The White House is ratcheting up its war with the “fake news media,” unveiling a new “media offender of the week” feature aimed at publicly shaming news organizations it accuses of bias and misrepresentation.

The newly launched section of the White House website names The Boston Globe, CBS News, and The Independent as its first “offenders,” accusing each outlet of distorting President Donald Trump’s recent comments about Democratic lawmakers who appeared in a video urging military and intelligence officials to defy “illegal orders.”

According to the White House, these outlets “misrepresented President Trump’s call for Members of Congress to be held accountable for inciting sedition by saying that he called for their ‘execution.’”

Trump posted that “seditious behavior” is “punishable by death” after calling for several Democratic lawmakers to be jailed and tried. Critics interpreted that phrasing—as well as the context of his post—as a call for execution. The White House denies this, but its website’s explanation notably does not reference the president’s “punishable by death” statement.

Instead, the White House asserts that Democrats and the media “subversively implied that President Trump had issued illegal orders to service members,” adding: “Every order President Trump has issued has been lawful. It is dangerous for sitting Members of Congress to incite insubordination in the United States’ military.”

The feature also argues the accused outlets engaged in “misrepresentation” and “omission of text,” though it does not detail what text was allegedly omitted.

The move marks a new phase in the administration’s aggressive posture toward news organizations, coming months after Trump secured a $16 million settlement from Paramount, CBS’s parent company, over a 60 Minutes segment he said had been deceptively edited to influence the 2024 presidential election.

The video at the center of the latest dispute featured multiple Democratic lawmakers urging military and intelligence personnel to uphold the Constitution and reject unlawful directives, though the lawmakers did not cite any specific orders as illegal. Trump responded by labeling the lawmakers seditionists, prompting widespread concern over the president’s rhetoric toward political opponents.

The White House’s new website section concludes with a series of “key points,” including the assertion that “President Trump has never issued an illegal order. The Fake News knew that, but ran with the story anyway.”

The administration did not respond to questions about whether the “media offender” list will be updated weekly, whether additional outlets are slated for inclusion, or how the White House defines “fake news.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)