Farewells, failures, fraud & firings hot off the press.

NEWSMAX: Where the propaganda never ends.

One might think Newsmax learned its lesson about publishing falsehoods, overreactions and flat out lies, especially in light of their settlement with Dominion Systems over the election propaganda they spread to support Donald Trump's position of election-fixing. Of course, no such evidence exists and Newsmax coughed up the cash because they allowed themselves to be part of the fraud. Slowly but surely, Newsmax is up to its old tricks. Here's a recent screen shot from their website.

At issue here is the recent story about Trump seeking to fire a Governor on the Federal Reserve Board in order to exact his control over the institution, in and of itself a blatant violation of how the system works independently from the Executive branch. At issue here is the word "firing". Trump did not, and legally could not, fire Lisa Cook. The proper wording would have been to the effect he was "illegally attempting to remove" Cook from her position. As of that writing, Cook had not been fired, but in keeping with their editorial bend to keep Trump happy, and ensure he would appear on their programming, Newsmax went along with his version of the story. It's a lie, flat out and simple. Then again, we would expect nothing less from Newsmax as they exist only to keep Trump and his MAGA world happy and clicking.

FRONT OFFICE SPORTS: Where misinformation becomes their hallmark.

It all started when FOX Sports hired controversial muckraker David Portnoy to be part of their broadcast college football pre-game show. Portnoy and his "Barstool Sports" brand have long made sexism, racism and boorish behavior their print and broadcast brand. Portnoy is also a big supporter of the University of Michigan football program, and with his debut performance to be at the 2025 season opener at Ohio State University, there was consternation over how OSU would handle his appearance on campus. Front Office Sports, usually a fairly good purveyor of actual business news and sports, made headlines and received plenty of clicks from other outlets when they posted this story:

The reporter, as is the case with many of the secondary and "pretend" news sites on the internet, cited "sources" for his story. Because Portnoy is a lightning rod, it was blasted across social media. Trouble is, it wasn't true. Never was. The reporter never bothered to get a comment from Ohio State. When faced with the story, OSU quickly responded that they had nothing to do with the decision to keep Portnoy from appearing inside the stadium. That decision was actually made by FOX, who used Portnoy outside the stadium for their pre-game. He was never set to appear on the field. What made this even more egregious is that even after OSU made their statement, FOS continued to carry ther version of the story on the front page of their site with no addition or correction.

Front Office Sports did themselves and their readers a disservice in so many ways. Their reporter failed to follow a basic tenet of journalism by getting multiple sources to confirm a story, and then never asked OSU for a comment before going to print. This was done, obviously, to take advantage of the shock value and cross-posting on other sites that brought more traffic to their site. They could have shown at least a modicum of professionalism and honesty by later including the OSU statement, but they chose to be lazy and not add to their report. Points lost on so many accounts, and leaves one to wonder how much more of their reporting is this slipshod.

FEAR OF TRUMP: Former ABC News reporter drops a questionable dime on his former employer.

Terry Moran was fired from his job at ABC News after a social media post that presented his opinion about a member of Donald Trump's cabinet, something no objective professional reporter would ever do. No doubt he has an axe to grind against his former employer, and his statements about Disney quickly became ripe fodder for right-wing media such as FOX, the NY Post and others. Moran stated that Disney was fearful of doing real reporting on Donald Trump for fear the President would snap back and seek to punish them in some manner. Trump has already blackmailed major media outlets with promises of retribution that forced those companies to cave to his demand, so the idea is really nothing new. Moran, in essence, is correct. Many legitimate news sources have failed to truly dig into the stories about Trump and his mangling of American democracy. They have the wherewithal to cover such stories, but Trump has hammered them into submission time and time again. The only media outlets that are doing an excellent job of revealing Trump's illegalities and such are outlets such as "Last Week Tonight" on HBO and "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central. It's easy to discount Moran's ramblings as a disgruntled former employee seeking to make waves and garner attention, but in this case, he isn't wrong.

ANOTHER EVENTUAL END: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution surrenders.

On a recent business trip to the West Coast, I stopped in one of the airport terminal kiosks and treated myself to actual newspaper copies of the NY Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. I did so because nothing beats actually holding a paper in your hands and being able to rummage through the pages over and over again, far better than having to squint at a tiny smartphone screen. I knew, however, this was little more than nostalgia, as eventually, most companies will cease printing actual newspapers. Such is the case for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In an announcement that went mostly unnoticed by mainstream media, the AJC will cease a print edition at the end of 2025. It's no shock. Newspapers lost this battle a long time ago when they first started handing out their work for free during the early days of the internet, and once that was out of the bag, there would be little chance of recovering. Sure, some papers such as those I purchased are still making a go of print editions, but they are the exceptions. There won't be many left, and only the financially strong will thrive in digital form. It's not a coincidence that America started its descent into being dumbed down around the time newspaper began to vanish. Livig now in the "fast food media" age, fewer people have the patience to be taught and become well-informed. You can see it still as more people get their news from TikTok, X, Facebook and the rest, where real journalism often goes to die. Farewell, AJC. Sure, I'll try the digital version, but nothing will ever match those ink-stained fingers and the feel of actually holding the news right in ones hands.

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