Summarised by Centrist
Veteran journalist Karl du Fresne argues that mainstream media has abandoned fact-based reporting in favour of ideological narratives.
He points to two examples: the BBC’s refusal to acknowledge that disgraced US senator Bob Menendez is a Democrat and the Associated Press injecting opinion into a supposedly neutral report on Meta and Donald Trump.
The BBC’s coverage of Menendez’s bribery conviction repeatedly omitted his Democratic affiliation, despite his senior role as a former chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “If he had been a Republican, the headline almost certainly would have stated so,” du Fresne writes. Whether due to incompetence or editorial bias, he calls it “indefensible.” Even when Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer urged Menendez to resign, the BBC failed to clarify that Schumer was criticising a fellow Democrat.
The AP, he argues, went further in a report on Meta, claiming that Mark Zuckerberg and other tech executives were “trying to ingratiate themselves” with the Trump administration. Du Fresne calls this “a loaded judgment” that belongs in an opinion column, not a news story. He sees it as part of a larger trend where journalists blur the line between fact and editorialising.
Wire services like AP, once known for neutrality, now push left-wing narratives, du Fresne contends. He notes how Trump’s statements are frequently labelled “lies” or “falsehoods,” while conservatives are casually dismissed as “far right” or “extreme.”
Rather than correcting course, journalists have embraced “post-journalism,” where activism replaces reporting. The result? A public that no longer trusts the press—and a media industry speeding toward irrelevance.
