White House unveils website targeting media's ‘biased’ coverage

ANKARA

The official White House website has launched a new section dedicated to denouncing media outlets and journalists it accuses of biased or misleading reporting, media reports said on Saturday.

Titled “Misleading. Biased. Exposed,” the page lists stories it claims misrepresented President Donald Trump’s comments, particularly those concerning Democratic lawmakers and the military, according to The Guardian.

The Boston Globe, CBS News, and the Independent were labeled “media offenders of the week” over coverage of six Democrats who released a video urging military personnel not to follow illegal orders, drawing on the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Trump has blasted the Democrats’ actions as “seditious behavior, punishable by death” and reposted a statement calling to “hang them.”

“The Democrats and Fake News Media subversively implied that President Trump had issued illegal orders to service members. Every order President Trump has issued has been lawful,” according to the White House.

Press reports have pointed to orders by Trump that may have crossed the line of illegality, according to legal scholars, including orders to destroy Venezuelan fishing boats – alleged but not proven to be smuggling drugs – as well as to fire on Black Lives Matter protesters, as claimed by Mark Esper, who served as defense secretary in Trump’s first term.

The site also features an “Offender Hall of Shame,” listing news organizations such as the Washington Post, CNN, left-leaning MS Now (formerly MSNBC), and others.

A searchable database categorizes stories under terms like “bias,” “malpractice,” and “left wing lunacy.”

- Contentious relationship with the press

The Washington Post currently tops the site's offender leaderboard, though its owner, Amazon mogul Jeff Bezos, has openly tried to court Trump’s favor.

One highlighted article reported that the US Coast Guard would cease classifying swastikas and nooses as hate symbols, a policy reversed shortly after the piece’s publication.

The Post issued a follow-up article noting the reversal and told The Guardian: “The Washington Post is proud of its accurate, rigorous journalism.”

Other listed outlets include the Associated Press, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Politico, and Axios.

The webpage launch follows a series of lawsuits, settlements, and verbal attacks on journalists, including derogatory comments directed at female reporters from Bloomberg, ABC, and the New York Times, calling one “piggy” and asking another if she is “stupid.”

In his nearly five years in office overall, Trump has had a markedly contentious and even hostile relationship with the press, including try to sideline some reporters from the White House and Pentagon press corps and even at times suggesting that his supporters should assault journalists.

Trump is known for branding press reports he does not like as “fake news.”