White House Hall of Shame – Why Government Should Never be the Judge of ‘Media Bias’ (Opinion)

The White House, under the Trump administration, has launched a new digital initiative aimed at cataloging and publicly identifying news organizations and journalists it deems biased or misleading. This “Media Bias Offenders Resource” and “Media Bias Offender Tipline,” accessible on the official White House website, functions as a database to “expose the bias” and “hold the media accountable,” according to the administration. And while I absolutely am an advocate for media accountability and addressing media bias, this should never be a function of government, and in my opinion this isn’t about exposing offending media, but funneling Americans towards media outlets that provide favorable coverage for President Trump.

The website includes a “Tipline” feature that encourages supporters to actively participate by submitting news stories, articles, and other content they believe are critical of the administration or factually inaccurate. This crowdsourcing aspect is designed to mobilize the public in monitoring media coverage. The language used throughout the portal, such as “expose the bias” and “hold the media accountable,” is intended to galvanize supporters against mainstream news outlets.

Further highlighting its intention, the portal features a “Media Offender of the Week” section, which, in a recent display, singled out The Boston Globe, CBS News, and The Independent. These outlets were marked with a red “EXPOSED” graphic, drawing attention to specific news reporting. The website also includes a “Leaderboard,” which appears to rank news organizations based on the number of negative or critical stories logged against them by the White House, suggesting a gamified approach to public criticism of the press.

While past administrations have engaged in efforts to counter negative press, this particular approach of establishing a permanent, publicly accessible database of “biased” media organizations on an official government domain represents a distinct strategy. Previous initiatives, such as the Obama campaign’s “Fight the Smears” and “Attack Watch” websites, were campaign-specific rather than official government functions. Similarly, the George W. Bush administration’s “Setting the Record Straight” section of its website focused on rebuttals to specific criticisms, typically in the format of press releases, rather than a standing list of offenders. The most analogous historical precedent, President Nixon’s confidential “Enemies List,” was not a public White House initiative but rather an internal compilation of individuals targeted for potential government action, which only came to light during the Watergate hearings. The Trump Administration’s “Media Bias Offenders Resource” thus marks a novel integration of presidential media criticism into an official government digital platform.

This initiative is part of a broader strategy by the Trump administration to circumvent traditional news media and engage directly with its supporters. It operationalizes the President’s frequent criticisms of the press by creating an official government channel dedicated to labeling specific reporting as inaccurate or propagandistic. The “Tipline” serves as a direct call to action, inviting visitors to actively contribute to the administration’s media monitoring efforts by reporting any content they perceive as dissent or criticism, or at least that’s its purpose on the surface. But diving deeper, the “Tipline” appears to be part of the White House’s marketing strategy.

Interestingly enough, the “Tipline” is in fact a Mailchimp signup form, located at https://mailchi.mp/mail.whitehouse.gov/media-bias-offender-tipline. And while this “Tipline” may capture news media outlet names and article URLs, it also serves the purpose of subscribing to the White House mailing list to receive updates from President Trump. This means that the “Tipline” is not just about media accountability, but part of a cleverly crafted marketing strategy to obtain direct contact information for Americans who clearly already don’t trust the media to be truthful and unbiased, and funnel them to White House approved news sources and articles. This is accomplished through “White House Wire” daily emails pointing to selected news articles that the Trump administration agrees with, as well as other selected mailing lists.

So who’s featured on the “Hall of Shame”? Here’s the current standings as of December 15, 2025

Outlet	Article Count
ABC News	2
Associated Press	2
Axios	3
CBS News	6
CNN	4
Daily Mail	1
KTLA	1
MSNBC	6
NBC	3
New Jersey Monitor	1
People	1
Politico	3
Reuters	1
The BBC	1
The Boston Globe	1
The Bulwark	1
The Daily Beast	1
The Hill	1
The Independent	2
The Los Angeles Times	1
The New York Times	5
The Wall Street Journal	2
The Washington Post	6
USA Today	1
Wisconsin Public Radio	1

With most of these news organizations only having a single “hall of shame” article, that’s not much of a hall of shame in my opinion. But then I don’t believe the goal is to show the scope of media bias, but to try and discredit outlets which are moderate in their views. Are all of the above outlets moderate in their views? Absolutely not. But some of them, such as Associated Press, Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal, are much more moderate outlets than Daily Beast, MSNBC, or other further left-leaning outlets not even in this list.

I fully understand the desire to run press releases counter to misleading claims by news media, I get it, and fully support any organization setting the record straight. However, this whole “Media Bias Offenders” list feels more like propaganda designed to de-legitimatize news media outlets than responding to inaccurate reporting. But more importantly, determining news media bias should never be a function of government, especially when legitimate sources such as Ad Fontes Media‘s bias chart already exist and are developed independent of any political campaign or party.

While this is an absolutely genius marketing tactic by the White House, I do truly have concerns regarding the precedent such a portal will establish. Whenever the Democrats get into power they’ll be able to easily flip the script, and begin pointing out all the times that Fox News, NY Post, Daily Caller, and other similar outlets run biased articles against the left, while simultaneously pushing articles from the news sources that the Trump administration has currently labeled as “biased”.

The fact of the matter is, most news outlets are biased because returning viewers/visitors have their own biases, and seek out news outlets that provide confirmation bias. And while The White House could easily go after the low-hanging fruit of highly biased, left-leaning news media such as Daily Kos or The Don Lemon Show, they instead choose to mostly target media outlets at the top of Ad Fontes’ bias chart, the more reliable outlets which only lean slightly left or right. Even right-leaning outlets such as Wall Street Journal or Daily Mail are included in the list, in an effort to push Trump supporters towards the lower right of the Ad Fontes chart, where media outlets push pro-Trump messages.

Far too often, we here at RFHC face meritless accusations of bias. Most of these accusations have been due to failure to meet confirmation bias, but I also believe some of these accusations have been intentional attempts to do exactly what The White House is doing here – try to convince people we’re not a reliable news source so they’ll seek their news elsewhere. This is about trying to control the narrative, and distract from when a news outlet runs irrefutable evidence of something a certain person or group doesn’t want brought to light.

Government should never be the arbiter of what is “fake” or “biased” news, and this is a dangerous precedent being set by the White House.

Article by Ken Buckler, all opinions are his own, and do not reflect those of our clients or sponsors.

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