Latest news with #ErikWemple
Fox News
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Washington Post columnist torches Paramount for settling with Trump over '60 Minutes' interview
Washington Post columnist Erik Wemple sharply criticized Paramount on Wednesday for settling with President Donald Trump for $16 million earlier this week over edits made to a CBS News "60 Minutes" interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris last October. Wemple argued that Paramount's settlement sets a dangerous precedent for journalistic integrity and press freedom after capitulating to the president in hopes of protecting its merger with Skydance Media. The media partnership is subject to the approval of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which is currently overseen by Trump-appointed commissioners. Wemple contended that the media giant settled with Trump because it believed the case "could thwart merger approval." "Honest journalism requires noting that Paramount's leaders will never, ever hear the end of this abject decision. Nor should they," he asserted. The columnist claimed that Paramount's settlement "withers" the First Amendment after it "caved prematurely and completely" to Trump's lawsuit, unlike its subsidiary, CBS News, which cited First Amendment protections in their court filing. Wemple insisted that media organizations typically settle only when they "screw up" — something he maintains CBS News did not do. "The settlement doesn't include an apology, and that's because there is nothing to apologize for. Its actions under attack in the Trump suit are the subject of great reverence from the First Amendment," he stated. Citing the 1974 case Miami Herald Pub. Co. v. Tornillo, in which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Herald after they refused to publish pushback by a politician to critical editorials, Wemple argued Paramount tarnished the precedent of this ruling with their settlement. "That very function — the one that happens many times a day at newspapers, radio stations, TV stations, networks, social media accounts, newsletters, whatever — is what Paramount failed to stick up for," he declared. "It doesn't deserve the likes of "60 Minutes." Fox News Digital reached out to CBS News and Paramount for comment on Wemple's editorial but did not immediately receive a response.
Washington Post
15-06-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Was Trump's military parade a success?
Warning: This graphic requires JavaScript. for the best experience. You're reading the Prompt 2025 newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox. When I interviewed President Donald Trump a few days before his 2017 inauguration, I asked how he would convince America it is 'great again.' He told me: 'We're going to display our military. That military may come marching down Pennsylvania Avenue. That military may be flying over New York City and Washington, D.C., for parades.' On Saturday, he put on that parade, which celebrated the U.S. Army's 250th birthday and is expected to cost taxpayers as much as $45 million. Did it send the message that Trump intended? I'm joined by my colleagues Molly Roberts and Erik Wemple to discuss the spectacle. — Karen Tumulty, columnist 💬 💬 💬 Karen Tumulty Erik, you were at the parade. How was it? What were the crowds like? On TV, it actually seemed sort of subdued, not the spectacle we were given to expect. Erik Wemple I had a blast just interviewing people. They were incredibly open, though one guy gave me quite the brush off when he learned that I was with The Post. But your impression was correct, imo. Molly Roberts Should have said you were with One America News. Erik Well! It's hard to predict their media allegiances. One Trump supporter told me he'd just listened to 'The Daily' by the New York Times. Molly Yeah, it was hard to tell on TV whether people were there to celebrate Trump or the Army — obviously a big subject of debate re: the purpose of this whole thing, leading up to it. (I suppose I should be charitable and say the answer can be 'both'!) Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Karen The parade struck me as a pretty effective recruiting tool. And if you weren't listening to Fox News — as I was for a bit — not really all that much about the Birthday Boy. Molly LOL yeah, I was watching Fox too, and I believe one commentator insisted it was the best way $45 million could be spent when it comes to recruiting. Unsure how you'd test that claim, but … Erik Let's construct a data model! Karen My dad was career Air Force, and I spent much of my childhood on bases, so I gotta admit: I love a flyover. Molly Honestly, I didn't hate the history lesson either. I expected a lot more fanfare and a lot fewer facts. Erik From where I was stationed, I didn't get the history lesson. There was a huge throng waiting to filter through security checkpoints and many people were still waiting well after it had started. Molly Perhaps it was just Fox generously providing it, but I read some reporting that some of the info was being broadcast over loudspeakers as well. Loads of stuff about what conflicts a given regiment had been deployed to. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Karen Let's talk about the context: Trump is trying to keep the military out of overseas engagements, even as he is using our troops on U.S. soil to subdue protests. So, much of the parade was about weapons. Molly Yes, totally. It's hard not to view tanks rolling down the street a little differently when you're worried about violence breaking out in Los Angeles. Erik 100 percent. Karen Meanwhile, across the country on Saturday we saw 'No Kings' protests in practically every city and town. How much of an impression will those make? Molly I would hope that people realize the parade celebrated an Army that helped liberate this country from the tyranny of an overreaching executive! And then see that the protests are about a similar problem. Karen I was struck by the fact that so many of the 'No Kings' protesters were carrying American flags — clearly trying to wrest that patriotic imagery back from the MAGA movement. Erik Earlier this year, there was an idea in the media that the resistance was dead or faltering. It wasn't, as these recent protests have shown. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Karen So do we think this parade really sent the message that Trump had hoped? Molly I guess it depends on what message he hoped for! If you take what he said to you all those years ago at face value, in my view the parade did better than I'd expected — the display itself really did seem to be about the U.S. Army, not the special birthday boy. Erik Following on that point from Molly: You just cannot overestimate how many people in this country have connections of one sort or another to the military. Either they served or their parents did or they worked as a contractor. Molly Yeah, it's my lifetime in the liberal D.C. bubble that has blinded me to the extent of people's connection to, and affection for, the military! So maybe that's what Trump hoped for … to teach people like me a little something about the country. 🤣 Karen And yet, so few of us actually serve these days in our all-volunteer military. Molly But, to an extent, I worry Trump wanted to demonstrate, by tying the event to his birthday and with all that standing up and saluting from his post, that all this military might is at his disposal. Again, maybe I should be more charitable: He also could have been trying to demonstrate that military might to the rest of the world, as a deterrent or a negotiating card. Karen Back to that interview, Trump told me that he would 'display our military' to convince the country that it was 'great again.' If that was the measure, I think it does help remind us that we are a country of great people, some of whom are willing to put their own lives on the line for the rest of us. Molly Maybe it helped convince people that America is great … but, as usual with Trump, I'm stuck on the 'again' part. Erik Well we do pay a lot for it! Remember when Madeleine Albright asked Colin Powell why we have such a great and expensive military if we don't use it? Perhaps Powell should have said simply that we could have a parade! Molly Yes, as long as we're spending billions on defense, what's another $45 million to get those boys (and girls!) out of their barracks and in front of the American people? Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Karen At any rate, Trump has scratched that itch. He's had his parade. But his biggest tests as commander in chief are looming right ahead of him. Molly Did he get that nifty birthday flag from the parachuting Golden Knights, by the way? May have missed that part. But with a souvenir like that, I think he can go home. No need for a third term.
Fox News
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Washington Post media critic admits failure in scrutinizing Biden coverage after 'Where's Jackie' gaffe
Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple reflected on his own "failure" Monday in scrutinizing press coverage of Joe Biden and his cognitive decline, particularly after the infamous "Where's Jackie?" gaffe. As the legacy media continues to face a reckoning over how it handled covering the former president's mental acuity before his disastrous 2024 debate performance, Wemple wrote a scathing piece calling out news organizations for not admitting any errors with the headline, "Did legacy media fail in its Biden coverage? Not if you ask them!" In his lengthy critique, Wemple revisited an episode from a September 2022 event where Biden called for Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., who had died just weeks earlier in a car accident. Biden previously released a statement acknowledging her death after it happened and the event he attended similarly honored her memory. "Jackie, are you here? Where's Jackie?" Biden said in the viral moment. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended the president at the time, insisting Walorski was simply "top of mind." "It's time to turn this exercise on my own byline," Wemple wrote Monday. "The 'Where's Jackie' episode was my cue to start hammering mainstream outlets for not pushing on this story. Never happened — that was a failure." Wemple noted, as Fox News Digital did at the time, that neither CNN nor MSNBC offered any coverage of the "Where's Jackie" comment. While acknowledging some in the press, like Axios' Alex Thompson and The Wall Street Journal's Annie Linskey and Siobhan Hughes for their pre-debate reporting that shed light on Biden's cognitive decline, Wemple knocked the media for broadly lacking the vigor to get to the bottom of it sooner. "White House coverage must involve more than observing the president in action and writing up analysis pieces about his comings and goings," Wemple wrote. "It needs to include a muckraking component detailing behind-the-scenes strategies, conflicts and debates over all manner of issues, particularly those relating to the president's mental acuity. An adjacent question relates to whether Biden himself was fully abreast of and in charge of day-to-day decisions." "And it's on these fronts that major media organizations fell short: Though Biden's declining faculties were clear to all, they never ignited one of those glorious mainstream-media investigative frenzies that colonizes television and radio broadcasts," he added. Thompson's "Original Sin" co-author, CNN anchor Jake Tapper, said there should be "soul-searching" in the legacy media for how Biden's clearly apparent issues were covered. "Few souls are undergoing a pat-down," Wemple wrote.
Fox News
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
MSNBC mocked by Washington Post writer for lack of debate on left-wing network
The Washington Post's media critic Erik Wemple mocked MSNBC on Tuesday for its "bias toward consensus" in President Donald Trump's second term, joking that its unofficial motto should be, "I could not agree more." In a new column published Tuesday, Wemple revealed he spent 18 hours watching MSNBC in order to discover if the liberal network ever had dissenting voices on to debate the issues, as other cable news networks have done since Trump returned to the White House. "To get closer to an answer, I decided to gulp roughly 18 hours of MSNBC programming, starting with 'Morning Joe' at 6 a.m. and continuing through daytime and prime time. That way, perhaps, I could gather some insights on the network's strategy and view all those fierce debates that I'd missed with my on-again, off-again viewing habits. As it turned out, there was … one," Wemple wrote. That one debate came during MSNBC's new evening program, "The Weeknight," where co-hosts Symone Sanders Townsend, Michael Steele and Alicia Menendez sparred with guest, Republican Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana, in "an intense exchange of views that qualifies as a debate," Wemple wrote. However, that was a stand-alone in the day's lineup, Wemple said, from a network that seems to have sidelined pro-Trump voices. He quoted Aidan McLaughlin, editor-in-chief of Mediaite, who said MSNBC opts for anti-Trump Republicans to appear on the network to "give it the patina of balance," even if those voices don't represent the 77 million voters who elected the president "in the slightest." "The result is a programming model in which hosts and guests compete against one another to fashion the sharpest denunciations of the Trump regime," Wemple wrote. The downside of this approach is "vast expanses of predictable programming in which people passionately agree with one another," he added. Wemple noted that there are some programs on the network that deserve recognition for sometimes breaking from this model. He acknowledged that host Ari Melber has dissenting voices on his program at times, and referenced "Morning Joe" co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski welcoming Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on their show Monday. The media critic argued that MSNBC's model would have been considered "outright journalistic fraud" before Trump took office, but isn't anymore. He claimed CNN's approach, of having Trump-supporting guests on the network for "loud chaotic" arguments, isn't much better, but "at least CNN viewers get to hear the pro-Trump arguments in all their fact-deprived glory." "No matter how it's produced, television is a medium ill-equipped to cover Trump. My advice? Read newspapers," he concluded. When asked by Wemple to respond to his criticism that the network is biased, a spokesperson for MSNBC offered up a list of commentators and hosts with backgrounds in Republican politics, such as Michael Steele, Tim Miller and Susan Del Percio, who are reliably anti-Trump voices on the liberal network. MSNBC declined to provide comment to Fox News Digital. The scathing column comes on the heels of former White House press secretary-turned-MSNBC host Jen Psaki's new primetime program bombing on its second day, shedding 53% of its viewers in its key demographic from the day before.
