You would think a press corps palpably triggered by the addition of a few new media members would have been outraged by the invasion of over 10 million illegal aliens.
Based on their coverage of triple threat Kilmar Garcia, the allegedly “violent” wife-beater, gang member, and illegal alien would receive a warmer welcome.
While the White House’s new media initiative began in January, there’s been a recent surge of legacy media apoplexy over their newfound colleagues. (RELATED: White House Preps Another Big Shakeup In Press Briefing Room)
Call it the next phase in the New Media vs. Legacy Media Thucydides Trap.
The New York Times, barely able to hide their contempt for the new media listeners, moaned how “officials have made room for a new cohort of more partisan attendees, like right-wing podcasters, who often ask less-adversarial questions than traditional journalists.”
“The increased attention toward pro-Trump media personalities, who rarely challenge the administration’s talking points, has undercut the briefings as a space to relay accurate information to the American public and hold the president to account,” continued the article, complete with a mug shot-style chart of new media seat holders.
WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 19: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt takes questions from reporters during a news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on March 19, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Politico opted to frame the shift as a “breakup,” pondering why Trump is “trying to kill the institution that made him?” Maybe because that institution has no interest in trying to find out who tried to kill him.
Revisionist history aside, the no longer USAID-subsidized outlet lamented that the administration “rewarded friendlier, more acquiescent outlets and individuals.” Mother Jones declared these outlets the “new state media.”
I was honored to get a shoutout in both articles as a member of the new media.
While the expansion of new media has been a silver bullet for those on the decade-long quest to sniff out President Trump’s nascent authoritarianism, even the most rudimentary fact check would show you that Joe Biden actually had his own rendition of a new media initiative.
It was the vast and unchecked censorship of the American people. Think bureaucrats instead of “Bro” podcasts.
The legacy media’s response? Complete and utter silence. Except for The Washington Post, eager to ask what the Biden administration was doing to curtail “misinformation” from Elon Musk and then-candidate Trump. Not that Biden needed any encouragement.
Picking up the media’s slack, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard just declassified the former administration’s domestic surveillance and censorship strategy. Without any evidence, “right-wing domestic terrorism” was declared the gravest threat in the US. The State Department, FBI, DOJ, and CIA were directed to “obtain from foreign partners foreign intelligence and information related to US-based violent extremism.” (RELATED: Judge Rules Associated Press Should Not Be Excluded From Press Pool)
This information was used to compile a “digital literacy programming” dossier to “combat misinformation” online. This was a clear Trojan Horse for notorious organizations like NewsGuard to smear certain outlets as “trustworthy” and then suppress “non-trustworthy” sources as “misinformation.”
Many outlets deemed “untrustworthy” now comprise the new media in the White House.
The same legacy media outlets cheered on the debanking, deplatforming, advertiser boycotts, and even imprisonment of leading new media hosts like Steve Bannon. So spare America the performative activism that the outrage over new media’s inclusion in the briefing room is rooted in anything other than the loss of narrative control.
The legacy media’s Times New Roman tantrums over new media’s presence are also shockingly out of touch.
In fact, it’s victim blaming.
The reason new media deserves a spot in the briefing room is really the legacy media’s fault.
The old guard covered up one of the largest scandals in modern political history: the immense cognitive decline of a sitting American president. What good is pool access if you won’t even ask who’s running the country, while censoring those who did? And if new media members ask a question short of Democrat governor-style opposition to President Trump, they’re accused of being sycophants. Talk about a double standard.
The latest Kilmar Garcia spat, for example, proves legacy media members haven’t learned their lesson.
They’ll seldom discuss immigration — let alone the real and damning ramifications of importing other cultures into the US. They’ll only touch the issue to try to score a “gotcha” question on the Trump administration.
For example, MSNBC and CNN filled their airwaves 24/7 with tear-jerking PETA commercial-style coverage of Garcia yet refused to air Patty Morin’s gut-wrenching press conference about her daughter’s savage murder at the hands of an MS-13 member. Credit where credit is due — at least no one in the White House Press Corps has tried taking out Garcia for margaritas.
Media elites shouldn’t get to dictate the immigration discourse heard by the American people. Just like GOP elites tried to do with the Republican party platform prior to President Trump.
The vast majority of this country wants to know about the efficacy of mass deportations and immigration reform. Just think about the uproar caused by Springfield — a result of the media’s refusal to even ask questions about a government-sponsored program to effectively replace American workers.
When I’ve been given a chance to ask administration officials questions, I’ve actually pressed them on why deportation numbers are not higher and why NGOs and politicians responsible for orchestrating the invasion under Biden haven’t been investigated or arrested.
So much for the sycophantic state media neg.
Remember when we were told by Martha Raddatz during a campaign interview with Vice President JD Vance that Americans would have to accept a “handful” of illegal aliens hostilely taking over apartment complexes? The same press class she represents now can’t even handle a “handful” of new media reporters.
It’s also the same class of people who smear blue-collar workers’ concerns over the importation of cheap foreign labor as untoward nativism. Yet they don’t seem to be enjoying competition in their own industry.
Many members of one of the most elitist, gatekeeping institutions in the world don’t even think America deserves a strong border. The looming fences outside the briefing room and IDs required to ask a question inside protect the people who routinely criticize walls and voter ID laws.
But unlike Kilmar Garcia and other illegal aliens in this country, new media isn’t going anywhere.
