When the White House press secretary says ‘your mom,’ it’s not a joke. It’s the message.

Late last week, after President Donald Trump said he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest to discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine, HuffPost correspondent S.V. Dáte reached out to the White House with a straightforward question: Who picked Budapest?

In 1994, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine and Russia met in Budapest, where Ukraine agreed to give up the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for Russia’s promise to respect its sovereignty and existing borders, and to refrain from using force or coercion against it. Given that context, the choice of Budapest struck some as tone-deaf.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded, but not with an explanation. Instead, she replied: “Your mom did.” She later posted a screenshot of the exchange on X, called Dáte “a left-wing hack” and said he masquerades as a real reporter.

It’s another breach of the professionalism that once defined interactions between reporters and the White House, even in moments of tension. Every administration has had its spats with the press — Richard Nixon’s enemies list, Barack Obama’s leak prosecutions, Joe Biden’s limited-access strategy — but Trump’s team has turned that antagonism into a communications strategy.

Since January, the White House has taken direct control of the press pool from the White House Correspondents’ Association, censored pool reports before release, eliminated a wire reporter’s pool slot and reassigned the traditional first questions in briefings to friendly outlets. It has removed journalists from the president’s travel pool and restricted access to events that had long been open to the full press corps. (See our Press Freedom Watch for a running list of such incidents).

When a press secretary can respond to a reporter’s question with “your mom” and post it proudly online, it’s not a slip of decorum. It’s the message.

By Ren LaForme, managing editor

It’s poop

Millions rallied against the Trump administration at “No Kings” protests across the country on Saturday. In response, President Trump posted an AI-generated video of himself boarding a fighter jet and dropping excrement on protesters.

The headline on Rex Huppke’s USA Today column says it all: “Trump posts AI video of him dumping poop on us. I can't believe I wrote that.”

As gross as that is, at least Huppke had the guts to say it. As 404 Media’s Samantha Cole pointed out, many outlets couldn’t — or wouldn’t — describe the video for what it was.

• The Hill: “brown liquid” and “what looked like feces”
• The Guardian: “brown sludge” and “bursts of brown matter”
• The New York Times: “brown liquid”
• NBC News: “what appeared to be feces”
• Axios: “suspect brown substances falling from the sky”

The old standard for profanity was that if the president said it, you could print it. Maybe it’s time to apply that logic to imagery, too.

By Ren LaForme, managing editor

Public editors once kept big newsrooms honest. Can a local version do the same for an entire city?

Just when journalism might need public editors most, almost none remain. Once a fixture at major news organizations, public editors — also called ombudsmen — served as independent bridges between newsrooms and the people those newsrooms covered. They explained editorial decisions, investigated reader complaints and held journalists accountable to their audiences.

Even as trust in the media has eroded, the role has largely vanished from newsrooms.

Now, Poynter is bringing that idea back, this time at the local level. The Indianapolis public editor will test whether independent accountability can help rebuild trust in local news.

Leading the project is Kelly McBride, Poynter’s senior vice president and chair of its Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership. McBride also serves as NPR’s public editor and previously held the same role at ESPN. I spoke with her about why Indianapolis was chosen, what success looks like and how a local public editor might help restore faith in journalism.

Ren LaForme: Thanks for catching up with me about this project, Kelly. First of all, let me ask a question that I suspect I know the answer to: Where did all the public editors go? 

Kelly McBride: The same place that all the copy editors, theater critics and restaurant reviewers went, to that gritty news bar in the great beyond. Seriously though, it was an easy position to cut as newspaper profits declined. It was only the biggest markets that had public editors, or ombudsman, as they were called back in the day.

LaForme: Figured as much. Even as overall trust in media declines, local journalists still enjoy a stronger bond with their audiences. How can a local public editor strengthen that connection and help rebuild trust more broadly?

McBride: People trust their local news providers because the stories they read and hear are more likely to reflect the reality they live every day. Not completely. But when you live in the Midwest, sometimes the news coming out of New York or Washington seems out of touch.

That said, news consumers know very little about their local news providers. They don’t know which companies own the TV stations or the local paper. When a new newsroom starts publishing, it’s not always clear who is funding it or what the business model is.

Public editors do a lot of explanatory work, describing how and why journalists tell certain stories and why they don’t tell other stories. This will deepen trust by making consumers a bit wiser about where to turn.

LaForme: Earlier this year, our late colleague Rick Edmonds described “news rainforests” — communities that defy the trend of news deserts. Indianapolis made his list. How much did that strong local media ecosystem influence your decision to start the project there?

McBride: As I envisioned this pilot project, I looked for a market with a healthy amount of news so the public editor can compare and contrast. There’s a lot going on in Indianapolis journalism, so much so that I expect many people who live in the market don’t completely understand every outlet.

While I picked Indianapolis before the Nexstar and Tegna companies announced their planned merger, that shakeup will certainly be of interest to the people who live there.

LaForme: This public editor is a bit unusual in that they will watch over several news outlets. How will the Indianapolis public editor interact with newsrooms? 

McBride: Traditionally public editors work for a single newsroom. That gets annoying for the journalists in that newsroom, because they are subject to scrutiny that their competitors escape. I like this model better because it takes a holistic approach to the media ecosystem. In Indianapolis, the public editor will describe and analyze the entire market, answering questions from the audience about their needs.

LaForme: What will success look like for this pilot? Is the goal to create a model that can expand to other cities if it proves effective?

McBride: The first level is just reaching the audience and educating them about their local media ecosystem. Next-level success is a more news literate group of consumers who can identify which newsrooms are good at specific categories of news coverage.

By Ren LaForme, managing editor

CBS employees get memo about new ombudsman

CBS employees received a memo Monday about the appointment of their new ombudsman, Ken Weinstein, according to a post on X by Jeremy Barr, the Guardian US’ media and power reporter.

Barr included a quote from Jeff Shell, president of Paramount, and George Cheeks, chair of TV media at Paramount: “Let us be clear: the Ombudsman process is about transparency, not oversight. As part of broader efforts to continually improve our journalism, our goal is to strengthen trust — with our viewers, our readers, and one another — by listening carefully and addressing concerns.”

Weinstein is former president of Hudson Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank from Washington, D.C. He was named the new ombudsman for CBS News last month. He has served on multiple federal advisory boards spanning the last four U.S. administrations and was also chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, now the United States Agency for Global Media, from 2017 until 2020, according to the announcement.

In a second tweet, Barr wrote that “consumers, employees and others” can send complaints to the following email: [email protected].

By Amaris Castillo, staff writer

The legacy left behind by Philadelphia journalism legend Michael Days

Retired news executive Michael Days — a beloved pillar of the Philadelphia journalism community, longtime diversity advocate and fierce champion for young Black journalists — died suddenly in New Jersey on Saturday. He was 72.

The news came as a shock to those who knew and loved him. An outpouring of social media posts and comments has since paid tribute to Days.

Days led the Philadelphia Daily News during its 2010 Pulitzer Prize win for investigative reporting, and went on to become an editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer after the two publications merged.

Days was inducted into the NABJ Hall of Fame in 2017 and was the inaugural president of NABJ-Philadelphia at the time of his death.

I’ll quickly break the fourth wall to say I was a young Black journalist supported by Days. I met him at an NABJ conference around 2017 and went on to work at the Inquirer, mostly thanks to his recruitment, as a staff writer and member of the inaugural Lenfest Fellowship class. I spent plenty of days sitting in his office, laughing with him and learning from him, and I’m grateful for every moment. Thanks to him, I was able to live out a childhood dream of reporting and working in my hometown. I owe a lot to him and I am grateful.

He was a measured but passionate editor who kept his door and ears open. One of the most powerful parts of his legacy, for me, is not just that he opened so many doors, but that he pulled so many young journalists through those doors with him. He made space for the next generation.

“NABJ President Errin Haines said she first met Mr. Days when she moved to Philadelphia in 2015 to work for the Associated Press,” the Inquirer reported in its obituary. “Haines said she was struck by his seemingly boundless energy for helping younger reporters. She remembered him as a universally respected leader, and someone who had shown other Black journalists a path to success.

“‘It was seismic in the industry, and a huge point of pride for NABJ,’ said Haines.”

As a testament to his leadership, Journal-isms reported: “Columnist Will Bunch wrote in 2011, “Daily News staffers burst into spontaneous applause when publisher Bob Hall announced that Days — who in the interim had been managing editor of the Inquirer — would be returning to the tabloid.“

Read Days’ full tribute in The Philadelphia Inquirer here.

By TyLisa C. Johnson, audience engagement producer

News desertification has come for indie outlets

The United States lost 136 newspapers last year and, for the first time, most of those closures came from small, independently owned papers rather than national chains, according to Northwestern University’s latest State of Local News report, which came out Monday.

That shift is especially troubling, Medill chair in local news Tim Franklin told Poynter’s Angela Fu, because those local owners tended to live in and understand the communities they covered. Their exits, driven by rising costs, weak advertising markets and succession challenges, leave behind deeper holes in local trust. In many cases, they also leave behind outright news deserts.

The report also warns of new pressures on public broadcasters, which have long served as stable news sources in areas without local papers. Following Congress’ rollback of public media funding, stations that rely heavily on federal dollars — often in rural regions — are now competing with other outlets for philanthropic support.

While the study found a modest rise in digital startups, most remain concentrated in urban areas, far from the communities losing their last papers.

By Ren LaForme, managing editor

Media tidbits and links

• Semafor’s Max Tani reports that NOTUS — a Washington, D.C.-based digital news startup — will launch an op-ed section. Editor Richard Just told Tani that NOTUS hopes to tackle “ideological fragmentation,” which he said is “keeping people in power shielded from the views of serious political figures, writers, and academics that they may disagree with.” The move is notable because, over the past few years, opinion sections have fallen out of favor at some publications, including the Gannett chain.
• Brian Rosenzweig of The Herald-Times in Bloomington, Indiana, writes “Purdue student journalists deliver special 'solidarity' newspaper to IU Bloomington campus.” 
• Speaking of … Indiana University’s Media School announced it would form a “Task Force on the Editorial Independence and Financial Sustainability of the Indiana Daily Student (IDS)/Student Media.” The announcement says the task force will “bring together faculty, staff, students, and alumni to develop recommendations ensuring both the editorial independence and financial sustainability of student media at IU.” Here’s more.

More resources for journalists

• Gain the skills to spot AI risks like bias, misinformation and hallucinations before they harm your work. Enroll now.
• Journalists: It’s time to take care of yourself, too. Enroll now in a free session on embodiment practices to rest and regroup.
• Stop wasting hours on repetitive tasks — automate them instead. Learn how.
• Interested in learning more about funding local news? Start here.
• Deepen your coverage of incarcerated women and women with incarcerated family members and get the chance to apply for one of five $10,000 reporting grants. Enroll now.
• This week: Get training to track federal climate policy rollbacks and their local impacts. Enroll now.
• Access a list of mental health reporting resources on funding, source-building and more.
• Amp up your editing skills, improve your work life and advance your career with Poynter’s ACES Certificates.

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].

The Poynter Report is your daily dive into the world of media, packed with the latest news and insights. Get it delivered to your inbox Monday through Friday by signing up here. And don’t forget to tune into our biweekly podcast for even more.