Opinion: The media’s post-Biden show of contrition is just a setup

The Hill ^ | June 2, 2025 | Becket Adams, Opinion Contributor

[where's_the_Outrage?]

It was the easiest thing in the world to predict: The media’s moment of half-hearted contrition for “missing” President Joe Biden’s obvious physical and cognitive decline has given way already to a fixation on President Trump’s health.

The journalists have no choice, you see. They’re humbled now. Their renewed zeal for the truth compels them to correct for the reporting mistakes of the Biden era. Therefore, they must now be unrelentingly suspicious of Trump’s mental and physical health. They learned their lesson!

The mea culpas seem awfully hollow now — more like a thin cover for a public relations reset, clearing the way for media to be far more aggressive about Trump’s age and health than anything we saw during Biden’s term in office.

We don’t have to imagine a double standard. We just lived through four years of major media pretending as if it simply didn’t notice the dementia patient in the Oval Office.

The Daily Beast, which had been an eager and credulous supporter of the Biden White House’s “cheap fakes” nonsense last year, published a May 28 report titled, “Trump Shows Signs of ‘Cognitive Decline,’ Says Speech Expert.” The subhead adds, humorously, “As pressure mounts for an inquiry into Joe Biden’s mental decline, the president faces scrutiny over his health.” This is a neat trick, by the way — publishing an article questioning the president’s mental acuity while also pretending as if you’re not the one doing the “scrutiny.”

[where's_the_Outrage?]

I would guess that Trump since Jan 20 has provided more personal access to the press than during Biden's time as president. And Trump takes real questions, not staged events. But the media ignores that.

[lightman]

The enemedia has terminal cranial-rectal inversion.

[The Great RJ]

I believe that the lame stream media due in large part to their cover up of Biden’s dementia as well as willingly being a propaganda agent for the left, has lost all credibility and won’t regain it. The ratings of outlets like CNN and MSNBC are cratering, subscriptions to the NYT and Washington Post are reaching unsustainable levels and the public is increasingly turning to the new media online. The old media is all but dead.

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

The only thing the media regrets is that Trump ended up winning. Stopping that was the reason they covered for Biden, and if they'd have succeeded in stopping Trump, they'd be slapping each other on the back that the coverup worked.

I think a majority of Americans - including many who did not vote for Trump - believe that is exactly my what was going on. So this media campaign of "they fooled us too!" Isn't working. In fact, I think it is hurting the media's reputation even more.

[Carriage Hill]

“They’re humbled now.”

They’re NO SUCH THING.

[nathanbedford]

In the wake of the disastrous Biden administration, the Democrats are crashing in the polls.

The plan is not to attempt to justify the indefensible but to focus all the blame on Joe Biden while excusing the man himself because of his illness.

The Democratic Party is not at fault, but only the cabal manipulating Joe Biden was responsible.

[rottweiller_inc]

Right now seems like a good time to bring up disinformation. What is the media’s current view on disinformation? It was such a HUGE problem, surely the talking heads would welcome the conversation. After all the work they went to through to to hype it up it seems a shame not to ask more questions.

[TigersEye]

The Fake News missed what any ten yr old could plainly see in 2019.
Slow Joe’s brain was shot through and through.

[phil00071]

The “contrition” of the media is also an attempt to blame Biden for their election loss last November, rather than accepting that they lost because of their inflationary spending, open borders, and wokeism.

[Jaysin]

everything you said is true. The younger generation get their news from other sources and they certainly don’t sit around waiting for the 10 o clock news to come on.

When was the last time you saw a thirty-something reading the paper on the subway/train/office? (for those that actually do work)

However, freerepublic needs to take notice. How many freepers are under the age of 50? or even 40. VERY few. This site is so far behind the times functionality wise that no twenty-something dude is going to spend their time on here when they have 100 other platforms for their information. Sadly, I don’t see how FR will make it into the 2030’s.

[dayglored]

> However, freerepublic needs to take notice. How many freepers are under the age of 50? or even 40. VERY few. This site is so far behind the times functionality wise that no twenty-something dude is going to spend their time on here when they have 100 other platforms for their information. Sadly, I don’t see how FR will make it into the 2030’s.

Very few FReepers under 40 -- probably true. I'm 73, joined 20 years ago.

As to "functionality", FR is just fine as it is. It does every single thing that a more "modern-looking" website does, just without all the glitzy BS. Do you really think displaying a Personal Avatar icon and having multi-color navigation bars makes a site more functional?

Frankly the only feature I've missed in 20 years is the ability to pull your own post after catching a typo, or reconsidering the wisdom of some snarky remark. Some FReepers think that "Edit prior comment" would be handy, but that's a ton of changes to the site code. Being able to kill your own comment would be handy. But in practice, you can always hit "Abuse" on your own comment, and one of the Mods does it for you.

As for plastering graphics all over the pages, we have more than enough emoticon-spewing posts as it is, don't need more. Including images in a comment is pretty easy, and almost anyone can learn half a dozen HTML tags.

I'm not sure that attracting the kind of viewer who needs a glitzy crap UI to feel good is what FR is about. We do need to attract more contributing members, and I share your concern about whether FR will be here by the end of Trump's current term, much less 2030.

[Jaysin]

I’m not asking for any stupid glitzy avatars and stupid graphics and things like that but the search features are atrocious (can you easily find a comment you made in 2008)?
can you follow certain freepers?
the categories and topics are SO OUTDATED it’s not even funny
How easily can you find the original 9/11 thread? or the 2012 election night thread. No, it is not easy
how about the ability to search for all articles from the source (townhall/AP/Sultan Knish blog etc.....)

you addressed the VERY basic issue of correcting a simple typo in a post
how about simple features such as “liking” a post? If someone makes a great comment at comment #8, and i want to acknowledge that in some way, I’m forced to type in “bingo, great point”, but if my bingo comment is comment #106 then no one will no what the heck i’m talking about unless they click a link to what i replied to.
IOW, the conversation flow is all one-dimensional. unlike current social media where you can respond very clearly to someones comment within a thread.

No, we dont want FR to be a glitz show, but to stuck in the 1990’s is also not beneficial.

[SunkenCiv]

Recent additions to the 'autopen' and 'alexthompson' keywords, sorted:

• Tapper and Thompson Continue Dangerous Cover-Up [06/02/2025]
• President Autopen and the Crime of Forgery [06/02/2025]
• Jasmine Crockett Accidentally Reveals Why Democrats Covered up Biden's Decline [06/01/2025]
• Bill Clinton Balks at Biden Decline -- 'He Was in Good Shape' [06/01/2025]
• 'I Didn't Get It Done': A Reflective Tim Walz Wants to Make Good [06/01/2025]
• Scandal: Historians Determine All Of George Washington's Orders Were Signed By Auto-Feather [06/01/2025]
• Piers Morgan Interviews Jake Tapper [semi-satire] [06/01/2025]
• ABC News Reports That Republicans Are Planning to Investigate 'What They Call Biden's Decline' [05/31/2025]
• Jake Tapper Blames Biden Mental Decline for Border Crisis -- Suggests it Wasn't Official Policy (VIDEO) [05/31/2025]
• Moulton: Dislike of Trump Was Part of Reason for Biden Fitness Coverup [05/31/2025]
• Bill Maher: Trump Believes The Idea That Western Civilization Is Good, While College Students Find It Suspect [05/31/2025]
• Jake Tapper Loses More Ground Due to His Book, and CBS Is in Disarray As Trump Rejects a Settlement [05/31/2025]
• Biden on cancer diagnosis: The expectation is we're going to be able to beat this [05/31/2025]
• Energy group says Biden had no knowledge of climate change EOs, doubt validity of autopen use [05/31/2025]
• Watergate-Style Hearings for the Biden Coverup [05/31/2025]
• Leavitt: Jill Biden 'Needs to Answer' for 'Lies' Covering Up Joe's Mental Decline [05/31/2025]
• Trump's Parlous Gambit [05/31/2025]
• WHOA! CNN Cuts Away as Joe Biden Gets in Female Reporter's Face, Claims He Can "Beat the Hell" Out of Jake Tapper (VIDEO) [05/30/2025]
• He's Back! Joe Biden Starts Shouting Out of Nowhere in First Remarks Since Cancer Diagnosis (VIDEO) [05/30/2025]
• Jake Tapper's CNN show hits lowest ratings since 2015 despite Biden book buzz [05/30/2025]
• "Hunter Biden, did you pardon yourself?" [05/29/2025]
• 4 Biden staffers lawyer up amid autopen House probe [05/29/2025]
• Possible Crimes Committed by Biden Staffers Using Autopen Without Presidential Awareness Outlined [05/28/2025]
• Watchdog Asks Whether Biden Knew About, Autopenned EO's on Energy [05/28/2025]
• WATCH: David Hogg Caught on Undercover Video Admitting Jill Biden's Chief of Staff Ran the Biden White House [05/28/2025]
• Whistleblower: Biden secretly continued to forgive loans of non-white farmers after judge ordered him to stop [05/28/2025]
• President Trump's Crypto Czar David Sacks just exposed Elizabeth Warren aka "Pocahontas" as the one running Biden's autopen: [05/27/2025]
• Jake Tapper Says Liberal Podcaster Made Racism Jab After He Revealed Son Wants To Be a Cop: 'This Is Why You ****ers Are Losing Elections' [05/27/2025]
• Politico newsletter mentioned ActBlue investigation [05/27/2025]
• Here's the Horrifying Way Biden's Inner Circle Planned to Run the Country if He Somehow Got Reelected (VIDEO) [05/26/2025]
• Jake Tapper admits Democratic cover-up of Biden's cognitive decline may be 'worse than Watergate' [05/26/2025]
• Just when you thought Team Biden and CNN couldn't sink any lower... this happens... [05/26/2025]
• Groping Incident Called "Overblown" [semi-satire] [05/26/2025]
• 🠿(( Amir Tsarfati 26 May 2025 )). Hamas telling Gaza residents NOT to accept Israeli provided humanitarian aid ??? [05/26/2025]
• Ex-Obama aide admits he didn't mention Biden's decline because he 'wanted him to #$#$&$# win' [05/25/2025]
• "This Motherf***** Doesn't Treat Me like the Damn Vice President of the United States" -- Kamala Harris Went Off on Anderson Cooper to Colleagues After Heated Interview on Biden Debate Performance [05/24/2025]
• Giuliani on Biden Family Coverups: 'It Is Treason' -- Outlines Plans to Prosecute Biden Crime Family if Appointed as Special Counsel [05/24/2025]
• Jill Biden's Press Sec GOES OFF on Bidens For Concealing One Scandal After Another... "Allergic to Transparency" (VIDEO) [05/24/2025]
• Now It All Makes Sense: Tapper Lets It Slip That Coming Clean on Biden Is Really About Getting Trump [05/24/2025]
• Kamala Harris called Anderson Cooper a [redacted] after tense interview on Biden's debate meltdown: bombshell book [05/24/2025]
• Back to Videos Trump's 'Weaponization Czar' Ed Martin: Truth, Justice, and Accountability For Russiagate, Mueller, J-6, Biden Pardons [05/22/2025]
• Victor Davis Hanson: Prostate Cancer Doesn't Develop Immediately. What Biden's Team Isn't Saying [05/21/2025]
• Scarborough Finally Admits: 'I Was Obviously Wrong' About 'Best Biden Ever' [05/21/2025]
• Alex Thompson: Biden's Inner Circle 'Chose Loyalty' to Him over the Country [05/21/2025]
• Alex Thompson: Biden's Inner Circle 'Chose Loyalty' to Him over the Country [05/21/2025]
• WATCH: Rep. Burchett Alleges Biden Staffers Used Autopen to Sell Pardons ( "cash for clemency" ) [05/21/2025]
• I bought Fake Yapper's book - so you don't have to. [05/21/2025]
• We're not sure what's worse in this CNN clip: That Biden spent millions on a fake town hall? Or that they couldn't use ANY OF IT? [05/21/2025]
• Here Are 9 Questions About The Biden White House That Must Be Answered After Cancer Diagnosis [05/21/2025]
• NewsGuard STILL Gives High Marks to Media that Covered Up Biden Mental Decline Scandal [05/21/2025]
• Biden pulled a 'bait and switch' with his cancer diagnosis: Rep. Greg Murphy (VIDEO 8 MIN) [05/21/2025]
• The Atlantic Goes Full Animal House: You F'd Up, You Trusted Us! [05/21/2025]
• Hunter Biden told Jake Tapper to 'go *&*& yourself' after CNN host pestered him during brother's last days in stunning revelation [05/21/2025]
• Begala: Democrats' Credibility Isn't Hurt at All by Biden Decline, They Were 'Hoping That He Was Doing Fine' [05/21/2025]
• Tapper: Lara Trump Was Right, I Apologized to Her, But There Was 'Context' of Both Sides Saying 'Crazy Things' [05/21/2025]
• Remember the Stage They Built for Joe Biden? [05/21/2025]
• REPORT: Joe Biden's Cabinet Meetings Were Scripted, Used Cameras Creatively to Cover Mistakes [05/20/2025]
• Biden Spox Discloses New Information on Joe Biden's Last Test for Prostate Cancer After Trump Questions Why Diagnosis Wasn't Revealed Earlier... and CNN Isn't Even Buying It [05/20/2025]
• Benny Johnson: Megyn Kelly ended Jake Tapper's career today. Total bloodbath. [05/20/2025]
• We Have No Moral Obligation to Forgive or Forget the Biden Lies [05/20/2025]
• Jake Tapper says the media didn't cover up Biden's 'Original Sin': 'We were just lied to' [05/20/2025]
• Joe Biden's WH doctor was a longtime family friend who once worked with his shady brother -- as cancer 'cover-up' speculation mounts [05/20/2025]
• New book 'Original Sin' reveals moment Kamala Harris campaign cut ties with Biden: 'What is he doing?' [05/20/2025]
• Former Biden WH Staffers Reveal They Knew Something Else Was Off About Joe...and It Wasn't Memory-Related [05/20/2025]
• Lie, Lie, and Lie Again [05/20/2025]
• DOJ official suggests Jill Biden be charged for 'elder abuse' after claims she knew about Joe's health issues [05/20/2025]
• Jon Stewart: The Coverup of Biden's Decline Was Awful Since Vast Majority Knew He Declined, 'There Was No Coverup' [05/20/2025]
• Seriously, has anyone listened to the whole Hur audio? [05/19/2025]
• What Did They Know About Biden's Health and When Did They Know It? [05/19/2025]

[SunkenCiv]

I like the simplicity, but the structure is goofy. Just to save bandwidth (at least 80 times for a 20-message page), the URL should be simplified to freerepublic.com/[topic number]/posts [or other common modifiers]

The division into different subforums is daft. 'Topics' tags are restricted to individual forums, meaning that in 'News' the US states are "US:[state name]" and in "GOP" it's the state name alone -- and never the twain shall meet.

Ideally the software would process the URL and...

A) not allow root URLs for news or aggregator sources. Longtime users probably recall when drudge's root URL (rather than the permalinks) was used for absolutely everything posted from drudge. There is still that kind of shiftless approach in use for topics based off current sites;

B) the software should fish out source, title, author, location from the source URL's META tags;

C) there should be a camp-on period for those entering an URL, so that the system would reject duplicates while the post is getting made (perhaps with a timeout limit); and

D) copyright complaint sources would be rejected immediately;

E) IOW, the URL for a new topic would get entered, all the above would happen automatically, and the FReeper trying to post it would be given the proposed excerpt and 'tags' (the universal replacement for 'forums' 'topics' and 'keywords'). The entire legacy archive of topics would be re-tagged in the new manner, using the existing tags. In that process, all the stupid keywords ('the', 'this', 'a' and anything else that's just one letter) would get the boot.

And just to be clear, if I or anyone thinks that can make a better forum, just go right ahead and do it! /rimshot

[Jaysin]

I missed Obama’s “learn to code” memo

:)

[SunkenCiv]

You need more range time. /rimshot

[SMARTY]

Right, and as for ‘contrition’ ...they're just going through the motions until they can put it in their rear view mirror!

[subterfuge]

Very good post. The forum isn’t growing. It might help to stop offending conservatives who happen to be minorities. I’m referring to posters who feel the need to post things like “din do nuffin” or “gibs me dat,” both of which have been posted many many times when a black individual is involved. That crap is childish and offensive and repels our conservative friends who happen to be minorities. That’s a fact and it has to stop. God Bless.

[mewzilla]

Cynical Publius
@CynicalPublius

The Jake Tapper/Biden Dementia issue serves as a useful illustration of what I call the “Media Rule of Contrition Timing.”

The rule goes like this:

The only time the media will ever admit a mistake is when: (i) the mistake itself benefited Democrats; (ii) the mistake is no longer benefiting Democrats; and (iii) admission of the mistake will serve as cover for future mistakes benefiting Democrats.

______________________________

It’s an ironclad rule. There are no exceptions.

3:46 AM · Jun 3, 2025 8,419 Views

https://x.com/CynicalPublius/status/1929806956958507204

[shotgun]

At the next major press conference, Trump needs to hand out the quetions to the reporters, and not just any questions, but the same questions that Joe used.

It would be great fun to hear them howl. Then Trump could show the question card to the press and ask them why are they so upset since they didn’t have a problem when Joe did it.