Welcome to What the Media Missed, the place we dig into the numerous examples of legacy media malpractice that disgraced the nation’s entrance pages this week—whereas highlighting how Each day Kos goes previous the spin to uncover the true horror tales of our new Trump period.
Bobby Kennedy Jr. performs physician
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
On Feb. 18, The New York Instances dutifully dictated Kennedy’s unhinged speaking factors in an article headlined “Kennedy Says ‘Nothing’ Off Limits in Scrutinizing Chronic Disease,” which sounds … good, proper? Shouldn’t the federal government be going all-out to resolve the persistent illnesses that plague almost half of all People? Possibly Kennedy isn’t fairly so loopy in any case!
Each day Kos had a distinct tackle Kennedy’s new route for HHS. “RFK Jr.’s ignorant war on vaccines will make America sick again,” wrote Alex Samuels, together with some crucial reporting the Instances overlooked. Because it seems, Kennedy’s “nothing is off limits” method doesn’t apply to COVID-19 vaccine analysis, which he abruptly shut down regardless of this system being mere days from accepting 10,000 trial sufferers.
A coincidence, certainly.
Kennedy isn’t “scrutinizing” persistent illness, because the Instances claims—he’s actively hindering efforts to forestall outbreaks and slashing hundreds of mission-critical jobs. We noticed extra of that distract-and-evade method this week when Kennedy downplayed an ongoing measles outbreak that just lately claimed the lifetime of a younger Texas lady.
Kennedy could possibly launder his lack of credentials by way of a complacent media, however it will likely be more durable to cover the loss of life toll.
The Washington Publish goes MAGA
In actuality, it was nothing in need of a give up to Trump’s ongoing media strain marketing campaign.
Regardless of media hand-wringing over Bezos’ pronouncement, few shops really criticized him in public as a result of a rising variety of media shops are owned by Trump-supporting billionaires like Bezos. When MAGA sycophants like Los Angeles Instances proprietor Patrick Quickly-Shiong and Bezos make frequent trigger to shift their papers rightward, neither has any enterprise incentive to report on the opposite facet.
America’s invisible veterans
Even the most important media shops have struggled to maintain tempo as Trump and Elon Musk slash their method by way of the federal workforce. Misplaced within the crush of occasions are the over 6,000 veterans going through severe monetary worries after being pushed out of their jobs earlier this month. But these betrayals barely made headlines this week, drowned out by different sideshows in Trump’s chaotic circus.
Although the layoffs have an effect on veterans throughout the federal authorities, Trump’s workforce reserved most of their ire for the Division of Veterans Affairs. Officers there have confronted a number of rounds of purges and anticipate much more firings as Musk and his DOGE venture descend on the company.
Each day Kos was one of many few shops reporting on Home Democrats’ effort this week to advance the Defend Veteran Jobs Act, which might reinstate the hundreds of veterans fired by Musk’s unofficial cost-cutters and in addition require common transparency experiences at any time when federal companies fireplace veterans. Thus far, not a single Republican helps the measure. Go determine.
As troops and their households begin feeling the burn of Trump’s cuts, they’re starting to rethink their conventional loyalty to Republican insurance policies. That’s given Democrats unlikely new allies in spouses of fired veterans, a lot of whom really feel personally betrayed by Trump’s unceremonious sackings.
Army households have all too usually tuned out conventional Democratic messaging. With their worlds unsure and Republicans unsympathetic, a lot of these disaffected army households are prepared to start out speaking.
Headline Watch with Oliver Willis
“Slow walking” proper off a cliff.
Marketing campaign Motion
