The establishment media’s grip on public opinion is under threat after the Trump administration launched a large-scale investigation of the industry.
The administration’s initiative comes as Americans’ trust in the establishment media to report current events “fully, accurately and fairly” plummeted to a record low in 2024, Gallup polling found in October.
“I absolutely HATE the Fake News Media,” President Donald Trump said on the 2024 campaign trail. “So bad for our Country!”
To remedy the bias, Trump and his allies launched at least seven offensives:
- FCC probing PBS, NPR to uncover if they “violated government rules by recognizing financial sponsors on the air.
- FCC investigating Comcast/NBCUniversal’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices.
- FCC probing CBS as to whether or not it violated rules when it edited former Vice President Kamala Harris’s 60 Minutes interview.
- Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) demanding NPR and PBS testify at a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) subcommittee hearing on “systemically biased content.”
- Defense Department cutting NPR, NBC News, Politico, and CNN from their workspaces at the Pentagon.
- Executive branch canceling subscriptions to establishment media outlets, such as Politico.
- White House banning the Associated Press from events at the Oval Office and Air Force One over the outlet’s refusal to drop speech codes.
The swift actions caused many media elites who covered Trump in a negative light for almost ten years to squirm and accuse the president of attacking the First Amendment.
WATCH — President Trump: AP Has Been “Very Wrong” on Covering Me, Conservatives:
“The decision by the White House to block an AP reporter from an open press conference with President Trump and Prime Minister Modi is a deeply troubling escalation of the administration’s continued efforts to punish The Associated Press for its editorial decisions,” the AP whined last week.
Axios’s Sara Fischer claimed Trump is conducting “bullying and harassment campaigns,” “punishing media companies more than any leader since America’s founding.”
CNN’s Brian Stelter, who falsely claimed Hunter Biden’s laptop story was Russian disinformation, accused Trump of “embracing the position of Word Police.”
Jim Friedlich, CEO and executive director of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, a nonprofit that owns the Philadelphia Inquirer, demanded the establishment media make a “commitment to collective action” against Trump.
WATCH — President Trump: “You Have to Love What You Do” to Increase Chance of Success:
Establishment media organizations have been working against Trump for years. One of the best examples is during the 2020 campaign. After the “laptop from hell” story broke in 2020, 51 intelligence officials signed a letter that insinuated Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation. Politico peddled the letter under the title “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.”
The 51 signatories seemingly knew the Politico story was false at the time because the FBI had the laptop that Hunter abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop.
Former President Joe Biden cited the story during a 2020 presidential debate with Trump to discredit the laptop’s contents. The story was allegedly planted by former Secretary of State Antony Blinken for Biden to use during the event.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
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