Every day brings a new complaint — or three — from the Trump administration about the American news media's coverage of the Iran war.
President Trump's media-bashing, often just a dull roar in the background, is an unusually loud howl right now. He is using words like "criminal" and "unpatriotic" to assail media companies. At the same time, his FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, is threatening broadcasters' licenses, and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is insulting news outlets from the Pentagon press briefing podium.
There's nothing subtle here. It's a multi-pronged pressure campaign to discourage independent reporting. It can be summed up in the "shhhhh" gesture Trump made toward an ABC reporter aboard Air Force One last night.
The reporter, Mariam Khan, was the TV pool representative, meaning she was there on behalf of all the major networks. Khan brought up the fact that "your PAC put out a fundraising email" using photos taken at a dignified transfer of US service members killed in Kuwait. She asked: "Do you think that’s an appropriate email to send?" Trump said yes, and that he didn't see the email, then asked, "Who are you with?"
Trump genuinely didn't recognize Khan — it was actually her first time aboard Air Force One with him. (She reported from Capitol Hill for ten years and recently switched beats to cover the State Department, Pentagon and foreign affairs.) When she answered Trump's question, he said, "I don't want any more from ABC," and looked around the plane for other questioners.
But Khan was undeterred. She tried asking about the deaths of US service members. He didn't respond. She later said, "Can you explain why we’re sending 5,000 marines and sailors?" and he replied with the shush, adding, "You're a very obnoxious person."
Khan kept trying — recognizing, again, that she was there on behalf of CNN, Fox and other networks. She asked about the Pentagon investigation into the missile strike at the school in Minab, Iran. He said, "We don't know." She asked about the deaths of service members again. He ignored her.
Khan was exemplary. She was, as one ABC colleague said, "steady as can be." She was respectful and persistent. She refused to be shushed.
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The media-bashing betrays anxiety |
As I wrote in this new CNN.com piece, the Trump admin's recent media-bashing may betray some anxiety about the war's unusually low public approval ratings — or about how the war itself is actually going.
Trump has "grown more agitated with news coverage and has failed to find a way to explain why he started the war — or how he will end it — that resonates" with the public, the AP's Will Weissert wrote yesterday. Weissert's analysis is still the #1 most-read article on the AP's website today.
Trump's frustration was palpable last night. Aboard Air Force One, he repeatedly dismissed difficult questions about the war by calling stories "fake." He accused Iran of spreading misinformation, but then spread some of it himself.
He also went on a tear against "corrupt media outlets" in a 401-word Truth Social post. First, he accurately pointed out that fake, AI-generated videos showing imaginary Iranian military victories have been circulating. But then he falsely claimed that Iran has been "working in close coordination with the Fake News Media" to show the videos, including one especially obvious fake showing the USS Abraham Lincoln on fire, and invoked the word "treason."
In reality, news outlets like CNN and The New York Times have been debunking those videos. Over the weekend, the NYT published an excellent new piece about the "cascade of AI fakes" that "push pro-Iranian views."
>> It was rather remarkable to hear Trump blaming AI and saying "Iran is known for a lot of fake news," since he popularized the phrase "fake news" ten years ago to demean real US news outlets, and since he personally says so much unreal stuff.
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A wartime tale as old as time |
Trump also endorsed the TV license threat that we covered in a special Sunday edition of Reliable Sources. He wrote that he's thrilled about Carr "looking at the licenses of some of these Corrupt and Highly Unpatriotic 'News' Organizations."
"Unpatriotic" is the key, ugly word there. Attempts to deter and discredit wartime reporting by questioning journalists' patriotism are as old as war coverage itself.
As CNN's Jake Tapper said on "State of the Union" yesterday, "every reporter that I know wants the United States to succeed in every way. And the way that reporters help that happen is by asking questions of people in power and not blindly cheering on leaders who take the nation to war."
>> Democratic lawmakers continue to denounce Carr's threat as being straight out of an autocratic playbook. "This is vindictive, fascist stuff," Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer wrote on X, adding, "If Carr continues down this route, Democrats will hold him accountable. Threatening broadcasters’ licenses for war coverage this administration doesn’t like is the worst thing Carr has done — and that’s saying something."
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👀 Fox uses the exact words Hegseth decried |
Remember when Hegseth specifically railed against a hypothetical on-screen banner reading "Mideast War Intensifies" and suggested something like "Iran Increasingly Desperate" instead?
Coincidentally or not, Hegseth's old show, "Fox & Friends Weekend," used that exact phrase — "Mideast War Intensifies" — as an on-air chyron during its coverage yesterday, as @BadFoxGraphics first noticed.
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Timely message from the Pope |
This just in from the Reuters bureau in Vatican City: "Pope Leo urged journalists on Monday to highlight the suffering caused by war, cautioning against news reports that risk sliding into propaganda by glorifying conflicts or serving as 'a megaphone' to amplify the voices of those in power."
Journalists, the pope said, "must show the suffering that war always brings to populations, which entails showing the face of war and recounting it through the eyes of victims."
Indeed. As a practical matter, though, it remains exceedingly difficult to do so, given the crackdowns in Iran...
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Further suppression inside Iran? |
"There's been a notable drop in the number of videos coming out of Iran in the last 24 hours," the BBC's Shayan Sardarizadeh wrote last night. "I've now heard from multiple sources inside Iran that the government has further tightened its imposed internet blackout by closing loopholes and targeting those with Starlink access."
"Face the Nation" moderator Margaret Brennan challenged Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi about the internet blackout on CBS yesterday. "You're speaking to us via Zoom," Brennan said. "The Iranian people don't have open Internet access, but you do. Why?" Because "I'm the voice of Iranians," Araghchi claimed, adding that the "internet is closed" for "security reasons, because we are under attack" and "we have to do everything to protect our people."
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'One Situation After Another' |
The Atlantic's Charlie Warzel went deep on one of the key phrases/memes of our time, "monitoring the situation," and what it means to have people "treating war like entertainment."
Warzel says, "The abiding feeling of 2026 is that too many consequential things are happening too fast for most people to follow, let alone understand."
Hyper-online monitoring behavior might be "a defense mechanism in an era of real chaos," he says, "when overlapping crises and technologies make the world feel unknowable and hyperreal." Read on...
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The Trump-controlled Kennedy Center board of trustees will hold a board meeting at the White House later today.
NCAA March Madness action tips off with the First Four on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The World Baseball Classic finale is Tuesday night, with Team USA facing the winner of tonight's Italy vs. Venezuela game.
Josh D'Amaro begins his first day as Disney CEO on Wednesday.
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Live Nation (back) on trial |
The antitrust trial involving events operator Live Nation is restarting in NYC today "after the ticketing giant failed to reach a settlement with a consortium of state attorneys general," CNN's Kara Scannell reports. Here's what happened... |
What's going on with Tucker? |
Tucker Carlson says he thinks the Trump administration has read his text messages and is working to "frame" him for a crime. In a strange — even by Tucker standards — Saturday night video, Carlson said "the CIA is preparing some kind of criminal referral" to the DOJ "on the basis of a supposed crime I committed."
"What's that crime?" Carlson asked. "Well, talking to people in Iran before the war."
>> "If Tucker's version of events is true, then it really is alarming," Eli Lake wrote for The Free Press last night. But it's very hard to take his version of events at face value. More broadly, Lake also argued that Carlson has failed "his own loyalty test..."
>> Speaking of... "SNL" rookie Jeremy Culhane debuted an incredible Carlson impression during "Weekend Update," nailing his vocal cadence, high-pitched laugh and apocalyptic worldview. Watch the full bit here...
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In case you went to bed early last night, CNN has a rundown of who took home the top Oscars. Here's a TLDR: "One Battle After Another" nabbed six prizes, including Best Picture; "Sinners" won four, including Best Actor and an historic Best Cinematographer (first-ever woman to win it); Netflix's "KPop Demon Hunters" won Best Animated Feature Film and its smash hit "Golden" won Best Original Song; Jessie Buckley completed an awards season sweep with the Best Actress prize; and "Marty Supreme," which was nominated nine times, was shut out.
>> It was a notably big night for (CNN's sibling) Warner Bros., which took home a record 11 awards. "David Zaslav almost sounded like Martin Scorsese in his effusive praise of cinema and what his Warner Bros Discovery studio achieved Sunday night," Deadline's Pete Hammond reports...
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CBS jabs, penis jokes and anti-war protests |
Speaking of Deadline, Ted Johnson writes that "the Oscars got more political this year, not just with the underlying themes of winners like 'One Battle After Another' and 'Sinners,' but the subtle and overt references to the turbulent times under Donald Trump."
Some of those overt moments:
>> Host Conan O'Brien referenced Trump's "love of sticking his name on buildings," CNN's Alli Rosenbloom and Dan Heching write. "We're coming to you live from the Has a Small Penis Theatre — let's see him put his name in front of that," O'Brien quipped, along with "an Epstein files joke that elicited a chorus of 'whoas' from attendees."
>> While presenting the prize for best documentary short, Jimmy Kimmel said, "As you know, there are some countries whose leaders don't support free speech. I'm not at liberty to say which. Let's just leave it at North Korea and CBS." And while presenting the best doc feature, he jabbed at Melania Trump, saying, "Oh, man, is he going to be mad his wife wasn't nominated for this."
>> "No to war," Javier Bardem declared while presenting the best international film prize, wearing a large red patch with that same phrase in Spanish. Bardem added in a clearly unscripted moment: "And free Palestine."
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The global reach of Spotify |
A new Spotify report shows that "artists from 75 different countries had generated at least $500,000 in streaming royalties last year, compared to 66 the year prior, with about half of an average artist's streams now coming from outside their home country," THR's Ethan Millman reports. The music streaming company also found that "songs in 16 different languages reached the platform’s Global Top 50 chart, double the number of languages on the chart back in 2020."
>> Speaking of Spotify, co-CEO Gustav Söderström used a SXSW appearance to "announce a new feature, launching in beta, that'll allow listeners for the first time to review and edit their Taste Profile, the algorithmically generated model of their music preferences," TechCrunch's Sarah Perez writes.
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A few more Hollywood headlines |
>> "Major artists are returning to headline tours in the U.S. after long breaks from the road," a trend that "underscores the growing power of the nostalgia economy," Kerry Flynn writes. (Axios)
>> Bradley Cooper is "circling to write, direct and star in Warner Bros' 'Ocean's 11' prequel." (TheWrap)
>> "Paramount Pictures is not moving forward with Max Landis' 'G.I. Joe' movie." (THR)
>> And Chloe Zhao's "Buffy" reboot is dead. (Deadline)
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ICYMI: Superb weekend reads |
>> I adored this Katerina Portela piece, with photos by Jason LeCras, about "remarkable" L.A. newsstands and what they represent nowadays. (LA Times)
>> Anna Nicolaou caught up with Mark Guiducci about the revamp of Vanity Fair that's well underway. (FT)
>> David Bauder reported on NewsGuard, the media-rating company that says Trump's FTC "is threatening its livelihood." (AP)
>> Sam Adler Bell talked with "the young women leaving the new right" in part because of the misogyny of many MAGA media personalities. (NYMag)
>> Michelle Boorstein profiled "religious influencers" who "repackage Christianity for an always-online generation." (WaPo)
>> John Herrman chronicled the rise of AI "brain fry." (NYMag)
>> Nathaniel Meyersohn and Hadas Gold broke down "how Anthropic may benefit from its fight with Trump." (CNN)
>> Katie Deighton introduced us to the "alternatively influential" figures who are seeking brand deals but striving not to be called "influencers." (WSJ)
>> Daniel D'Addario argued that Stephen Colbert's "Late Show" goodbye "has gone from resistance to ego trip." (Variety)
>> Jed Rosenzweig responded to that piece with a "memo to Stephen Colbert: don't change a thing." (LateNighter)
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LAST BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST: |
Al Jazeera Arabic presenter Jamal Rayyan, "the first face ever seen on the channel when it launched nearly three decades ago, has died at the age of 73." The network has published a tribute to him here.
And New York Times icon John F. Burns, whose frontline dispatches "from the war zones of Afghanistan and Bosnia secured coveted Pulitzer Prizes," has died at the age of 81. Alan Cowell has the Times obit for Burns here.
Burns gets the last word here. He said in a 2015 Q&A, "I've always felt that passion is a legitimate — an indispensable — tool for a reporter in the face of the malevolent outrages of war. But that can never be allowed to overwhelm what matters critically to a newspaper like The Times, with the trust it has with its readers to render balanced accounts that hold true to the facts, or as many of them as are accessible amid the tide of confusion and deceit that are the inescapable companions of violent conflict. That is the gold standard, the compulsion to which passion must always yield."
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