How the second Trump administration grants access and status to conspiracy theorists, propagandists, and far-right influencers.
Anna Merlan at Mother Jones:
Jack Posobiec, a far-right activist, podcaster, and early booster of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, has been lucky at least twice. In April 2017, during the first Trump administration, he was granted White House press credentials while working for the Canadian conservative news outlet Rebel Media. At the time, this was news all on its own: Posobiec has associated with white nationalists and promoted a dangerous conspiracy theory that, among other things, ultimately resulted in a gunman shooting up a pizza parlor.
Posobiec didn’t last long in the briefing room, spending most of his time sparring with other reporters, lobbing softball questions, and delivering approving commentary from the White House lawn about President Donald Trump’s firing of then-FBI Director James Comey. He left Rebel Media the next month, after the outlet found he had plagiarized material from white supremacist Jason Kessler, and subsequently co-authored a book praising fascist leaders like Francisco Franco and Augusto Pinochet.
Nearly eight years after his stint in the White House, Posobiec, now a senior editor at Human Events, another far-right publication, was invited by newly appointed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to accompany him on his first overseas trip. Hegseth didn’t give any particular reason publicly why Posobiec had been invited, and in the end, he didn’t go—because he was instead accompanying Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to Ukraine, where Politico reported that he was present when Bessent greeted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It’s not just Posobiec: From the moment Trump returned to office, his second administration has prioritized giving access and status to an array of far-right influencers and news outlets, including figures with checkered pasts and thin or nonexistent journalistic credentials. In doing so, the administration has created a swell of flattering media coverage, a gauzy bubble around its every decision, no matter how destructive or incoherent. This new state media displays unquestioning loyalty, and its propaganda pipeline is speedier than ever, ensuring that every executive order or new move by the Department of Government Efficiency is greeted with rapturous pseudo-reporting the moment it’s announced.
As part of this new order, the White House press briefing room is now chock-full of conservative podcasters, influencers, and representatives of right-wing media outlets. Nine days after Trump reassumed office, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt took to the podium for her first briefing to announce that the White House would encourage what she called “new media voices” to apply for press passes, including “independent journalists, podcasters, social media influencers, and content creators.” “Starting today,” she added, “this seat in the front of the room, which is usually occupied by the press secretary staff, will be called the ‘new media’ seat.” To further drive the point home, for her first questions as press secretary, she called on reporters from Axios and Breitbart, which described as part of the new media landscape. (Breitbart was launched in 2007, Axios in 2017.) The Breitbart journalist, Matt Boyle, began his question by praising the Trump White House and Leavitt for creating this new access.
[...]
“For the most part, this new crop of people who have been given extremely good access are not journalists in the traditional sense,” says Margaret Sullivan, executive director of the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security at Columbia University and a former public editor for the New York Times.
“They’re closer to propagandists than journalists,” Sullivan adds. “I don’t know if you could call it ‘coverage.’ It’s positive exposure for the Trump administration. They’ll be part of a cheering squad.” To contrast with the warm reception rolled out for Boyle, Leavitt also made it clear that the White House planned to have a combative relationship with what she called “legacy media” outlets that hadn’t provided fawning coverage of the president. “We know for a fact there have been lies that have been pushed by many legacy media outlets in this country about this president, about his family, and we will not accept that,” she said in the January 29 briefing, while addressing Associated Press journalist Zeke Miller. “We will call you out when we feel that your reporting is wrong or there is misinformation about this White House.” In a cutthroat example of retaliation, in mid-February, the AP was barred from briefings, news conferences, and events until it agrees use the term “Gulf of America,” the new name Trump has given to the Gulf of Mexico. As a global news outlet, the AP has chosen to continue to use the longstanding and internationally recognized name. On Friday, it launched a lawsuit over its exclusion that argued the press agency has a constitutional right to “choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government.”
Leavitt, who is 27, has her own history of producing articles of questionable news value. She was previously paid by allies of Chinese businessman and convicted fraudster Guo Wengui to put her name on op-eds in right-wing American news outlets praising his work. Leavitt did not disclose that Guo allies paid her to write the stories, and at least two of the articles were removed by the outlet Townhall after Mother Jones reported on them. Leavitt, who previously served as Trump’s campaign spokesperson, also appeared in a Project 2025 training video unearthed by the investigative outlet ProPublica, despite having personally denied any links between the campaign and Project 2025.
Other figures in the reshaped White House briefing room include Natalie Winters, a correspondent for Steve Bannon’s War Room. Winters was also paid by Guo backers to write flattering stories about the Chinese businessman. (In response to our reporting, Winters falsely accused Mother Jones of being a “Beijing propaganda front” in an article for Headline USA, a right-wing site.) Mike Lindell Media Corp., owned by My Pillow founder and election fraud conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, has not one, but two White House correspondents. The Daily Wire has sent Mary Margaret Olohan, author of a book about people who have, in the words of its subtitle, escaped “the gender ideology cult,” who has Instagrammed herself partying at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. “We belong in the briefing room,” Olohan declared to other Daily Wire figures during a broadcast from the White House lawn. “We need to be bringing the American public these stories and sharing with them the truth that legacy media has no intention of ever sharing with them.” To date, Olohan’s work carrying out that mission has included tweeting screenshots of executive orders, a rapturous video of Trump walking into the room, and a photo of a list of accomplishments that Leavitt’s staff handed to reporters. As an example of how the new media seats work, look to former ESPN host Sage Steele, who has become increasingly involved in right-wing media circles after settling a lawsuit against her ex-employer. She was in one of the seats February 5, when she asked a question about “men in women’s sports,” just hours, as the Wrap noted, before she stood behind Trump at at an event where he signed a transphobic executive order that purported to “keep men out of women’s sports.” Another person given the seat for a day—clearly meant to be a place of honor for administration allies—was Chris Pavlovski, CEO of Rumble. Leavitt read a lengthy statement from the podium praising Rumble, which hosts a variety of conservative and far-right content, and reiterated Trump’s enthusiasm for the platform. Two days before Pavlovski made his appearance, the White House announced it was launching an official Rumble channel, which is packed with news-light, propaganda-heavy videos, including a recent one titled, “America’s Decline Is Over.” [...] Even before Trump took office again, there were signs that far-right and conspiracist figures would be given special access to his presidency. On November 13, shortly after he won reelection, Trump ally and dirty-tricks specialist Roger Stone went on Alex Jones’ Infowars show to read a statement from the president-elect, announcing that Tulsi Gabbard would be nominated to serve as the director of national intelligence. Trump allowed Stone and Jones to scoop his own announcement, which he waited to post on his social media network Truth Social several minutes later.
Mother Jones examines the new MAGA state media mouthpieces such as Natalie Winters and Karoline Leavitt.
See Also:
The Guardian: White House social media Trump-style: bad taste, sycophancy and trolling
