sort of conspiracy amongst the press, but I do think it seems unwise to presume that a large number of veteran journalists who’ve made careers out of professionally distrusting politicians and chasing any and all scandals are suddenly incapable of basic decisions about what is and isn’t newsworthy.
And it always seems to happen for Donald Trump. Maybe he’s the Michael Jordan of political communications…or maybe he’s been playing against the Washington Generals, or whatever the Globetrotters’ opposing team is called these days.
I think that the coming midterm elections will determine what the people of America deserve. If they prove to be too dim-witted to vote in their own interest, let them learn to pick lettuce.
I’m a wealthy White man, and thus largely situated above the impending shitstorm. My advice to those less fortunate is simple- vote, and do so as if your Life depended on it, because IT VERY WELL MAY.
It’s a referendum on freedom versus feudalism. Check your bank balance and vote accordingly.
I don’t think so. This is standard procedure for Trump.
Trump does not care what the facts say, of what expert opinion or research findings say. Public perception is all that matters to him.
To find out how the public perceives things, he watches what his base watches: Fox News. If Fox News reports something that has no base in reality, then it’s still real. The reality of Fox News is Trump’s reality, facts be damned.
Journalism vs. Stenography
Per usual, Mike, you hit the nail on the head. And nowhere is the problem of lazy reporting more obvious than what passes for coverage about the issue of child safety and the internet. The complete lack of objectivity, of any real knowledge or context, few reporters actually do the work to understand what does or doesn’t protect kids and, frankly, most don’t seem to care…..at all.
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I mean I’d say it’s pretty obvious in the coverage of Trump.
When you see “mainstream media” drop the ball, that is intentional; the media owners are part of the MAGA club (or at least they think so.) And as dictators from all political backgrounds know: controlling the media helps to keep you in power.
Heads GOP wins, tails Dems lose
If Obama or Biden were doing 1/10ths of what Trump was doing, the media would be setting the landscape on fire screaming tyranny and socialism.
Exhibit A:
A Barrons article from 2009 where they were warning Obama that if he even thought about nationalizing any banks because of the financial crisis, it would completely destroy the markets archive.org
Exhibit B:
The same Barrons quietly noting that Trump has been taking a federal or even direct stake in various companies — including Intel — but it’s so amazing for the stock market. barrons.com
Heads the GOP is taking a bold and intelligent new investment strategy to ensure strong returns, tails the Democrats are stealing from investors and enacting socialism.
I can think of six that would.
'Failing' implies an attempt to succeed was made
The Mainstream Media Is Catastrophically Failing To Meet The Moment
Objection, ‘failing’ implies that they are trying to do so and just not managing despite their efforts.
The major ‘news’ outlets in the US have decided that collaboration and appeasement is the better option and have thrown in with the regime rather than stand up to it, and their continued white/sane-washing of it and it’s leader is a result of that, not their inability to do so.
Failure to mention media ownership
How can you write an article like this without even once mentioning that the reason big media outlets are all failing at their jobs is that they are all owned by billionaires who do not want a well-informed populace? Saying “the media is failing” without explaining why, plays right into the vague and widespread belief that “the news” is just kind of this thing that exists and happens by magic, rather than being the deliberate product of choices by oligarchs who really, really don’t want people to think about where their information comes from.
You want to talk journalistic malpractice? Complaining about how bad the legacy news media is without mentioning who their owners are is journalistic malpractice!
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If you want to talk about newspapers, even in their diminished financial and relevancy states, about 2/3 of paid newspaper circulation is going to three hedge funds.
Most people cannot name them, although they could probably name the institutions they own.
Gannett-Gatehouse: USA Today and several statehouse papers including the Tennesseean in Nashville, the Tallahassee Democrat in Florida, the Arizona Republic in Phoenix, the Indianapolis Star, the American-Statesman in Austin, the Oklahoman in Oklahoma City and the Des Moines Register in Iowa.
Alden: Chicago Tribune, the San Jose Mercury News and East Bay Times in the Bay Area, all of the suburban Southern California newspapers around the L.A. Times including the Orange County Register, the San Diego Union Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Denver Post, the St. Paul Pioneer-Press, Boston Herald and Hartford Courant.
Chatham: The National Enquirer owner took possession of McClatchy via a bankruptcy auction and now owns the Sacramento, Fresno and Modesto Bees, the Miami Herald, Raleigh News & Observer, Charlotte Observer, the Olympian in Washington’s state capital, Idaho Statesman in Boise, Tacoma News Tribune (and nearly half of the Seattle Times not controlled by the Blethen family), Kansas City Star.
Krugman's PR problem
Paul Krugman comments often that if one side said the Earth was round, and the other said it was flat, the NYT headline would be “parties disagree on shape of Earth”.