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    What can we learn from RFK’s ‘erotic poetry’? That Americans need to get better at enjoying a scandal | Marina Hyde

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    Literally nothing on this earth takes itself as seriously as American journalism. There are rogue-state dictators it’s more permissible to laugh at than the endlessly hilarious pretensions of newsmen and newswomen in the United States. The crucial difference between the British press and US press is that at least we in the British press know we’re in the gutter. The Americans have always imagined – and so loudly – that they are involved in some kind of higher calling. Guys, I love you and stuff, but get over it, because you’re missing one of the great jokes of the century. Yourselves.I don’t deny that everything’s bigger in America. Our former health secretary had a knee-trembler up against his office door in the pandemic; their current one apparently wrote felching … poetry, is it … felching poetry? … to a superstar journalist who was worrying about his brainworm, yet the story is being written up like it’s Dante, instead of X-rated Italian brainrot.We are, by the way, talking about the tale of Olivia Nuzzi, Ryan Lizza and Robert F Kennedy. If you’ve missed this one, you have a great treat in store. Olivia and Ryan were hotshot political journalists (and a couple) covering presidential campaigns and writing a joint book about the 2020 one, when Ryan discovered last year that Olivia had had what is primly described as a “digital affair” with wingnut presidential candidate RFK. It all blew up, there was some legal hokey-cokey, they lost their jobs, she fled to LA, RFK became health secretary. He’s got bigger brainworms to fry; the other two are now “breaking their silence”.And everything – everything – about it is darkly hysterical. It should obviously be being written as comedy. Instead, the story is being chronicled with maximum portentousness by its own protagonists. First, in Nuzzi’s forthcoming memoir/state-of-the-nation something-or-other, which is actually entitled American Canto. And second in Lizza’s Substack, which is genuinely called Telos. I can’t.No, hang on – I can. Like so many of the self-regarding big-hitters of the US fourth estate, this sundered pair very much need you to know that serious prose is occurring. Both of them adore a sledgehammer metaphor. With Lizza, it’s bamboo. The bamboo in the couple’s apartment courtyard “had become a metaphor for our decade-long entanglement”. Righto. “If not tamed, [it] would march through the entire courtyard and kill everything.” Thanks for flagging, mate. “I spent hours hacking at the sprouts to keep the bamboo at bay, just as I had with all the secrets that Olivia and I shared.” Is there much more of this? Yes, would seem to be the answer. “I should have known that it was futile and that, at some point, the bamboo would take over the garden, and that’s all anyone would see.” Come on Ryan, batter me round the head with the bamboo analogy one more time – I’m so close to getting the point.With Nuzzi, it’s wildfires. She flees to LA after the RFK story breaks, staking down seemingly dozens of signposts to where we are going as the burning takes hold. “10:30 a.m., 10 acres burning. 10:50 a.m., 20 acres burning … 2 p.m., 700 acres burning. 3 p.m., 1,300 acres burning … 12:30 a.m., 3,000 acres burning. 9 a.m., 5,000 acres burning. 11:45 a.m., 12,000 acres burning. 1:30 p.m., 16,000 acres burning … 9 p.m., 20,000 acres burning. 8 a.m., 22,000 acres burning. 4 p.m., 24,000 acres burning.” OK GOT IT. Luckily, because we’re literary dumbos, Nuzzi has already explained: “You cannot outrun your life on fire.” Makes u think. Could we have some crossover metaphor event where the bamboo catches fire? Maybe for Black Friday.With heavy heart, apparently, the wider US media must cover the tale, yet not even America’s dainty journalese can rob the story of its full-spectrum trash merriment. In fact, in some cases it adds to it. Nuzzi’s lawyer told the New York Times his client would “not dignify efforts to impugn her character with any future response”. Dialling in from an Edith Wharton novel, there. I believe the felching poetry dropped a couple of days later.It’s so sad that, across American newsrooms, hankies must be overtly pressed to noses about all this, while refresh keys can only be covertly pressed to see if any more has dropped. Pretty much the only splashy thing Vanity Fair has done under its new editorship was hire Nuzzi as West Coast editor and run her book extract, so it should be absolutely zero surprise to learn that, as a result of something they read in Telos – again, “Telos”!!! – the magazine is reviewing the appointment. “We were taken by surprise,” intoned a Vanity Fair spokeswoman, “and we are looking at all the facts.” For heaven’s sake, buck up and stop being so absolutely wet. This sort of thing is why you hired her. Just own it and allow yourself a bit of fun.Alas, they seem bent on playing it like they’re in the midst of some boring ethics crisis, when you can’t help feeling that ship has sailed. May we humble outsiders offer a word of advice? Guys, you just need to stop being so American and serious about it all. And, indeed, about America. God knows we lesser countries have put some ghastly people in charge ourselves, but you do have to allow your international underlings the occasional cackle at the fact that in your great nation, Donald Trump has now become president, twice. When you lot shit the bed, the whole world has to lie in it – so do at least have the delicacy to realise that once dignity has gone, a good laugh is how the rest of us get by. Come along and join us: you’ll like it if you try it.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion

    Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

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      Telling a reporter ‘quiet, piggy’ was shocking – even for Trump | Margaret Sullivan

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      Catherine Lucey, who covers the White House for Bloomberg News, was doing what reporters are supposed to do: asking germane questions.Her query to Donald Trump a few days ago during a “gaggle” aboard Air Force One was reasonable as it had to do with the release of the Epstein files, certainly a subject of great public interest. Why had Trump been stonewalling, she asked, “if there’s nothing incriminating in the files”.His response, though, was anything but reasonable.It was demeaning, insulting and misogynistic.He pointed straight at Lucey and told her to stop doing her job.“Quiet. Quiet, piggy,” said the president of the United States.From what I could tell, none of her colleagues in the press corps immediately rose to her defense. Things just moved on – business as usual, in a sense.And yet, if I were making a timeline of Trump’s use of the press as a punching bag, this moment would deserve a place on it. Maybe it was his pointing. Maybe it was his direct command, as if he were in charge of what a reporter is allowed to ask.Maybe – probably – it was the nasty name-calling, which is meant to put a reporter in her place in front of the world. Maybe – probably – it was the lack of protest from other reporters.This, after all, is life in Trump’s America. Consider just the past day or so.Trump celebrated the Saudi crown prince, who, according to a 2021 US intelligence report, approved the killing of a Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi. (The crown prince has denied involvement in the killing.) The US president gave him a hero’s welcome to the White House.Trump insulted and threatened ABC News and its fine reporter Mary Bruce, who also asked germane questions, about Khashoggi as well as the Epstein files. “I think you are a terrible reporter. It’s the way you ask these questions,” he said. He called ABC a “crappy company” and said its license “should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake and it’s so wrong”.We’re supposed to be used to this by now.Clearly, the president’s fervid supporters must approve of this sort of thing; they seem to see it as a way the president is using his power and position to diminish the “elite”, who he has taught them to despise.But getting used to it is dangerous. We all get worn down. “What can you do?” shrug even the caring among us.But, for me, “quiet, piggy” somehow breaks through. It should be a bridge too far, not business as usual.Wouldn’t it have been something to see the entire press corps shout back at Trump, in defense of their colleague? Wouldn’t it have been something to see them walk away from the gaggle?Why didn’t they?“Because access beats out solidarity, every day of the week,” Bill Grueskin, a former Miami Herald and Wall Street Journal editor who is a professor at Columbia Journalism School, posted on Bluesky. If any members of the press corps had somehow managed to push back and defend their colleague, they undoubtedly would have been punished by exclusion from these press briefings.So, yes, the access problem.And I’m sorry to say, they also don’t push back because they’re so used to it. After all, it’s nothing new. It’s just an especially egregious example of what’s been going on for years.I’ve been watching these moves of Trump’s for a long time. I was the Washington Post’s media columnist during the entire first Trump term, so I got an up-close look at how he constantly disparaged the press and its representatives – especially women, and even more especially, women of color.He often clashed, for example, with Yamiche Alcindor, who then covered the White House for the PBS NewsHour, condemning her supposedly “nasty” questions. This year, he called Alcindor, who now works for NBC, “second rate” and demanded that she, too, “be quiet”. He publicly called April Ryan, a longtime White House reporter, “a loser”.Nothing changes – it only worsens – because Trump gets away with it. His stalwart supporters don’t seem to care. The members of the press corps may write a sternly worded letter (or not), but they normalize it, too, by their inaction.Will this “quiet, piggy” moment make a difference? Only for those who care about decency in public officials and in American society.Maybe that’s an old-fashioned notion. And I’m not sure there are enough of us who remember that it matters.

      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More

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      The infidelity saga of RFK Jr, Nuzzi and her ex is unspooling: ‘It’s like they’ve opened all their trench coats’

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      This week, Olivia Nuzzi – the US star political reporter known for her cozy access to top Republican figures – dropped an excerpt of her memoir, American Canto. In it, she detailed what she describes as an emotional affair with Robert F Kennedy Jr, who she calls “the politician”.Not to be outdone, Nuzzi’s ex-fiance and former Politico correspondent Ryan Lizza self-published an essay dishing on the day he found out Nuzzi was cheating on him, he claims – not with RFK Jr, as one might have expected, but with another former presidential candidate, Mark Sanford.The mudslinging between two of the more polarizing personalities in a profession filled with egos delighted a media class that revels in navel-gazing, schadenfreude and generally messy behavior. Over the course of four days it had a lot of material to work with.First came a glamorous profile of Nuzzi in the New York Times Style section on Friday, in which she mugged for the camera while driving a convertible down the Pacific Coast Highway, and was described by the writer Jacob Bernstein as “a Lana Del Rey song come to life” and the “modern iteration of a Hitchcock blonde”. The profile provided some details of her “digital affair” with RFK, according to Nuzzi: how the now US health secretary told her he would take a bullet for her, how they never slept together, how she advised him on campaign issues (most notably the dead bear carcass story).Then, on Monday, Nuzzi’s memoir excerpts were published in Vanity Fair, the glossy that appointed her west coast editor in September. She wrote about feeling anxious about Kennedy’s reported brain worm, and said the scion soothed her after a doctor who saw his brain scans told him he was fine: “Baby, don’t worry.” She mused: “I did not have to worry about the worm that was not a worm in his brain.”The latest entry into this unfurling drama came when Lizza published a “Part 1” of his side of the story on Monday night, using the metaphor of invasive bamboo growing behind the couple’s townhouse in Georgetown to describe Nuzzi’s secrecy in concealing an alleged affair with Sanford. Sanford, a former South Carolina governor and US representative who had weathered his own cheating scandal years prior, was profiled by Nuzzi for New York magazine during his short-lived 2020 election challenge to Trump. According to Lizza, Nuzzi became “infatuated” with the candidate after interviewing him.Lizza placed this piece of information as a cliffhanger; presumably we must tune into an impending “Part 2” to read Lizza’s recounting of Nuzzi’s affair with RFK Jr.Kennedy is married to actor Cheryl Hines, who has her own memoir out this month. He has denied Nuzzi’s claims of a sexual or romantic relationship, saying they only met once for an interview. He has not commented on the memoir excerpts. Nuzzi, Lizza, Kennedy and Sanford did not respond to requests for comment.All of this makes for grade-A gossip. But while Nuzzi and Lizza are not household names outside the Beltway and New York media circles, their story has wider ramifications. Trust in the US press is at an all-time low; a recent Gallup poll found that just 28% of respondents expressed a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in newspapers, television and radio to report the news fairly and accurately. (That’s down from 31% in 2024 and 40% five years ago.)“Journalism has a trust problem, and the fact that all this dirty laundry is getting aired is not going to help that,” said Patrick R Johnson, an assistant professor of journalism at Marquette University. “Because two people with significant followings are behaving in this way, other people, everyday individuals, are going to make assumptions that more journalists are behaving this way, even though they aren’t. And that’s news literacy 101: people are making assumptions based on what they can see, whether or not that is what is happening.”The image of a female journalist sleeping with her source titillates Hollywood (see: House of Cards or Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell, which portrayed a real-life but since deceased journalist bedding an FBI agent for tips, much to the anger of the journalist’s family and colleagues), the trope is mostly the stuff of fiction. It is also a major ethical violation, for obvious reasons – it creates a conflict of interest and a too-close relationship between reporter and source. As Moira Donegan wrote for the Guardian last year, revelations like the one about Nuzzi and RFK Jr only make it “harder” for the reporter’s peers to do their jobs and “cast all female professionals under the suspicion of corruptibility and unseriousness”. (The trope apparently once bothered Nuzzi herself; in 2015, she tweeted: “Why does Hollywood think female reporters sleep with sources?”)Nuzzi, who is 32, burst on to the New York Twitterati scene as an intern in Anthony Weiner’s 2013 mayoral campaign and published an account of her experience in the New York Daily News. She parlayed this into a staff position at the Daily Beast while she was still a Fordham University undergraduate.Nuzzi covered Trump’s political rise and went on to serve as New York magazine’s first Washington DC correspondent, filing gossipy profiles of people like Donald Trump, Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen that often co-starred herself. Ahead of the 2024 election, she wrote about Joe Biden’s cognitive state, and profiled RFK Jr when he was but a long-shot independent candidate.Nuzzi left New York magazine when their entanglement, which violated the publication’s standards around conflicts of interest and disclosures, was revealed shortly before the election. She wrote in a statement that the relationship “should have been disclosed to prevent the appearance of a conflict”, and apologized to her colleagues. She and Lizza broke up.Lizza, who is 51, has his own baggage: in 2017, he was fired from the New Yorker after a sexual misconduct allegation emerged in the early days of the #MeToo movement. He denied the claims and went on to write for Esquire and Politico. The couple were supposed to publish a book on the 2020 election together that never materialized.In the wake of their breakup, Nuzzi filed for a protective order against Lizza, claiming blackmail and harassment. Lizza denied her allegations, and Nuzzi withdrew her request for protection last November.In his essay, Lizza painted himself as a casualty of a mercurial ex’s “betrayal”. “It’s almost as if he’s hurt that he was the victim of her decisions” regarding RFK Jr and Sanford, said Johnson, the journalism professor. “It’s as if he’s on this weird tour to fix his image from before.”Mark Feldstein spent 20 years as an on-air investigative correspondent at CNN, ABC News and other local affiliates. He is now the chair of broadcast journalism at the University of Maryland. He described the Nuzzi-Lizza story as “self-immolation on both their parts”.“This takes journalism self-branding to a crazy and extreme extent,” Feldstein said. “It certainly fuels the disdain that so many Americans have for journalists not being objective, not being neutral. This confirms the stereotype of journalists as self-promoting vultures wallowing in the gutter.”Feldstein recalled Geraldo Rivera’s 1991 memoir, Exposing Myself, which chronicled the journalist’s sexual exploits and was written off as unprofessional. “It was met with universal horror at the time among journalists, because it was such an outlandish, self-promoting, degrading publicity stunt,” Feldstein said.However, in the era of the attention economy, Nuzzi and Lizza’s tell-alls are all but expected. As Feldstein puts it: “It’s like they’ve opened their trench coats and exposed to all of us what they’re hiding underneath. It’s not a pretty sight.” More

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      Ultra-rich media owners are tightening their grip on democracy. It’s time to wrest our power back

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      The richest man on earth owns X.The family of the second-richest man owns Paramount, which owns CBS, and could soon own Warner Bros, which owns CNN.The third-richest man owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.The fourth-richest man owns the Washington Post and Amazon MGM Studios.Another billionaire owns Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.Why are the ultra-rich buying up so much of the media? Vanity may play a part, but there’s a more pragmatic – some might say sinister – reason.If you’re a multibillionaire, you might view democracy as a potential threat to your net worth. Control over a significant share of the dwindling number of media outlets would enable you to effectively hedge against democracy by suppressing criticism of you and other plutocrats, and discouraging any attempt to – for example – tax away your wealth.You also have Donald Trump to contend with. In his second term of office, Trump has brazenly and illegally used the power of the presidency to punish his enemies and reward those who lavish him with praise and profits.So perhaps it shouldn’t have been surprising that the editorial board of the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post defended the razing of the East Wing of the White House to build Trump his giant ballroom – without disclosing that Jeff Bezos-owned Amazon is a major corporate contributor to the ballroom’s funding. The Post’s editorial board also applauded Trump’s defense department’s decision to obtain a new generation of smaller nuclear reactors, but failed to mention Amazon’s stake in X-energy, a company that’s developing small nuclear reactors. And it criticized Washington DC’s refusal to accept self-driving cars without disclosing that Amazon’s self-driving car company was trying to get into the Washington DC market.These breaches are inexcusable.It’s much the same with the family of Larry Ellison, founder of the software firm Oracle and the second-richest person in the world. Ellison is a longtime Trump donor who also, according to court records, participated in a phone call to discuss how his 2020 election defeat could be contested.In June 2025, Ellison and Oracle were co-sponsors of Trump’s military parade in Washington. At the time, Larry and his son David, founder of Skydance Media, were waiting for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to approve their $8bn merger with Paramount Global, owner of CBS News.In the run-up to the sale, some top brass at CBS News and its flagship 60 Minutes resigned, citing concerns over the network’s ability to maintain its editorial independence, and revealing pressure by Paramount to tamp down stories critical of Trump. No matter. Too much money was at stake.In July, Paramount paid $16m to settle Trump’s frivolous lawsuit against CBS and canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, much to Trump’s delight. Three weeks after the settlement was announced, Trump loyalist Brendan Carr, chair of the FCC, approved the Ellisons’ deal, making David chief executive of the new media giant Paramount Skydance and giving him control of CBS News.In October, David made the anti-“woke” opinion journalist Bari Weiss the CBS News editor-in-chief, despite her lack of experience in either broadcasting or news. Earlier this month, it was revealed that CBS News heavily edited Trump’s latest 60 Minutes interview, cutting his boast that the network “paid me a lotta money”.I’m old enough to remember when CBS News would never have surrendered to a demagogic president. But that was when CBS News – the home of Edward R Murrow and Walter Cronkite – was independent of the rest of CBS, and when the top management of CBS had independent responsibilities to the American public.It is impossible to know the full extent to which criticism of Trump and his administration has been chilled by the media-owning billionaires, or what fawning coverage has been elicited.But what we do know is that billionaire media owners like Musk, Bezos, Ellison and Murdoch are businessmen first and foremost. Their highest goal is not to inform the public but to make money. They know Trump can wreak havoc on their businesses by imposing unfriendly FCC rulings, enforcing labor laws against them or denying them lucrative government contracts.And in an era when wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals who have bought up key media, with a thin-skinned president who is willing and able to violate laws and norms to punish or reward, there is a growing danger that the public will not be getting the truth it needs to function in this democracy.What to do about this?At the least, media outlets should inform their readers about any and all potential conflicts of interest, and media watchdogs and professional associations should ensure they do.A second suggestion (if and when the US has a saner government) is that anti-monopoly authorities not approve the purchase of a major media outlet by someone with extensive businesses that could pose conflicts of interest.Acquisition of a media company should be treated differently than the acquisition of, say, a company developing self-driving cars or one developing small nuclear reactors, because of the media’s central role in our democracy.A third suggestion is to read and support media such as the Guardian, which is not beholden to a wealthy owner or powerful advertiser and does not compromise its integrity to curry favor with the powerful.To the contrary, the Guardian aims to do what every great source of news and views should be doing, especially in these dark times: illuminate, enlighten and elucidate. This is why I avidly read each day’s edition and why I write a column for it.As the Washington Post’s slogan still says, democracy dies in darkness. Today, darkness is closing in because a demagogue sits in the Oval Office and so much of the US’s wealth and media ownership is concentrated in the hands of a few people easily manipulated by that demagogue.We must fight to get our democracy back. Supporting the Guardian is one good place to begin.You can support the Guardian’s year-end appeal here. All gifts are gratefully received, but a recurring contribution – even a small monthly amount – is most impactful, helping sustain our work throughout the year ahead. It takes just 37 seconds to give. Thank you. More

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      ICE detains British journalist after criticism of Israel on US tour

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      British journalist Sami Hamdi was reportedly detained on Sunday morning by federal immigration authorities at San Francisco international airport, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) says that action is apparent retaliation for the Muslim political commentator’s criticism of Israel while touring the US.A statement from Cair said it was “a blatant affront to free speech” to detain Hamdi for criticizing Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza while he engaged on a speaking tour in the US. A Trump administration official added in a separate statement that Hamdi is facing deportation.“Our attorneys and partners are working to address this injustice,” Cair’s statement said. The statement also called on US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “to immediately account for and release Mr Hamdi”, saying his only “‘crime’ is criticizing a foreign government” that Cair accused of having “committed genocide”.The press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, wrote of Hamdi in a social media post: “This individual’s visa was revoked, and he is in ICE custody pending removal”.McLaughlin’s post also said: “Those who support terrorism and undermine American national security will not be allowed to work or visit this country.”During his tour, Hamdi spoke on Saturday at the annual gala for Cair’s chapter in Sacramento. He was expected to speak on Sunday at the gala for the Florida chapter of Cair.McLaughlin’s post about Hamdi’s detention was shared by Trump administration ally Laura Loomer, who took credit for his being taken into custody.Loomer, who has called herself a “white advocate” and a “proud Islamophobe”, has often peddled conspiracy theories such as endorsing claims that the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001 were an “inside job”.In 2018, she infamously chained herself to Twitter’s headquarters in New York City in protest of her account being banned. Billionaire businessman Elon Musk reinstated her account after he bought the social media platform in 2022.“As a direct result of … my relentless pressure on the [state department] and Department of Homeland Security, US officials have now moved to take action against Hamdi’s visa status, and his continued presence in this country,” Loomer posted on social media.Hamdi is the latest of numerous immigrants who have been arrested and deported by ICE over pro-Palestinian views. Earlier in October, journalist Mario Guevara was deported to El Salvador after having been detailed while live streaming the massive, anti-Trump No Kings protest in June.On 30 September, a federal judge appointed during Ronald Reagan’s presidency ruled the administration’s policy to detain and deport foreign scholars over pro-Palestinian views violates the US constitution and was designed to “intentionally” chill free speech rights.The ruling is bound to be appealed, possibly all the way to the US supreme court, which is dominated by a conservative supermajority made possible by three Trump appointments. The state department, meanwhile, has said it will continue revoking visas under the policy. More

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      Pentagon names new press corps from far-right outlets after reporter walkout

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      After the recent departure of Pentagon reporters due to their refusal to agree to a new set of restrictive policies, the defense department has announced a “next generation of the Pentagon press corps” featuring 60 journalists from far-right outlets, many of which have promoted conspiracy theories.Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell posted the news on X but did not provide any names.The Washington Post, however, obtained a draft of the announcement, which stated that the new reporters, who agreed to the department’s new policies, were from outlets such as Lindell TV, started by Trump ally Mike Lindell; the Gateway Pundit; the Post Millennial; Human Events; and the National Pulse.The list also includes Turning Point USA’s media brand Frontlines, influencer Tim Pool’s Timcast and a Substack-based newsletter called Washington Reporter, the Post reported.The Pentagon did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for the list of journalists.Parnell described the group as a “broad spectrum of new media outlets and independent journalists”.“New media outlets and independent journalists have created the formula to circumvent the lies of the mainstream media and get real news directly to the American people,” Parnell wrote. “Their reach and impact collectively are far more effective and balanced than the self-righteous media who chose to self-deport from the Pentagon.”The new press corps includes rightwing outlets that have promoted conspiracy theories. For example, the Gateway Pundit spread false information about the 2020 election and then settled a defamation lawsuit with two Georgia election workers it falsely accused of wrongdoing and admitted that there was no fraud in the election.Similarly, Lindell denied the results of the election and was ordered to pay $2.3m to an employee of a voting machine company who sued him for defamation.Pool, a conservative podcast host, was among the influencers who allegedly were associated with a US content creation company that was provided with nearly $10m from Russian state media employees to publish videos with messages in favor of Moscow’s interests and agenda.Pool said they were “deceived and are victims”.The journalists who turned in their press credentials earlier this month did so after the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, introduced a policy that required that they agree not to obtain unauthorized material and restricted access to certain areas unless accompanied by an official.Outlets including the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Atlantic, as well as reporters from rightwing outlets such as Fox News and Newsmax, all refused to sign on to the new rules.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We believe the requirements are unnecessary and onerous and hope that the Pentagon will review the matter further,” Newsmax told Times journalist Erik Wemple.The Guardian also declined to sign the revised Pentagon press pass policy because it placed unacceptable restrictions on activities protected by the first amendment.During a White House press briefing, Pool, a member of the new Pentagon press corps, asked Karoline Leavitt to comment on the mainstream media and “their unprofessional behavior as well as elaborate [on] if there’s any plans to expand access to new companies?”In a segment on Wednesday on the rightwing television network Real America’s Voice, defense department spokesperson Kingsley Wilson thanked the show’s host, Jack Posobiec, for joining the press corps.Wilson misstated the policies that caused journalists to leave the Pentagon. She did not mention that it included a requirement that they not obtain unauthorized material.“They walked out because they refused to sign an agreement that was simple. It was common sense. It said, wear a visible press badge. Don’t go in classified spaces, stay in the correspondence corridor and follow the building’s rules,” Wilson said.“That was their right, but also their loss, because now we get to have incredible journalists like yourself who are going to be here in the Pentagon reporting on what the Department of War is doing every single day,” Wilson said. “It’s really the next generation of journalism at the Pentagon.” More

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      ‘Americans are democracy’s equivalent of second-generation wealth’: a Chinese journalist on the US under Trump

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      On a Friday night in late May, Wang Jian was getting ready to broadcast. It was pouring outside, and he was sitting in the garage apartment behind his house, just outside Boston, eating dinner. “I am very sensitive to what Trump does,” Wang was telling me, in Mandarin, waving a fork. “When Trump holds a cabinet meeting, he sits there and the people next to him start to flatter him. And I think, isn’t this the same as Mao Zedong? Trump sells the same thing: a little bit of populism, plus a little bit of small-town shrewdness, plus a little bit of ‘I have money.’”Wang was sitting next to a rack of clothing – the shirts and jackets the 58-year-old newsman wears professionally – and sipping a seemingly bottomless cup of green tea that would eventually give way to coffee. By 11pm, he would walk across the room and snap on a set of ring lights, ready to carry on an unbroken string of chatter for a YouTube news programme that he calls “Wang Jian’s Daily Observations”. It was a slow news night but he would end up talking until nearly 1am. This was his second broadcast of the day. Different time zones, he explained to me, different audiences.Wang, who has more than 800,000 subscribers on YouTube, is representative of a small but influential part of the Mandarin-language media landscape. He is part of an exodus of media professionals who have left Hong Kong and mainland China in the past decade; and one of a handful who have started posting news and analysis videos on YouTube. Wang serves an audience of Chinese expatriates – along with mainlanders savvy enough to get round China’s great firewall – who tune in hoping that he can fill in the gaps left by propaganda, censorship and disinformation.Wang’s fans find him entertaining and reassuringly professional. (“He’s very objective, I think,” one told me.) His broadcast manner moves from the impersonal, rhythmic cadence of a veteran newscaster to personal asides that bring to mind a slightly incredulous university lecturer. He loves a rhetorical question (“Is this the way a US president speaks?”) followed by his favourite English-language interjection: “C’mon.”I have spent the months since Trump’s inauguration watching Wang on YouTube. He was first recommended to me by a journalist working at a prominent Chinese news outlet who, even while reporting for a similar audience, frequently checked in on Wang’s broadcasts. “He’ll be perfect for you,” they said. Americans have always loved looking at themselves from a distance.Watching the US through Wang makes our political reality appear more comical and more dangerous. He centres China in all his broadcasts, offering a kind of been-there-done-that account of authoritarian creep. He places the US on an arc of history we have long pretended to transcend. “Americans are democracy’s equivalent of second-generation wealth,” he told me. They were born into democracy and have no appreciation of what life is like without it. Chinese people, on the other hand, “have been bullied by rulers for thousands of years. We’re very familiar with these situations.”There are many American reporters, Wang said, who report competently on China. But when I asked how the US media was doing covering the US, he burst into laughter. “If I were the New York Times, I would be putting curse words on the front page every day,” he told me. “F-word, F-word, F-word.”In the US, the China narrative can fluctuate depending on the day. We thought, briefly, that the outbreak of the pandemic in Wuhan constituted a “Chornobyl moment” that would undermine the regime. It did not. We wonder, on and off, how China builds rail systems so quickly. We worry about whether China will overtake us in AI development. Our sense of national decline is intensified by China’s rise. In April, a New York Times op-ed by Thomas Friedman ran with the headline, “I just saw the future. It was not in America.” (It was in China.)In China, meanwhile, people looking to understand the US are also subject to a push and pull based on the political climate and – under Xi Jinping, China’s long-serving president – the narrowing space for free expression. China’s propaganda operation no longer resembles the lumbering machinery of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. There are still fustier national newspapers – Xinhua and the People’s Daily – that clearly represent a Communist party perspective. There is also the more nationalistic Global Times. “If the US did not interfere in China’s internal affairs or challenge its sovereignty,” said one recent article, “there would be no need for it to worry about China’s defence development”.View image in fullscreenAt the turn of the last century, these bigger publications were balanced by a handful of independent, market-driven media outlets pushing the boundaries of censorship in China, although these mostly reported on domestic issues. Over time, however, most Chinese media consumers have moved online and today, just like Americans, they get most of their information on social media. Mainland China blocks Facebook, YouTube, X and Google. Instead, information spreads on Sina Weibo or, most commonly, WeChat. These platforms are monitored by human censors and AI programmes that hunt for sensitive phrases or keywords. China’s censorship is not monolithic or infallible, but these combined efforts mean that, typically, the news that spreads is the news that the government permits to spread.“Mostly, the things that spread on WeChat are video clips or screenshots with text,” Yaqiu Wang, a researcher based in Washington DC. Clips that highlight American gun violence, protests or inflation flow freely, without any censorship. She mentioned the popularity of snippets from the Trump-friendly Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Yaqiu Wang’s parents will, not infrequently, call at night, concerned about her safety. They are not reading government propaganda so much as a curated selection of American bombast, spin and disinformation.How much Chinese people know about the reality of life in the US varies wildly. “There are those people with power, or those people working in universities, who will jump the great firewall,” Yaqiu Wang told me. These people can read BBC’s Mandarin news service, for example, or listen to the Mandarin-language podcast run by the New York Times journalist Yuan Li. But if these are too dry for news consumers, Wang Jian is there to chatter the night away. “I think this satisfies people’s needs,” said a Chinese government employee who watches Wang’s programme every day. “You can get real information.”Wang has told viewers that, in all his years as a journalist, the last two had brought about some of the biggest global changes he had seen. Trump, Wang explained, has misidentified the US’s strengths. “Your strengths aren’t your people,” he told me later, expanding on his theme. “I could find a bank teller in Hong Kong, bring them here, and they could do the job of 10 Americans.” What the US has got, according to Wang, is allies and a reliable currency. (“And now you’re threatening to annex Canada?”)Trump, according to Wang, would like to be more like Xi Jinping – a strongman leading a nation with a huge manufacturing base. He likes to point out that the two leaders have birthdays a day apart. Trump would like to take back the supply chain and manufacture everything in the US – an idea that drew a “c’mon” from Wang. There are, in turn, things about the US that Xi would like to emulate – the global influence, the financial power of the dollar. “Maybe we should just let Xi and Trump switch places. We wouldn’t need to do anything. They could leave the rest of us out of it,” Wang joked. “Although I think Xi Jinping would get beat up in the United States.”It’s this kind of irreverence that Wang’s audience most enjoys. His viewers call him “Teacher Wang” and as he talks, a string of congratulatory messages pop up. They often say: “Teacher Wang, JiaYou!” (a term of encouragement that literally means “add oil!” but is closer to “let’s go!”). Sometimes: “Teacher Wang, well said!” And sometimes, when Wang is particularly critical: “Teacher Wang, well scolded!”View image in fullscreenFormally, there are three parts of Wang’s programmes. He opens with a segment of recent news, moves on to a segment that offers opinions and deeper explorations of a particular topic. Finally, he will end with about half an hour of viewer comments and questions. Recent topics have included immigration protests in Australia (“Without immigration, Australia has no chance of being an influential country”) and China’s diplomatic overtures to India. This segment can also involve questions – “Should I emigrate to another country?” “Should I buy an iPhone now?” – that require him to play a variety of roles: agony uncle, consumer advice columnist, financial adviser. He does an episode every year while he makes dumplings. He is part newscaster, part professor, part friend.Few of Wang’s fans wanted to talk on the record, but two of the handful I spoke with pointed to this as their favourite segment. Local news that might be censored in China makes its way out in the comments. Wang will discuss issues viewers have raised about mainland China – complaints, for example, that government employees are no longer allowed to go to restaurants in large groups; or that factory workers are being forced to take Breathalyser tests when they get home at night; or that falling real estate prices have wiped out someone’s savings. Some of his listeners will address the US directly. “Introducing a tariff of this size is suicidal!” wrote one viewer. “Is it too simple to blame it on arrogance and wilfulness?”Wang, when he’s interested in a question, will stare into the camera. “You think Trump has thought it through?” he asks. “I don’t think so. Trump is really simple. He doesn’t think very deeply.” Trump’s brain, Wang told me, is a “qian dao hu” – a lake with 1,000 islands, none of them connected.Wang does not sleep much. He starts preparing for the broadcast somewhere between four and five hours in advance. Wang’s first daily broadcast runs from around 11am to noon. He then eats lunch, sleeps if he can, and spends time with his family. Around 6pm, he starts the process again, aiming to go live at 11pm. And then at about 12.30 or 1.00am, he walks across the yard, back to his house, and gets his second, truncated, sleep.Wang has wanted to be a journalist since he was a teenager. He was born to middle class parents in Nanshan County, China, a protrusion of land in the south-west part of Shenzhen. When Wang, in high school, decided he was interested in studying journalism at university, his parents told him they couldn’t support his choice. Wang understood their reservations. “During the Cultural Revolution, the people who were most targeted were writers and journalists. They were afraid I would be denounced.” Wang, however, had a stubborn streak. He stopped speaking at home. “I had a cold war with my parents,” Wang told me. He held out until they agreed.Wang arrived at Jinan University in Guangzhou in the mid 1980s, intending to study journalism, but it wasn’t journalism, exactly, that he learned. “We studied the CCP’s theory of media,” Wang told me. According to the CCP, facts were secondary to the health of the party and the populace. Then, in 1990, Wang managed to land a job as a reporter in Hong Kong, which was still under British rule and enjoyed relatively robust freedom of the press. (Though the British did not extend Hongkongers the right to elect their leader.)View image in fullscreenIn Hong Kong, Wang was suddenly in the privileged position of writing honestly about his new city and the country that he had recently left. Wang won multiple press awards as a young reporter at the daily newspaper Ming Pao and then, in 2001, he joined Sing Tao Daily – the oldest Chinese-language newspaper in the city. By this time, Hong Kong had been transferred to PRC rule and, while Sing Tao operated independently, it had significant ties to Beijing. Wang would eventually oversee the publication’s international expansion efforts, helping establish offices in New York, Toronto and San Francisco. He travelled to all these places but didn’t do much exploring. He was working or meeting Chinese émigrés for dinner. (“You ask me my impression of the United States. I didn’t have a impression! My impression of New York was only: Chinatown.”)Reporters in Hong Kong, at this time, were in a unique position. In authoritarian systems, reliable information has a special value, and Hong Kong journalists were granted some access to PRC officials. “This access made Hong Kong media influential not only among Chinese audiences but also among Chinese officials, who treated Hong Kong media as an alternative source of information,” says Rose Liuqiu, a professor in the Department of Journalism at Hong Kong Baptist University. This was particularly true for journalists covering the economy, Wang’s speciality.This work required diplomacy. Charles Ho, who owned the Sing Tao Daily, maintained close ties with Beijing. He famously said that if he followed Beijing’s directives 100% of the time, he would lose value in Beijing’s eyes. Wang’s own work has always walked a line between attracting viewers, reporting the facts and balancing the concerns of a global power.The precarious balance that sustained Hong Kong’s media did not last. Business ties between Hong Kong’s media outlets and Beijing grew steadily, as did concerns about self-censorship. After democracy protests swept through the city in 2014, prominent editors and journalists became the targets of violent attacks. Jimmy Lai, the founder of Next Media, had his house firebombed more than once. Kevin Lau, the editor of the newspaper Ming Pao, was hospitalised in 2014 after being assaulted in the street with a meat cleaver. In 2016, Wang decided to retire. Beijing was beginning to limit press freedoms in the city and Wang didn’t think the city would recover the openness that had changed his perspective so drastically as a young man.Wang decided to step back from work and, instead, focus on caring for his young daughter, while his wife continued her work in real estate. At the end of 2018, after a visit to his sister-in-law in San Francisco, Wang decided to move his family to the US. He called his wife and told her that he didn’t think there was much future in Hong Kong. His daughter could attend high school in the US, he reasoned. By the time I met him, Wang told me that many of his friends – editors and reporters at news outlets like the now-shuttered Apple Daily – had either fled or were in jail.Wang thought he was done as a news man. But character is sometimes fate, and Wang loves to talk. In 2019, he started holding impromptu gatherings at his sister-in-law’s house on the weekends. At the time, Trump was engaging in the first iteration of a trade war with China and many of their acquaintances in the Bay Area, most of whom worked in the tech industry, wanted to meet and discuss current events. The weekly crowd grew and it was his sister-in-law who suggested that Wang move the conversation online and out of her back yard. By the end of the year, Wang had started his YouTube channel. It was, initially, a chatty, informal programme. And then the pandemic hit, and Wang became a professional again. “All of a sudden it felt serious,” he told me. “I had a responsibility.”It didn’t take long for Wang to acquire an audience, especially after he started broadcasting twice daily. (His is a volume game.) The pandemic was driving people online and China was limiting the flow of information coming out of the cities it had locked down. One regular viewer I spoke with – another government worker in China who asked to remain anonymous – came across Wang around this time, when they were at home during one of China’s restrictive lockdowns. They still listen to his broadcasts daily, looking for news on the economy – still hoping for information that might not be flowing freely from town to town. “During the comments you get a glimpse of what’s happening locally in China,” they told me.Eventually, Wang hired a handful of researchers – some of whom were journalists who had fled Hong Kong after a crackdown in 2019 – paying them from the advertising revenue from his broadcasts. He also started a membership programme and a Patreon and began offering a small selection of goods for sale. The tea he sells through YouTube, he told me, was sourced by a fan. “We don’t make any money on the tea,” he laughed. “I’m the one who buys most of it.”Wang, and the handful of other newscasters like him, are part of an ecosystem of influencers, often called “KOLs” in China for “Knowledge and Opinion Leaders” (an English term that likely originated in Hong Kong). The KOLs compete for attention with western sources – the Joe Rogan and Fox News clips. Most KOLs are apolitical; posting on TikTok or XiaoHongShu about beauty trends or daily life. Within China, many of these influencers are tacitly approved by the CCP. A woman named Li Ziqi, for example, runs the most popular Mandarin-language programme on YouTube and cross-posts on sites in mainland China. Her videos offer an idealised portrait of village life – making traditional crafts while soothing music plays in the background. Political KOLs are less likely to be making video content, and those within China are either pro-CCP or frequently find their accounts blocked. One, who goes by the name Gu Ziming, is famous for managing to pop up with new accounts after having an old one shuttered by censors.View image in fullscreenWhen I visited Wang, it was Friday evening. His researchers – who also wished to remain anonymous – had submitted the evening’s potential topics via a shared Google document. They laughed about Trump’s negotiation strategies (“No one trusts him!”) and speculated as to why a large job recruitment platform in Shanghai had stopped reporting salaries (“It means they’re scared to issue the report”). They moved topics up and down the list, in the order that Wang would plan to address them. In some cases, Wang questioned the news that they brought to him and urged them to seek out more sources.The proposed topics included elections in South Korea; a systemwide shutdown on San Francisco Bart trains; and a Texas ban on Chinese nationals buying property. “Have those Chinese living in Texas done nothing?” Wang asked. “No resistance or protest?”“I think there were protests before,” came the researcher’s voice through the phone. “But it turns out they’re giving exemptions to some people, but otherwise you have to have a green card.”“That’s fine, then,” Wang answered. “Don’t go to Texas to buy a house, then. The housing prices are falling in Texas anyway. This is a very red state. I can clearly see the momentum of this state.” The topic made the broadcast.Years ago, when I first started reporting on the media landscape in China, I thought of it as a foil to the more raucous and open media environment in the west. Now it feels more like a funhouse mirror – a different, exaggerated version of something fundamentally the same. Chinese readers have long approached their news sources with cynicism. In the US and most of the west, media sources are, for the most part, still free and unrestricted. Facts, on the other hand, are increasingly under attack.According to the researcher Wang Yaqiu, there is a division she sees in the US and China. Those who have political power, money, or enough education or energy, will do their best to seek out reliable information. This was true when Wang Jian began his career in Hong Kong, when Communist party officials looked to Hong Kong media as a reliable source. It is true now, when reliable information often comes at a cost – to unlock paywalled information, or to get a VPN to evade the great firewall. Wang’s programme is free to watch, but accessing it takes knowledge, desire and knowhow. Good information, and the ability to find it, Wang Yaqiu pointed out, is more and more a matter of privilege and money – and this is true on both sides of the Pacific. “The rest of us,” she said, “will all be swimming in the same trash.”Wang doesn’t get asked, often, what to do about the authoritarian creep he is commenting on in the US. He has been in this position nearly his entire life – reporting from Hong Kong as its democratic freedoms were eroded, and now the US. He enjoys enough of a distance to look at things from a bird’s-eye view, able to see events as funny and alarming. He has, at the same time, a truculent, slightly traditionalist, belief in the value of the news. After a lifetime patrolling the boundary between truth and nonsense, Wang believes that people build their realities based on what is available to them: their lived experiences, their teachers, the media they consume. They are reasonable. They just need access to reliable information.In recent months, as political violence and censorship in the US have grown, his references to the value of journalism have multiplied. When Charlie Kirk was assassinated in September, he gave a rapid, dispassionate explanation of Kirk’s record. “Kirk pushed forward conservativism and Christian nationalism,” Wang informed his viewers. “He denied the efficacy of vaccines. After Kirk’s death, Trump ordered all the flags fly half-mast.” The next day, Wang made a fresh argument for his line of work. “Media’s role is helping everyone regulate power,” he told his audience. “China castrated the media.” A few days later, he returned to the question. “How do you change your destiny?” he asked. “You change your destiny with knowledge. How do you gain knowledge?” Wang continued. “You read the news.”Wang issues warnings, but his work is fundamentally hopeful. He often returns to his own experience arriving in Hong Kong. He walked the streets, looked at the buildings, and marvelled at the fact that he could just go and look up who owned them. That had not been possible back home. He read old copies of Life magazine and began questioning the Communist party’s version of history. It was an epiphany. “My mission is to provide everyone with an opportunity to change their view of the world,” Wang told me, as he transitioned from tea to coffee. “This is the value of this programme. You need to know that this world is made up of countless puzzles. This, what is happening in the US, is one of them.”On the night I visited, Wang wrapped up around 1am. He thanked his audience. He sighed, momentarily letting his exhaustion slip through. He asked for upvotes and follows. “Join us as a member and help support us,” he said. And then he closed with his regular signoff. “Broadcast better,” he said. “Be better.” More

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      in US Politics

      News organizations hold out on signing Pentagon media policies ‘designed to stifle a free press’

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      With days left before journalists covering the Pentagon must sign on to a new set of guidelines to retain physical access to the department, major US news companies – and organizations representing their interests – remain concerned about specific policies they fear will stifle independent reporting on the Pentagon.The Trump administration has been accused of preparing to impose severe limitations on the ability of journalists to cover the Pentagon and publish information that had not been officially approved for release.An “in-brief for Media Members” that updated an earlier set of policies, released last month, drew strong condemnation from media companies and groups advocating for press freedom. On Monday, the Pentagon sent out a revised version.On Wednesday, the Pentagon Press Association, which said it has been “cautious” in communicating about the policy as it worked behind the scenes, said the changes made – including an acknowledgment that signees may not “agree” with the policies – are not sufficient.In particular, the revised policy still prohibits journalists from the “solicitation” of information from Pentagon employees, “such as public advertisements or calls for tips encouraging [Department of War] employees to share non-public [Department of War] information”. Journalists fear that policy could infringe on their ability to seek information about the agency from employees.Donald Trump recently signed an executive order to change the name of the defense department to the Department of War. This would require approval from Congress to become official.“We acknowledge and appreciate that the Pentagon is no longer requiring reporters to express agreement with the new policy as a condition for obtaining press credentials,” the Pentagon Press Association said in a statement. “But the Pentagon is still asking us to affirm in writing our ‘understanding’ of policies that appear designed to stifle a free press and potentially expose us to prosecution for simply doing our jobs.”The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), which has worked behind the scenes to relax the policies, said the changes don’t go far enough.“The fact is we still have concerns with the updated language of the policy and expect that it will pose a significant impediment as journalists weigh with their employers whether or not to sign this revised version,” Gabe Rottman, the RCFP vice-president of policy said on Wednesday.PEN America, an organization that advocates for free expression, also said Thursday that the Pentagon should “revisit” its policies. “National security is strengthened, not threatened, when journalists can investigate and report without fear,” Tim Richardson, PEN America journalism and disinformation program director said.With the exception of CNN, which does not plan to sign the policy, most news organizations have been tight-lipped when asked whether they plan to sign by next week’s deadline or risk losing access to the Pentagon compound.The New York Times said in a statement that it “appreciates the Pentagon’s engagement, but problems remain with the policy and we and other news organizations believe further changes are needed”.A spokesperson for the Atlantic also said that it “[continues] to oppose the Pentagon’s proposed press policy”.Pentagon representatives have been steadfast in rebuffing the protests of media organizations.“Access to the Pentagon is a privilege, not a right and the Department is not only legally permitted, but morally obligated to impose reasonable regulations on the exercise of that privilege,” chief spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a post on X, denying that journalists will be forced to “clear stories” with the agency before publication.Kingsley Wilson, the Pentagon press secretary, said in her own post that “reporters would rather clutch their pearls on social media than stop trying to get warfighters and [Department of War] civilians to commit a crime by violating Department-wide policy.”In its statement on Wednesday, the Pentagon Press Association called on the agency to reconsider the policies in the remaining days before journalists are asked to sign them.“Limiting the media’s ability to report on the US military fails to honor the American families who have entrusted their sons and daughters to serve in it, or the taxpayers responsible for giving the department hundreds of billions of dollars a year,” the group said. “The American people deserve to know how their military is being run. They deserve more information from this administration, not less.” More

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      in US Politics

      How Maga cheerleaders have infiltrated the White House press corps

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      “I’ve often said: Trump could cure cancer and people would still criticise him,” observed Brian Glenn, a rightwing reporter standing in the Oval Office.“It’s true,” replied a gratified Donald Trump, sitting behind the Resolute desk.A few minutes later, as the US president discussed crime in Washington DC, he returned the compliment. “Brian, you got mugged here a long time ago, and the mugger must have felt some pain because you’re a tough cookie,” he said.The pair shared some banter and then, just as Trump was poised to call on a reporter from the Guardian, Glenn interjected and suggested they listen to cancer survivors present at Tuesday’s executive order signing. In a stroke the informal press conference – hours after a pair of incendiary speeches to military generals and before a government shutdown – was effectively over.It was not the first time that Glenn, who works for the Real America’s Voice platform and is the boyfriend of Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican congresswoman, has played the role of Trump sidekick, a useful foil guaranteed to lighten the atmosphere. It was also a small but telling example of how the White House press corps has changed between Trump’s first and second terms.Seasoned reporters from mainstream media outlets are still asking tough questions. But in the Oval Office, on Air Force One or in the press briefing room, there is no way to avoid the new contingent of Maga (Make America great again) reporters, influencers and podcasters lobbing toothless queries or fawning comments at their favourite president.“They’re hand-picked to protect him and once again it’s another emulation of authoritarian leaders around the world who suppress the free press in order to avoid accountability,” said Tara Setmayer, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill. “[Trump] surrounds himself with sycophants who ask softball questions that allow him to drone on about nonsense and propaganda and disinformation.”The White House press corps has been trying to hold presidents accountable without fear or favour since the late 19th century, sometimes with more success than others. It was accused of being too deferential to the George W Bush administration during the Iraq war. But it has also proved dogged, for example, in grilling Barack Obama’s White House over the disastrous rollout of healthcare.gov and a terrorist attack on a US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.Trump’s first term featured combative exchanges with journalists such as Jim Acosta of CNN, who was temporarily banned from the White House only for his access to be restored following a lawsuit. Some rightwing outlets did appear in the briefing room, but the presidential pool of reporters remained under control of the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA).The second Trump administration, however, has used a variety of tactics to change the tone, tenor and pace of media interactions. The president prefers to use the Oval Office rather than bigger venues like the East Room, “in part because the acoustics are better and he is not forced to stand for long periods”, the New York Times reported.View image in fullscreenIn this setting, he takes questions from a pool of reporters no longer selected by the WHCA, but decided by the White House itself. This has led to the exclusion of news wire agencies but the inclusion of fringe rightwing voices, many of whom are openly supportive of the president.Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at the watchdog Media Matters for America, said: “I don’t want to be too glowing about the performance of the White House press corps and the way that they interacted with administrations in years past. But I think there was an understanding of sorts that reporters were on one side and the government was on the other and the purpose of the reporters was to try to get information from the government and bring it back to their audience through tough questioning.“What you have now is effectively an infiltration of the press corps by people who are more interested in helping the administration than they are in trying to get information out of it.”Media Matters has been tracking examples of reporter sycophancy. In February, when the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Trump in the Oval Office, Glenn demanded: “Why don’t you wear a suit? You’re at the highest level in this country’s office, and you refuse to wear a suit. Do you own a suit?” (When Zelenskyy returned to the Oval Office last month in more formal attire, Glenn quipped, “You look fabulous in that suit,” and the pair made peace.)At the same infamous meeting, Daniel Baldwin, chief White House correspondent for the One America News Network, asked Trump about peace negotiations with Russia: “What gave you the moral courage and conviction to step forward and lead that?”Trump replied: “I love this guy … One America News does a great job. I like the question.”In April, Jordan Conradson, a reporter at The Gateway Pundit, said to Trump: “I want to get your response on the leftist media. They’re trying to hide the mugshots that are featured on the front lawn of rapists, murderers, paedophiles. What do you think of that? Aren’t they proving to be the enemy of the people?” For good measure, he said of Trump’s “Gulf of America” cap: “I like your hat, by the way.”There are similarly ostentatious displays in the briefing room. In January Glenn told Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary: “You look great. You’re doing a great job.”In April, Cara Castronuova, a former boxer who works for a media network run by the MyPillow chief executive and election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, paid tribute to the president’s physical fitness.She asked Leavitt: “Will you guys also consider releasing the president’s fitness plan? He actually looks healthier than ever before, healthier than he did eight years ago, and I’m sure everyone in this room could agree. Is he working out with Bobby Kennedy and is he eating less McDonald’s?”View image in fullscreenThe second Trump administration has added a seat in the briefing room for “new media”, referring to professional journalists, podcasters and influencers. The person in this seat is always called on first by Leavitt and is often a Maga cheerleader.Among the recent examples was social media personality Benny Johnson, who described his personal experience of crime in Washington and railed against “any reporter that says, and lies, that DC is a safe place to live and work”. He told Leavitt: “Thank you for making the city safe.”Johnson also asked if a so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) staffer known as “Big Balls”, who was recently assaulted in the District, would be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.A Media Matters review of the 16 press briefings held from 20 January to 22 April found that Leavitt called on rightwing outlets 41% of the time (110 out of 267) – still less than half but a significant increase from past administrations. Four of the five reporters called on most were from rightwing outlets: the Daily Caller’s Reagan Reese, Fox News’s Peter Doocy, the Daily Wire’s Mary Margaret Olohan and the New York Post’s Diana Glebova.The research also showed that the White House promoted smaller, far-right media over many established outlets, calling on the One America News Network (five times) and the Gateway Pundit (five) more than the Washington Post (four) and Associated Press (three) over that period.View image in fullscreenGertz added: “There’s no question that Donald Trump and other people who speak from the podium do not have a problem saying things that are not true in response to tough questions from reporters. But now they have an outlet. They can always turn to people they know are going to ask these sycophantic questions when they need a breather or want to change the subject.”This new calculus has enabled Trump and his spokespeople to change the rhythm of media interactions, blunting the momentum of difficult questions by turning to a known administration ally.Bill Galston, a former domestic policy adviser to the former president Bill Clinton, said: “It gives the press secretary a chance to change the entire dynamic of daily briefings because she is always free to interrupt the flow of negativity by calling on known cheerleaders in the room.”Galston suspects that the shift in the centre of gravity has some effect on the entire press corps. “They may feel a little bit more intimidated about asking questions in the toughest way if they think that, if they go too far, they’re going to get a tongue lashing from the press secretary rather than an answer and she’s going to seize the opportunity to do a Trump-like joust. I have to believe, at least at the margin, that has some effect.”Yet the stalwarts of the US media continue to do the work. TV correspondents such as Yamiche Alcindor and Peter Alexander of NBC News have riled the president – and prompted insults – with their sharp, persistent questions. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times skewered Leavitt over Trump’s birthday letter to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.Jon Decker, senior national editor for Gray Television and member of the White House press corps for 30 years, said: “Regardless of whether it’s a Republican administration or a Democratic administration, I’m still going to ask tough but fair questions. I’ve personally worked with 17 White House press secretaries and every one of them calls on me because they recognise that I’m always going to be fair. That is something that any reporter should keep in mind if they want longevity on this beat.” More