Journalists: Forget the Murrows and Never Mind the Emmys. You Want to Win a FauxMOW.
-first published in Substack blog “The “Last Editor” on December 3, 2025
My office at Mizzou was filled with mementos of 35 years of teaching and 40-plus years in journalism. It was one of those places you enter that has every inch of wall space covered with a framed photo, plaque or banner. My younger daughter called it my “shrine to myself,” but I liked how it was a capsule of my life in journalism.
Among the items you would have found in my office were a slew of journalism awards. You’d find Missouri Broadcasters Association awards, a number of regional Emmys and some Murrow awards—including perhaps the best of them all, KOMU’s Small-Market Overall Excellence Murrow from 1994.
When my wife and I made the move to California four years ago, she was clear that since I would not have a dedicated office in our new, downsized house (I’m writing this from my regular working spot at the kitchen table), we wouldn’t have a place to put all that office stuff back on the walls. I agreed and most of it now rests now in plastic tubs in the garage or our bedroom closet.
My award-winning newsroom days are over, so I’m not adding to this cache of plaques, certificates and trophies anymore.
But if I could add just one more, I have to say I’d really like to get the unintentional award the Trump White House has set up for journalists. They call it the “Media Offender of the Week” and—laughingly—they don’t see it as an award. But clearly, any journalist aggressively covering the White House would love to be called out for that aggressive reporting. So it’s clearly an award and thus needs a name. “Media Offender of the Week” is a little awkward for an award name. Perhaps use the acronym MOW? Maybe. To mow is a tedious, weekly occurrence for people with grass, so that fits. But something’s still missing. Since this is a fake list, I’m going to call it the “FauxMOW.”
If you haven’t seen it yet, I’m talking about a page on the official White House website that lists what the Trump Administration considers to be misleading or biased stories done by the media concerning the administration. As of this writing, there are 30-odd stories listed. To the White House’s credit, rather than an unannotated list, each “offense” includes the administration’s reasoning for what the story and news organization made the offender list, along with a link to the story and some administration “evidence” to “prove” its claim. But once you read down the list, you see this is really just a list of accurate and unbiased stories that make the White House look bad. The “offenses” fall into ten categories: bias, circular reporting, failure to report, false claim, lie, malpractice, mischaracterization, misrepresentation, omission of context, and my personal favorite, a catch-all category called “left-wing lunacy.” Each offending story listed has one or more of these categories associated with it, along with a brief description of why it falls into that category.
Many of the accusations of bias read as if someone in the White House got his feelings hurt (I think we all know who that is), rather than being a true journalistic offense.
The best example is the story currently at the top of the list, “Media Misrepresents and Exaggerates President Trump’s Calls for Democrat Accountability,” with the list of offenders being CBS News, The Boston Globe and The Independent. The site charges these news outlets with misrepresentation and omission of context for reporting about Trump’s reaction to the six Democratic members of Congress who made the video letting military members know they have a duty to disobey illegal orders. Here’s the media’s supposed offense as cited on the site: “The Democrats and Fake News Media subversively implied that President Trump had issued illegal orders to service members. Every order President Trump has issued has been lawful.” But all the reporting I’ve seen on the video has been accurate and none of it cited specific illegal orders already given. This charge is particularly weak because the White House can always claim a reporter “implied” something that isn’t actually reported.
The site takes another story to task after a reporter tweeted that an undocumented man in New Jersey arrested after an accident that killed two has a “largely clean” driving record—and qualified that statement with the phrase “despite prior DUI arrests.” There’s no assertion in the actual New Jersey Monitor story that the driver is an innocent person as it has all the facts—the man has two charges pending for drunk driving, though the state still list his driver’s license in good standing with one speeding ticket last year. It appears this story is included on the White House list despite being true and unbiased simply because it’s another attempt to take the hatred and fear of immigrants on the right and use it against reporters telling accurate stories about immigrants.
I read through the entire list and found few stories there in which I think it’s even possible some journalistic norm was breached.
In one instance, the White House claims a photo at the top of a piece from The Hill showing four National Guard members walking near what appears to be a federal building is actually from 2021 during the Biden administration. If that is true, it is certainly sloppy execution to illustrate the story—even if it doesn’t change the facts of what was written. But I did a thorough reverse image search and could not find any use of the photo before Oct. 30, 2025. It’s possible the image was taken in 2021 and in storage since then, just being used this year. But I can’t tell for sure. Also listed was the BBC report that used some questionable editing of a Trump statement that some claim made it appear he was calling for violence. The BBC has removed that story and those responsible have resigned. Bad journalism? Probably. But the journalism community called it out and those responsible have faced the consequences of their actions.
Getting back to my original take on this list, it’s clear to me it would be a badge of honor to appear on it.
That’s why I consider it to be an award. Winning a “FauxMOW” shows a reporter or news organization is doing its job to question authority and report on those stories the administration would rather the public not see. It’s the same work responsible reporters—the vast majority of them—have done aggressively with every presidential administration. The fact this administration has decided to make an official list of all the stories that truthfully show it in a negative light is probably a misstep. First, it’s outrageous that an official federal government website is being used—probably illegally—to peddle partisan attacks on the free press. But that’s become the norm for this administration, as when it put false, partisan messages on many federal websites during the government shutdown. Beyond that, it’s creating a permanent record—in sampler form—of the negative reporting being done on the administration’s questionable practices. If future administrations continue this feature on the White House website, historians can use it to easily look up and compare the offenses of each president. Those historians are going to have their hands full with this administration, so perhaps they’ll appreciate the effort to put it all in one place.
I don’t think this tiny Substack will earn the attention of whatever poor interns are charged with keeping this White House hit site current, so I doubt there’s a FauxMOW in my future. But to the rest of you covering everything this administration is doing, there’s hope for you. Once you win this prestigious award, shout it to the rooftops. It’s a true badge of honor.