Vice President JD Vance’s accusation that journalists lied about the fatal Minneapolis shooting of Renee Nicole Good was a vivid reminder of today’s media battlefield.
At a White House press briefing, Vance portrayed the 37-year-old mother of three as a radical leftist who rammed her vehicle into an ICE agent Jonathan Ross who proceeded to shoot and kill her in self-defense. The vice president coldly framed Good’s death as a “tragedy of her own making.”
“What you see is what you get in this case,” Vance said.
What I — and many others — saw, from various angles, was Good trying to drive away from armed, masked men before one of them shot her at point-blank range. The agent did not appear to be in any immediate danger.
But in today’s fractured media environment, what we see isn’t the end of the story.
As with just about every contentious moment in American life, even those captured on cellphone video, reality gets litigated in public. Footage that should clarify events can instead be used to distort them. Sides are taken and narratives pushed for political ends.
One of the most surreal scenes was when New York Times reporters walked President Donald Trump through the shooting video during an Oval Office interview, and pushed back on his claim that the driver “viciously ran over” an agent.
Meanwhile, the Trump White House has been trying to rewrite the events of January 6 — a deadly attack that played out live on television — by casting blame on Democrats. Some media figures helped boost Trump’s spin.
Debates over truth and accuracy aren’t only playing out in mainstream newsrooms.
A 23-year-old self-described “independent journalist” posted a video of alleged fraud in Minnesota last month that galvanized the right, driving calls for a federal crackdown and becoming part of the political backdrop as a sitting governor chose not to seek reelection.
But is YouTube star Nick Shirley truly “independent?” Were his claims backed up? Was he practicing sound journalism? Or is it the political impact that matters most?
At TheWrap, we’re obsessed with how the media — old, new, mainstream, partisan – shapes our understanding of the world, and the people reshaping the media.
We’re living through an information environment in constant flux, as once-niche podcasters compete with TV news anchors for attention and influence. And all of this is unfolding as news organizations increasingly embrace AI, even as misuse of the technology further erodes any shared sense of reality.
In this brave new world, seeing is only the beginning. My goal is to cut through the outrage and spin, and interrogate how power, politics and technology converge to redefine our media landscape.
Tony Dokoupil takes over
It’s been a rocky rollout for Tony Dokoupil as anchor of the “CBS Evening News,” marked by an on-air flub, a high-level departure and criticism of his approach to covering Donald Trump and his administration.
In one instance, Dokoupil gave January 6 the both-sides treatment before playfully saluting Secretary of State Marco Rubio. It’s incumbent on journalists to be clear about what transpired five years ago tragic day — something Dokoupil failed to do.
Read my full analysis below:
Tony Dokoupil Charts a Trump-Friendly Course for the ‘CBS Evening News’
More on Dokoupil, Bari Weiss and the state of CBS News:
CBS News Insider: Bari Weiss Met With ‘60 Minutes’ Top Editors to Advance CECOT Story
‘CBS Evening News’ No. 2 Producer Dismissed Amid Tony Dokoupil’s Rocky Rollout
‘CBS Saturday Morning’ Sets Adriana Diaz and Kelly O’Grady as New Hosts
‘CBS Evening News’ Launches With Tony Dokoupil to 4.4 Million Viewers, Up 9% From Season Average
Nick Shirley makes waves
TheWrap’s Corbin Bolies writes:
While Nick Shirley’s video on alleged fraud in Minnesota has gone viral — 139 million views on X, 3.4 million on YouTube — his methods depart from journalistic norm and standards, opening up debate over what constitutes an independent journalist, with Shirley and his history as an influencer falling under scrutiny.
“I see my share of independent journalists on social media every day that they’re just, they’re co-opting the name,” said Kevin Z. Smith, an Ohio University professor and former president of the Society of Professional Journalists, and who now sits on its ethics committee, told TheWrap.
“They’re co-opting the name ‘journalist’ because it gives them credibility. At the same time, while they’re stealing that credibility, they’re also undermining the actual virtues and standards that journalists use in this business in order to report truthfully and accurately, fairly.”
Here’s my full piece:
Nick Shirley Jolted Minnesota Politics. But Is He Really ‘Independent’?
Newsrooms push deeper into AI
Business Insider announced last year that it was going “all-in on AI” and is in the midst of a pilot program to publish AI-generated articles (edited by humans). The media outlet’s aggressive push into AI, which was rolled out amid significant layoffs, has alarmed some staffers.
Still, editor-in-chief Jamie Heller insisted to me that AI doesn’t hold “a candle to reporters.”
Whether “getting people on the phone, going out to conferences, bearing witness at events, meeting people, building relationships, building trust — AI does zero of that,” Heller said. “But what it can do, we should try to learn and see what its capabilities are, and we’re still in the early innings.”
Business Insider is just one of many newsrooms across the country, from the Washington Post to Los Angeles Times, that are grappling with how to deploy generative artificial intelligence in ways that increase speed and scale without undermining trust — or the role of journalists.
Check out my full piece:
After a Rocky Year, Newsrooms Push Deeper Into AI
Katie Pavlich’s NewsNation plans
On Friday, I caught up with the NewsNation host Katie Pavlich ahead of the Jan. 19 debut of her show “Katie Pavlich Tonight.”
We discussed her decision to leave Fox News last month after more than 12 years as a contributor, what her new show will look like, some of the stories she’s planning to cover and her thoughts on the upheaval in today’s media world.
But Pavlich also told me that, of all the potential political guests she’s trying to book, two names were at the top of her list.
“I want to book 50 Cent,” she said. “And Spencer Pratt, who’s running for mayor of L.A.”
You’ll find more about Pavlich’s plans this week on TheWrap.
Also on TheWRAP
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to Shutter This Year After Failed Union Effort, $350 Million in Losses
‘The Daily Show’s Desi Lydic Is Trying to ‘Out Crazy the Crazy’ With ‘Foxsplains’
What I’m reading
Some Questions, Then a Selfie: Mayor Mamdani Meets the (Creator) Press (Michael Grynbaum, New York Times)
What a Viral YouTube Video Says About the Future of Journalism (Jay Caspian Kang, The New Yorker)
‘I voted so hard for this’: How the new Pentagon press corps covered Venezuela (Scott Nover and Drew Harwell, Washington Post)
McClatchy’s Machine Mindset (Natalie Korach, Status News)
Will Pittsburgh become America’s most important city without a newspaper? (Joshua Benton, NiemanLab)
