White House launches new ‘media bias’ tracker on site

The White House launched a “media bias” tracker on Friday highlighting news publications that it has accused of “offenses” against the current administration after the president’s verbal clashes with reporters over their articles in recent weeks.

The live webpage features a list of articles from various outlets with links to stories the Trump administration claims have included an omission of context, lies, mischaracterization, bias or malpractice.

In a statement, the White House said the site is meant to be a “record of the media’s false and misleading stories flagged by The White House.”

It includes an “offender hall of shame” and leaderboard of publications with articles considered to be mistruths by the White House’s standards.

The Washington Post is listed first followed by MSNBC (recently rebranded as MS NOW), CBS News, CNN, The New York Times, Politico and the Wall Street Journal. Each of the outlets relinquished their Pentagon press badges last month after the Department of Defense issued new standards for reporting that require advanced clearance from officials before information is published.

The current administration has faced legal battles with the Journal and settled out of court with CBS in recent months. 

President Trump has lashed out against various reporters in recent weeks, calling a New York Times correspondent “a third rate reporter who is ugly, both inside and out” and telling a Bloomberg journalist “Quiet piggy” in response to a question about Jeffrey Epstein.

After being named in the president’s roundup of “repeat offenders” for reporting on White House controversies, The Washington Post quoted an internal spokesperson who said: “The Washington Post is proud of its accurate, rigorous journalism.”

The Hill is named as a “repeat offender” for one offense, which appears to be in reference to an opinion piece.