It was somewhat calmer media-wise this past week, with slightly less widespread hysteria seen than experienced the past fortnight. That is not to say the behavior from the press was any saner - there was still plenty of distemper to go around.

Basically what we are looking at is a press industry that wakes each morning to say, “Okay, how will we attack the Trump administration today?” It is clear that reporting is secondary - if not lower - on the media to-do lists, and going after the administration is the overriding priority on any given day. 

So while the shrieking might have been dialed down a couple of levels, it was still a case of fractured coverage being seen across the spectrum. Here were the worst examples seen from the news industry last week.

    THE CONTENDERS

Newsweek - In covering the ongoing USAID funding issue, the news magazine managed to find a former agency staffer declaring the cuts to be crueler than atomic bombs. We also saw a foreign aid worker claiming he had to abandon his dog due to the shutdown – when in fact he was fleeing a violent uprising in Sudan. After JD Vance gave his speech castigating European leadership, Newsweek found an ally of Vladimir Putin who praised it. Remarkably, a NASCAR writer took TDS to new lows, covering how Trump attending the Daytona 500 would probably lead to accidents occurring during the race.

Associated Press - There was plenty of outrage when the announcement was made that the news syndicate’s correspondents would no longer be permitted in the informal Oval Office press meetings. This stemmed from the outlet stating it was going to keep the original name in its reporting. This sparked pearl-clutching faux-rage across the media landscape. Many laughed as the AP protested this move and declared itself an independent news outlet, even after it had been exposed to be receiving millions of dollars from the government annually. 

CNN - The network brain trust felt the need to explore deeply the troll move by Elon Musk to rename his Xitter account as Harry Bolz. Kara Swisher was brought back on, with Dana Bash, who tried to fact-check Musk by calling Swisher “mean,” only to have the tech writer end up agreeing with Musk. Anderson Cooper displayed the media distemper rampant in the industry when he lost his composure and called Chris Sununu “a d***” for daring to challenge a talking point. Brian Stelter complained about Trump garnering attention at the Super Bowl – then promptly tweeted obsessively what the president was doing during the game. CNN joined MSNBC in pushing Democrat talking points in heavy rotation.

MSNBC - Rachel Maddow made a glaringly fake report about Elon Musk getting $400 million from the government for a Tesla fleet order. When the Russian prisoner Marc Vogel returned to the U.S., MSNBC was the lone network not to cover his returnlive. Chris Hayes continued his struggle over FEMA money going to immigrant housing. Along with CNN, this network combined to declare well over 100 times in two days that we are in a constitutional crisis, while also flooding the zone with coverage of egg prices -something it never bothered to do for three years.

    WINNER

NEW YORK TIMES

The paper of record was rather notable in the way it reported on news items that were already debunked – sometimes by its own prior coverage.

The Times claimed that Tulsi Gabbard accused “without evidence” that the infamous intel letter sent to dispute the accuracy of the Hunter Biden laptop was made to help Joe Biden’s election, despite ample evidence already reported. 

The outlet also disputed that Elon Musk had shown any evidence of significant waste being found in government spending – yet the Times itself previously detailed that over $240 billion in waste had been uncovered. 

Peter Baker tried to say that keeping the AP out of White House operations was a threat to free speech.

The paper put out a statement declaring that the AP had a right to access the White House because it is “enshrined in the Constitution.” This would be where we would, just where are these constitutional citations on this granting of access? We're waiting.