Washington DC: The White House has introduced a new section on its official website that publicly calls out and catalogs news organizations and journalists it accuses of distorting their coverage. At the top of the page, the message reads: “Misleading. Biased. Exposed.”
The first batch of ‘media offenders of the week’ includes the Boston Globe, CBS News, and the Independent. The administration claims these outlets inaccurately portrayed Donald Trump’s comments about six Democratic lawmakers who released a video urging military personnel not to follow unlawful orders.
This controversy stems from Trump’s recent online posts, where he accused the lawmakers of ‘seditious behavior, punishable by death,’ and reposted a statement containing the phrase ‘hang them.’
According to the White House webpage, “The Democrats and Fake News Media subversively implied that President Trump had issued illegal orders to service members. Every order President Trump has issued has been lawful. It is dangerous for sitting Members of Congress to incite insubordination in the United States’ military, and President Trump called for them to be held accountable.”
The new online feature also includes an ‘Offender Hall of Shame,’ naming outlets such as the Washington Post, CBS News, CNN, and MSNBC (now MS Now). Users can browse a searchable archive of articles and the journalists who wrote them, each tagged under categories such as ‘bias,’ ‘malpractice,’ or ‘left wing lunacy.’
A leaderboard places the Washington Post at the top of the offender list, followed by MSNBC and CBS News. Among the Washington Post stories highlighted is a report from earlier this month stating that the US Coast Guard would no longer classify swastikas and nooses as hate symbols, an action the Coast Guard reversed shortly after publication. The Post acknowledged the fast reversal in a follow-up story and said in response to the tracker: “The Washington Post is proud of its accurate, rigorous journalism.”
Beyond the weekly offenders, the White House page lists many more outlets it accuses of bias or misinformation, including the Associated Press, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Politico, and Axios.
The launch of this White House webpage marks a sharp escalation in Trump’s long-standing attacks on the media. It comes after lawsuits filed against the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, legal settlements with ABC and CBS, and Trump’s frequent branding of major news organizations as the ‘enemy of the people.’
In recent weeks, Trump has intensified his verbal assaults on female journalists. Earlier this month, he insulted a Bloomberg News correspondent as ‘piggy’ during an exchange on Air Force One after being questioned about the Epstein files. Days later, after facing questions from an ABC News reporter about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and the Epstein scandal, Trump told her she was a ‘terrible person.’
Last week, Trump escalated further when he used Truth Social to call a New York Times correspondent “a third-rate reporter who is ugly, both inside and out,” in response to an article she co-authored that suggested the president appeared to be losing energy in his 80th year.
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