The White House has launched a new website aimed at debunking what it calls “fake news” from journalists and media outlets—some of them among the world’s most prominent—and is encouraging the public to report bias and sign up for weekly “Offender Alerts,” with the tagline: “Want the truth each week? Sign up for ‘Offender Alerts’ delivered to your inbox.”
At the top of the site, the White House names its “Media Offender of the Week” with the tagline: “Misleading. Biased. Exposed.” The platform showcases specific reports it claims are false or distorted, listing the names of journalists responsible and offering what it describes as factual corrections, supported by its own cited sources.
White House launches new website aimed at debunking fake news from journalists and media outlets
(Video: White House)
Among the outlets labeled as offenders in what the site calls the “Offender Hall of Shame” are CNN, The Washington Post and CBS. The White House also released a “race to the bottom” leaderboard ranking outlets by their alleged role in spreading misinformation related to President Donald Trump or his policies. The Washington Post tops the list, followed by MSNBC, CBS News, CNN, The New York Times, Politico and The Wall Street Journal.
The website names 22 media organizations as “Repeat Offenders,” including those above and others such as the BBC, Fox News and ABC News. According to the site, “These outlets don’t just get it wrong – they do it over and over again.” Each outlet is assigned a number of “violations” and categorized by medium: print, digital, television or radio.
The website also labels each alleged offense by type, ranging from “Lie,” “Misrepresentation” and “Bias” to “Malpractice,” “Omission of context,” “Left-wing lunacy,” and “Mischaracterization.”
The site’s launch follows weeks of renewed verbal attacks by Trump on the press. He recently referred to a New York Times reporter as “a third-rate reporter who is ugly, both inside and out,” and called the paper “a cheap 'RAG'" and "truly an 'ENEMY' OF THE PEOPLE.” In another instance, he labeled an ABC journalist “a terrible person” and told a Bloomberg reporter, “Quiet, piggy.”
'Quiet, piggy!': Trump insults a journalist on board Air Force 1
(Video: Reuters)
Just this month, an exchange unfolded between the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the American president, following the broadcast of a documentary segment in which a speech by Trump was edited in a way he claimed was "false" and "defamatory." The BBC issued an official apology to Trump but firmly rejected his demand for financial compensation, arguing there was no basis for a defamation claim.
Trump, for his part, declared that if his demands for an apology, removal of the film and compensation were not met, he would sue the BBC for a sum ranging from one billion to five billion dollars. "I think I have to do it," he said. "They cheated. They changed the words coming out of my mouth."
This is not the only clash Trump has had with the media in recent months. In September, he announced he had filed a defamation lawsuit for the staggering sum of $15 billion against The New York Times and four of its journalists. The lawsuit references several articles and a book authored by two of the paper’s reporters, published during the 2024 presidential campaign. According to Trump, these are defamatory materials forming part of “a decades-long pattern by the New York Times of intentional and malicious defamation against President Trump.”
That lawsuit joins a $10 billion defamation suit Trump filed in July against The Wall Street Journal and media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Trump has also threatened other media outlets, hinting he may seek to revoke the broadcast licenses of ABC News and NBC due to what he claims is biased coverage against him. The president declared that these networks are “an arm of the Democrat Party."
This antagonism toward the press did not begin during Trump's current term. Even during his first campaign and previous presidency, Trump had frequent run-ins with journalists and news outlets. For example, in a particularly contentious 2016 press conference, he lashed out at reporters who questioned his donations to military veterans. “You’re disgusting,” he told a popular broadcaster.
He then unleashed his fury on the press more broadly. “The worst are the political reporters—disgusting losers,” Trump said. He called Bill Kristol, editor of the conservative magazine Weekly Standard, who had said a third-party candidate would soon emerge to defeat Trump, “a loser" whose "magazine is failing.”
In 2017, at the start of his first term, Trump famously declared that the American media was “the enemy of the American People.” In a tweet, he wrote: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People. SICK!” The post was deleted, and a similar version was later posted, this time adding CBS and ABC and omitting the word “SICK.”
About a year later, Trump once again attacked the U.S. media, following criticism of his remarks about African migrants. “So much Fake News is being reported. They don’t even try to get it right, or correct it when they are wrong,” he said. “They promote the Fake Book of a mentally deranged author, who knowingly writes false information.”