It’s welcome news that so many news reporters are digging
for answers on the Iran bombing and refusing to stick to Trump’s script
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This is what we have
come to expect from Trump:
“Natasha Bertrand should
be FIRED from CNN! I watched her for three days doing Fake News. She should be
IMMEDIATELY reprimanded, and then thrown out like a dog.”
This, from CNN, was a
happy surprise:
“...we do not believe it
is reasonable to criticize CNN reporters for accurately reporting the existence
of the assessment and accurately characterizing its findings, which are in the
public interest.”
We are now on Day 4 of a Trump temper tantrum about the status of Iran’s
nuclear facilities after a U.S bomber attack. Forget important questions like
whether Iran was actually weeks away from building a nuclear weapon as Trump
claimed or whether the bunker bombing attack means that the U.S. will be embroiled in yet another lengthy Mideast
conflict.
No, the biggest issue, per Trump and his administration, is whether or
not the entire press corps is falling in line behind the president’s
yet-unverified claims that three Iranian nuclear sites weren’t just damaged
but ‘obliterated,’ destroying Iran’s uranium
stockpile in the process. Trump is even threatening to sue news outlets that
don’t stick to his script. So far, none have caved to the pressure. In fact, a
growing number of reporters and news organizations are now openly pushing back
on the Trump narrative in a way we haven’t often seen since he returned to the
White House for a second term.
Trump’s strongman storyline began last Saturday night with his White
House announcement that “the
strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran’s key nuclear enrichment
facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.” For days, Trump repeatedly insisted that the nuclear facilities
have been obliterated, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and right wing media joining in the propaganda
effort. But news reporters from mainstream media -especially those with
experience covering national security matters- had lots of questions about the
bombing effort especially after some solid reporting from CNN called into question Trump’s
early victory lap.
Longtime national security reporter Natasha Bertrand and two other CNN
journalists broke the news that that leaked information from an initial U.S.
government intelligence analysis found that “the US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities last weekend did not destroy the core components of the
country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months.” Their story
made a point of saying that “the analysis of the damage to the sites and the
impact of the strikes on Iran’s nuclear ambitions is ongoing, and could change
as more intelligence becomes available.”
The New York Times
quickly matched CNN’s reporting. Soon word that Trump’s rosy assessment might
very well be wrong made headlines nationwide and around the world. Funny how
good old fashioned, fact-based news reporting can not only get at the truth of
things but perhaps even help nervous journalists and their bosses find some
much needed courage.
Cue the White House and MAGA outrage machine. How dare anything or anyone
contradict Trump’s made-for-TV storyline?
Plus, Republicans had already taken to the airwaves to gush about Trump being a shoe-in for the next Nobel Peace
Prize so this new reality resulted in quite a backlash.
The entire Trump administration (minus the masked, heavily armed thugs
beating people in Walmart and IHOP parking lots), is now laser focused on
waging a full scale propaganda campaign to prop up the president’s very specific claims about Iran, defend
the air strikes at all costs, and denigrate any journalists who report anything
that contradicts Trump’s version of events.
It’s a complete meltdown with Trump leading the
charge. As Rolling Stone reports, Trump’s Truth Social
posts have been “rife with all-caps attacks against CNN and the Times, as well as calls for everyone involved to be fired. “FAKE NEWS
REPORTERS FROM CNN & THE NEW YORK TIMES SHOULD BE FIRED, IMMEDIATELY!!! BAD
PEOPLE WITH EVIL INTENTIONS!!!”
The angry posts include specific attacks on CNN’s Natasha Bertrand with
Trump saying she should be fired and ‘thrown out like a dog.’ CNN, to its
credit, is fighting back including a tough statement of support that reads in part: “We stand 100% behind Natasha Bertrand’s journalism and
specifically her and her colleagues’ reporting of the early intelligence
assessment of the U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.”
At a press availability after the NATO conference
at The Hague, CNN’s Kaitlin Collins rebuked Trump’s attempt to paint CNN’s reporting as anti-American: Collins
said “I think everyone appreciates our soldiers and our
warriors” and then quickly pivoted to specific questions
about the intelligence assessments. The entire cable channel network seemed to
join the push back including anchor Pamela Brown who also took issue with Trump
calling CNN unpatriotic. She said:
“That is false. That is
absolutely false, and that is a straw-man argument. These nuclear sites are
very deep. So both can be true, right, that these troops execute on the mission
and they are brave, and I say this as a veteran‘s wife, but also that the initial
intel assessment showed that it didn‘t fully obliterate the sites.”
Trump also went after the New York Times for its reporting that found “preliminary
classified findings indicate that the attack sealed off the entrances to two
facilities but did not collapse their underground buildings.” The newspaper’s
response to Trump noted:
“Yesterday President
Trump called this ‘fake news.’ But he and his entire national security team
subsequently confirmed that the Defense Intelligence Agency did in fact produce
the preliminary assessment described in a report by The Times and others. So their
statement was fake, not The Times’s reporting.”
That was one of two fiery responses from the Times. The second came
Thursday after Trump’s personal lawyer threatened to sue for “unpatriotic
reporting” and demanded the Times retract and apologize for its story on the
initial bombing assessment. CNN says it got a similar demand. The Times response? “No apology will be
forthcoming. We told the truth to the best of our ability. We will continue to
do so.” It’s not everyday that a legacy news outlet like the Times calls out a
U.S. President but it’s a welcome response to see this strong stand for journalism
and against government censorship.
Another shocker came Thursday during a Pete Hegseth briefing seemingly
designed to shore up Trump’s storyline and attack journalists who failed to
play along. It included a direct attack on one of Hegeth’s former
colleagues, Fox National Security reporter, Jennifer Griffin, over a question
about “whether Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was destroyed in
Saturday’s strike on Iran as President Donald Trump has claimed.” Griffin, clearly surprised by the attack, defended her work.
Longtime Fox talent Brit Hume also defended Griffin on air saying it was “an
attack she did not deserve” and that “her professionalism, her knowledge and
her experience are unmatched.”
I don’t expect Fox will make a habit of calling BS when they see it.
After all, it was Fox’s non-stop coverage of Israel’s initial attacks on Iran
that pushed Trump to do some bombing of his
own.
But now that so many
mainstream news organizations have found some spine and are fighting Trump’s
propaganda, they must also continue to unapologetically stand up for solid
fact-based news reporting. If billionaire media moguls and corporate owners
don’t like it, they can always sell.
Jennifer Schulze is a longtime Chicago journalist. She’s on Bluesky @newsjennifer.bsky.social and
Substack at “Indistinct Chatter.”
