Friend,

An ICE agent murdered a Minnesota mother of three. The video evidence is undeniable. And yet too many newsrooms still can't acknowledge what actually happened.

Renee Good was killed, apparently for the capital crime of talking back. Trump officials slandered her as a "domestic terrorist" and disputed the obvious facts — and too many newsrooms treated it like a partisan he-said-she-said debate.

For example, The New York Times went with the headline, "Video of ICE Shooting Becomes a Political Rorschach Test.”

The media’s job is to expose the liars, not hide behind false notions of objectivity that obscure what’s actually happening.

As my colleague Nora Benavidez wrote: “Trump's lies, big and small, from the seemingly existential to the banal, have brought untold damage to communities and often serve as the pretext to usher in more aggressive MAGA policy stances. The resulting chaos overwhelms the public, distracts the media and undermines democratic progress."

Here's what too many newsroom leaders fail to understand: People hate being lied to. If you know someone's lying to me but won't tell me, why would I ever trust you?

That's not liberal bias. That's common sense. And it's why trust in the media continues to collapse — not because coverage is too "woke," but because too many news organizations are not telling the truth about what's happening right in front of us.

But this isn't just one story. It's a pattern. Consider what’s happening at CBS:

• CBS censor-in-chief Bari Weiss spiked a 60 Minutes investigation into Trump kidnapping innocent people and sending them to be tortured in El Salvador.¹
• Weiss buried another 60 Minutes story exposing Trump's decision to accept white — and only white — South African refugees.²
• Meanwhile, new CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil is delivering softball interviews and embarrassing tributes to Marco Rubio as the "ultimate Florida man."³

As the Columbia Journalism Review put it: "Demanding accountability is increasingly seen as disloyalty, rather than the duty of the Fourth Estate. It feels like sycophancy, not rigor, is what now reaps rewards."⁴

Since last year, Free Press has been tracking and exposing these failures through our Media Capitulation Index documenting how America's largest media companies have caved to pressure from this authoritarian administration.

We're calling out the sycophancy, the both-sidesism and the billionaire media owners who'd rather cozy up to Trump than tell the truth. We know the media’s failures have major real-world consequences.

When the liars aren’t confronted, the lies continue to accumulate, compound and metastasize — on subjects ranging from birth certificates to ballot boxes to the attempted cover-up of this brutal murder in Minneapolis.

Free Press will keep calling out the media when they fall short while building the kind of journalism we need to meet this harrowing moment. As Orwell said: "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

Thank you for helping us support trustworthy journalism,

Craig and the rest of us at Free Press

P.S. Free Press doesn’t take a cent from business, government or political parties — because our independence is too important. Make a gift of any amount to help us keep fighting to hold media companies accountable.

1. “Inside the Bari Weiss Decision That Led to a ‘60 Minutes’ Crisis,” CNN, Dec. 22, 2025

2. “The Shadow Over ‘60,’” Status, Jan. 8, 2026

3. “White House Posts Unusual Tony Dokoupil ‘CBS Evening News’ Segment Saluting Marco Rubio for His Many Jobs in Trump Administration,” Deadline, Jan. 7, 2026

4. “And That’s the Way It Is,” Columbia Journalism Review, Jan. 12, 2026