Congress is controlled by the GOP. Which is controlled by Trump. GOP House members, and Senators running for re-election in '26 are terrified Trump will scold them on FOX as Cucks and RINO's if they utter so much as a peep of protest--and get them Primaried.
Which is the same mechanism the Pro-Israel lobby uses to silence *any* criticism of Israeli foreign policy. No matter how much Netanyahu's wars cost the Diaspora, or US interests.
Netanyahu's continuing Gaza insanity is practically begging the EU to write Israel off as a genocidal pariah, worthy of a total EU economic boycott. And how does Bibi think will this help Israel? And the Diaspora are expected to blindly support this madness, or risk being called self-hating Jews?
Support J-Street! And defund AIPAC; or at least require them to register as agents of a foreign government, like every other lobbying group that directly supports foreign governments.
These Pubs are pretty much doomed. Once the economy tanks and Home Land tries to put down a couple of riots in the States; votes will wag the dog... Again. 104 Weeks is an election cycle. Then things change.
Don't underestimate the power of a full-time propaganda...err, cheerleading network in your party's corner. FOX News is, imo, the predominant reason Trump *still* has 90% approval among GOP voters.
Great analysis, as always, but I think we are getting caught in another eddy here. The term "mainstream," as applied to news media, has become obsolete.
It used to refer to large traditional news outlets, like the NY Times, Washington Post, broadcast networks, CNN, Fox "News," and the like. Media like X and Bluesky and Instagram, Reddit and TikTok have been lumped into the "social media" category, while important up-and-comers like Mother Jones, ProPublica, Substack get sidelined as "alternative" sources.
It seems to me that the most important distinction these days is not audience but motive.
Profit-making media always have an eye on the potential monetary value of the information they furnish consumers. Non-profit advocacy groups may well carefully curate and select what they present, however noble their causes may be, so they are looking for profit of a different kind.
The subset of truth-seeking, public, transparent, and independent media are the hope of the future. The Contrarian and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the Southern Poverty Law Project and many others are doing the work that the former "mainstream" media used to do without interference from their publishers.
We need not only to support them financially and with our eyeballs, but to strongly recommend to friends and family that we all broaden our search for fact-based, eyes-open reporting and commentary, just like we do by coming here to read Mr. Froomkin.
The "Mainstream" media now warily eyes the growing Right Wing Media sector led by FOX News, and allows itself to be pulled rightwards in its coverage and editorial tone. Despite the fact that RW media is largely fact-free, painting, for example, Trump's incoherent tariff chaos as a "master class in the art of the deal."
Key MSM outlets like Washington Post and LA Times, owned by billionaires economically compromised by Trump's ability to hurt their (other) business holdings, have bent the knee and at least partially changed their content to be more pro-Trump/GOP, and to ignore or downplay the constant stream of falsehoods and incompetence coming from the Right.
Which is all part of why Trump still enjoys 90% favorability ratings from his Base. Who certainly won't hear about his gaffes on FOX News, and will only hear mealy-mouthed apologism of same if they bother with the MSM.
While your criticisms are on target, from a journalistic standpoint, the most egregious are the headlines, ledes and nut graphs, especially when the latter are near the top of the articles. Most people read nothing but the headlines, and even voracious consumers of news like myself, often do not read the entire article because the latter parts are often just quotes from "both sides," which rarely add much to the understanding of what happened and why.
In fact, most political articles would be better if quotes were greatly limited. They usually add nothing and often simply allow someone to lie. Push back in the form of George Lakoff's "truth sandwich" is infrequent.
We're ca. 5 years into tRump presidencies, and still the MSM don't get it. Now, I suppose the excuse is "get on his wrong side, and we get sued"...OK, fair enough if it's a small publication or newspaper with no deep pockets to hire a defense team — or even find a firm willing to defend such a client — but what's the NYT/WaPo/CBS, et al reasoning here? "Fair and balanced" reporting? LMFAO!
I believe we are witnessing the death of mainstream media. By suicide. When you can no longer rely on the veracity of its reporting then it no longer serves as the impartial witness helping the public sift through opposing views. The dialogue now takes place in other forums, for better or worse.
Absolutely. The wishy washy “reporting” and sane washing is one of the reasons we are in this mess. Why was there a NYT op ed piece this week on Biden’ decline? Isn’t the decline of our constitutional republic, a bit more important?
We’ve been let down by legacy media. No one is calling it for what it is. The headlines should be screaming about the illegality, self-enrichment, and incoherence in this admin
Trump's continuous lies about deficits and tariffs are either not covered or he is given a pass when reporters realize he actually must believe what he is saying because he won't back down no matter how many times they try to point out that
-trade deficits result from US buying more foreign goods and services (imports) than the goods and services they sell to other countries (exports)
-tariffs on imported goods and services are paid by the American consumer, not the country where the exports come from
-Meanwhile, Trump policies have made our trade deficit even larger by decreasing our exports to other countries because they are boycotting US goods and services and travel to US (it seems our former allies, countries who he calls “nasty” and proposes to takeover with military force are looking for trade alliances between each other without US because they are playing with a full deck which Trump is not).
-Trump's tariff wars gone awry which has caused him to retaliate with even higher tariffs (waiting for low paying jobs to return to US and for big beautiful factories for American children to work in rather than letting kids in Asia to have all of those great, beautiful jobs-who needs an education?)
-Trump is pushing back on tariffs possibly causing shortages and price increases of products made predominantly in China that babies and children need by blaming American children of being greedy and saying they need fewer dolls and pencils and shouldn't mind paying more for them.
Trump is also attacking businesses for uncovering his lie about tariffs being paid for by foreign countries, not American consumers. He had a talk with Jeff Bezos to keep him from posting tariffs cost on products on Amazon and is taking Walmart over the coals for raising their prices to make up what they have to pay in tariffs on products. Trump is demanding a correction and apology from Walmart for misinformation about tariffs.
I only watch MSNBC starting at 4pm Nicole Wallace she hasn’t change her stance on trump calls him out and every show after that they are not cow towing to the lies. Every show before 4,does!!!!
Thank you for calling out media for their dereliction of duty in reporting the full unabridged truth in their reporting. They function closer to an extension of the administration, raking in mega ad dollars along the way. They have lost their credibility as unbiased reporting agencies.
Thank you. The press has let us down. I would add, every article should state the illegality of DOGE. Congress owns the power of the purse. Period.
Congress is controlled by the GOP. Which is controlled by Trump. GOP House members, and Senators running for re-election in '26 are terrified Trump will scold them on FOX as Cucks and RINO's if they utter so much as a peep of protest--and get them Primaried.
Which is the same mechanism the Pro-Israel lobby uses to silence *any* criticism of Israeli foreign policy. No matter how much Netanyahu's wars cost the Diaspora, or US interests.
Additionally, any criticism of Israel’s foreign policy (e.g., killings tens of thousands of civilians) gets branded as “antisemitism.”
Netanyahu's continuing Gaza insanity is practically begging the EU to write Israel off as a genocidal pariah, worthy of a total EU economic boycott. And how does Bibi think will this help Israel? And the Diaspora are expected to blindly support this madness, or risk being called self-hating Jews?
Support J-Street! And defund AIPAC; or at least require them to register as agents of a foreign government, like every other lobbying group that directly supports foreign governments.
These Pubs are pretty much doomed. Once the economy tanks and Home Land tries to put down a couple of riots in the States; votes will wag the dog... Again. 104 Weeks is an election cycle. Then things change.
Don't underestimate the power of a full-time propaganda...err, cheerleading network in your party's corner. FOX News is, imo, the predominant reason Trump *still* has 90% approval among GOP voters.
And the power to create or destroy departments -- DOGE was never created by Congress and the DOE was never dismantled by Congress
Great analysis, as always, but I think we are getting caught in another eddy here. The term "mainstream," as applied to news media, has become obsolete.
It used to refer to large traditional news outlets, like the NY Times, Washington Post, broadcast networks, CNN, Fox "News," and the like. Media like X and Bluesky and Instagram, Reddit and TikTok have been lumped into the "social media" category, while important up-and-comers like Mother Jones, ProPublica, Substack get sidelined as "alternative" sources.
It seems to me that the most important distinction these days is not audience but motive.
Profit-making media always have an eye on the potential monetary value of the information they furnish consumers. Non-profit advocacy groups may well carefully curate and select what they present, however noble their causes may be, so they are looking for profit of a different kind.
The subset of truth-seeking, public, transparent, and independent media are the hope of the future. The Contrarian and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the Southern Poverty Law Project and many others are doing the work that the former "mainstream" media used to do without interference from their publishers.
We need not only to support them financially and with our eyeballs, but to strongly recommend to friends and family that we all broaden our search for fact-based, eyes-open reporting and commentary, just like we do by coming here to read Mr. Froomkin.
Can we call them “big money media “?
The "Mainstream" media now warily eyes the growing Right Wing Media sector led by FOX News, and allows itself to be pulled rightwards in its coverage and editorial tone. Despite the fact that RW media is largely fact-free, painting, for example, Trump's incoherent tariff chaos as a "master class in the art of the deal."
Key MSM outlets like Washington Post and LA Times, owned by billionaires economically compromised by Trump's ability to hurt their (other) business holdings, have bent the knee and at least partially changed their content to be more pro-Trump/GOP, and to ignore or downplay the constant stream of falsehoods and incompetence coming from the Right.
Which is all part of why Trump still enjoys 90% favorability ratings from his Base. Who certainly won't hear about his gaffes on FOX News, and will only hear mealy-mouthed apologism of same if they bother with the MSM.
While your criticisms are on target, from a journalistic standpoint, the most egregious are the headlines, ledes and nut graphs, especially when the latter are near the top of the articles. Most people read nothing but the headlines, and even voracious consumers of news like myself, often do not read the entire article because the latter parts are often just quotes from "both sides," which rarely add much to the understanding of what happened and why.
In fact, most political articles would be better if quotes were greatly limited. They usually add nothing and often simply allow someone to lie. Push back in the form of George Lakoff's "truth sandwich" is infrequent.
We're ca. 5 years into tRump presidencies, and still the MSM don't get it. Now, I suppose the excuse is "get on his wrong side, and we get sued"...OK, fair enough if it's a small publication or newspaper with no deep pockets to hire a defense team — or even find a firm willing to defend such a client — but what's the NYT/WaPo/CBS, et al reasoning here? "Fair and balanced" reporting? LMFAO!
The MSM get it. They simply have another agenda.
Clicks? Selling papers? So many of us have unsubscribed. What do you think their agenda is?
I believe we are witnessing the death of mainstream media. By suicide. When you can no longer rely on the veracity of its reporting then it no longer serves as the impartial witness helping the public sift through opposing views. The dialogue now takes place in other forums, for better or worse.
Absolutely. The wishy washy “reporting” and sane washing is one of the reasons we are in this mess. Why was there a NYT op ed piece this week on Biden’ decline? Isn’t the decline of our constitutional republic, a bit more important?
We’ve been let down by legacy media. No one is calling it for what it is. The headlines should be screaming about the illegality, self-enrichment, and incoherence in this admin
Yes! Reporting about Trump without providing context is irresponsible and pandering to his selfish and racist agenda.
Trump's continuous lies about deficits and tariffs are either not covered or he is given a pass when reporters realize he actually must believe what he is saying because he won't back down no matter how many times they try to point out that
-trade deficits result from US buying more foreign goods and services (imports) than the goods and services they sell to other countries (exports)
-tariffs on imported goods and services are paid by the American consumer, not the country where the exports come from
-Meanwhile, Trump policies have made our trade deficit even larger by decreasing our exports to other countries because they are boycotting US goods and services and travel to US (it seems our former allies, countries who he calls “nasty” and proposes to takeover with military force are looking for trade alliances between each other without US because they are playing with a full deck which Trump is not).
-Trump's tariff wars gone awry which has caused him to retaliate with even higher tariffs (waiting for low paying jobs to return to US and for big beautiful factories for American children to work in rather than letting kids in Asia to have all of those great, beautiful jobs-who needs an education?)
-Trump is pushing back on tariffs possibly causing shortages and price increases of products made predominantly in China that babies and children need by blaming American children of being greedy and saying they need fewer dolls and pencils and shouldn't mind paying more for them.
Trump is also attacking businesses for uncovering his lie about tariffs being paid for by foreign countries, not American consumers. He had a talk with Jeff Bezos to keep him from posting tariffs cost on products on Amazon and is taking Walmart over the coals for raising their prices to make up what they have to pay in tariffs on products. Trump is demanding a correction and apology from Walmart for misinformation about tariffs.
Keep calling it like it is; that’s for sure
Nice clarity on each topic here
Thank you for what you do
Wow. This article is Everything. Thank you.
I only watch MSNBC starting at 4pm Nicole Wallace she hasn’t change her stance on trump calls him out and every show after that they are not cow towing to the lies. Every show before 4,does!!!!
Thank you for calling out media for their dereliction of duty in reporting the full unabridged truth in their reporting. They function closer to an extension of the administration, raking in mega ad dollars along the way. They have lost their credibility as unbiased reporting agencies.
Dereliction of duty... To me, what they have committed is Treason.
His is the bright shiny objects that get attention off the shit being pulled by Project 2025
The major new networks are chickens. Praises for Substack!
As in: the man cannot complete a full thought or sentence??