New White House Website Takes Aim at Journalists and News Outlets

‘Hall of Shame’ identifies individual outlets and reporters for alleged bias and lies, in administration’s latest salvo against the press.

The White House published a website detailing what it calls “false and misleading” media coverage, the latest in a series of unorthodox steps by the Trump administration against media outlets.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt at Monday’s press briefing. (WSJ)

The official government site, which went live late last week, identifies news outlets under the headers “Media Offender of the Week” and “Offender Hall of Shame.” It references stories on topics ranging from President Trump’s policy initiatives to immigration actions and tariffs and tags the articles with terms including “lie,” “left-wing lunacy,” “malpractice” and “omission of context.”

The site lists nearly two dozen publications, including The Wall Street Journal, as well as more than 50 individual reporters and TV personalities.

The site follows moves by administration officials to limit access for certain members of the press to parts of the Oval Office and Pentagon. Trump also has derided individual journalists’ personalities and looks.

In addition to the “media offender” website, the White House last month published a webpage chronicling what it describes as “lies, conspiracies, and outright opinion thinly veiled as fact” from ABC News. A representative from ABC declined to comment.

The White House earlier created a “wire” service linking to official videos and social-media accounts as well as favorable coverage of Trump’s presidency from largely conservative-leaning outlets.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in Monday’s press briefing that the new media bias site is a reaction to “fake news,” “inaccurate characterizations of meetings” and reporting based on anonymous sourcing. “It goes to our original promise on day one to hold the media accountable,” she said.

For years, Trump has used social media—particularly his platform, Truth Social—to reprimand the press for negative coverage. The new government site reflects a more coordinated, formalized approach to criticizing members of the press.

Press rights advocates have expressed concern that the administration’s approach could have a chilling effect on coverage and imperil journalists.

“The Trump administration’s landing page creates a dangerous permission structure for attacks on journalists and an attempt to undermine newsrooms across the country,” said Katherine Jacobsen, a program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The White House website criticizes editorial decisions made by major news outlets, including what they don’t cover or cite in their stories.

The page also highlights a Washington Post story about Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s plan to double immigrant detention space. The story, which describes an attorney with the National Center for Youth Law as an immigration expert, omitted the “left-wing” lawyer’s “history of bias,” according to the White House site.

“The Washington Post is proud of its accurate, rigorous journalism,” a spokeswoman for the paper said.

The White House site says a recent Journal story about Italian pasta potentially disappearing from American grocery shelves is “an exaggerated lie” and “an effort to fearmonger against President Trump’s successful tariff policies.”

“We stand by our journalists and the rigor of our reporting, which is fair and accurate,” said a Journal spokeswoman. “Our focus remains on maintaining our standards of quality and independent journalism upon which our readers rely.”

The Society of Professional Journalists on Monday asked the administration to remove the webpage and “lower the temperature in exchanges between administration officials and journalists.”

Trump has also pursued and threatened legal fights with news organizations.

ABC News last year agreed to contribute $15 million to Donald Trump’s presidential foundation or museum and pay $1 million in legal fees to his lawyer to settle a defamation lawsuit he filed against the network and its star anchor George Stephanopoulos. Paramount Global earlier this year agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit with Trump over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump this year accused the publisher of the Journal of defaming him in an article about a letter bearing his name that was included in a 50th birthday book for disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. A Dow Jones spokeswoman has said the company has “full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting.”

Write to Alexandra Bruell at alexandra.bruell@wsj.com