The best part about the dead legacy media becoming completely irrelevant in recent years, but particularly since Donald Trump won re-election last November, is that they absolutely do not understand the reason why.
Of course, it's possible that some of them DO know the reason and simply refuse to say it out loud, but that might be even funnier. They died because they refused to be honest with people, and yet they still refuse to be honest.
It's almost poetic in its deliciousness.
Yesterday, Jim VandeHei, the founder of Politico and Axios, sat down for an interview with Bari Weiss of The Free Press on her podcast and, in the clip below, lamented the destruction of traditional media and outlined the reasons he believes that no one trusts them anymore. Watch:
Axios founder @JimVandeHei says trust in American media collapsed in three phases.
— Honestly with Bari Weiss (@thehonestlypod) April 8, 2025
1. Twitter exposed the political bias of “objective” journalists.
2. Coverage of Covid, “defund the police,” and word policing didn’t sit right with Americans.
3. The lack of coverage around Joe… pic.twitter.com/aTpxAZQrYr
3. The lack of coverage around Joe Biden’s mental decline was the final straw.
'And it breaks my heart … I am a fierce defender of journalism ... I think it’s a couple of bad apples who make it look bad for for everyone.'
LOL. 'A few bad apples'? Nice try.
Sir, the problem is the entire f*****g orchard. https://t.co/YowpIWt0hs
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) April 8, 2025
We have to wonder if VandeHai noticed the worms crawling around his own head as he was saying this. Because he is one of the rottenest apples of them all.
Recommended
We might remind him that he is the same person who recently screamed at Elon Musk (while accepting a 'journalism' award, of course) for saying the exact same things about legacy journalists, including him. Just a couple of months ago, VandeHei also tweeted that the REAL problem with the California wildfires was that it was difficult for Democrats to be able to blame them on Trump.
Yes, X did expose media bias. Yes, the media acted disgracefully during COVID and regarding policing speech. And yes, the media participated in the greatest scandal in modern political history by covering up Joe Biden's senility.
Guess who was guilty of all three of those sins, Jimbo?
It wasn't just 'a few bad apples.' It was the entire legacy media establishment, and VandeHei was chief among them.
Founder of Politico and Axios says what now? pic.twitter.com/aRBKZ8c1hF
— L A R R Y (@LarryOConnor) April 8, 2025
It's hilarious, but it's also very insulting to Americans (another reason why everyone hates the media). VandeHei simply assumes people will not remember Axios's coverage of COVID, or George Floyd riots, or 'misinformation.'
But X remembers. X remembers BIG TIME.
Axios hosted some of the worst Big Pharma propaganda during the pandemic.
— Matt Orfalea (@0rf) April 8, 2025
"If you are vaccinated, you can feel safe you will not get infected." -Dr. Fauci
Axios is part of the same corrupt media swamp. / 🧵 https://t.co/MEt4coUPrn pic.twitter.com/SXB0F2tv51
Oops.
If you notice the lower right corner of the screen in that interview between Axios's Mike Allen and Tony Fauci, it is sponsored by ... Big Pharma.
Iran Deal -> Russiagate -> impeachment etc. That Obama information operations are off the table is the tell. No rehabilitation of liberal media without full disclosure of complicity. https://t.co/E5Q0lBZ5Vx
— Lee Smith (@LeeSmithDC) April 9, 2025
The examples of media malfeasance that VandeHei left out are just as important as the ones he included.
It has been a steady climb down since the Obama years. The lack of trust has been earned.
— AG (@AGHamilton29) April 9, 2025
Americans have witnessed mainstream media institutions abandon standards repeatedly to advance preferred narratives. And the entire time the consistent response would be defensive… https://t.co/4W3GGdqjsE
... defensive gaslighting with no self-reflection.
There were a lot of moments before then, but the Kavanaugh confirmation was a key turning point where it was clear that major outlets weren’t just biased but were willing to spread intentional and obvious lies just because they thought it would help advance specific political goals. It was impossible to overlook.
VandeHei doesn't mention the disgraceful reporting around Brett Kavanaugh's SCOTUS nomination because he was one of the ones spreading those intentional and obvious lies.
Why doesn't he fix @axios then?@JimVandeHei you've got false claims about guns being the leading cause of death for children. I emailed your writer and got no response and it was never corrected. (You actually have three different claims in that article.)
— Joe Duarte 🏜️ (@ValidScience) April 8, 2025
You also had a… https://t.co/kWkMCqVcME
You also had a writer/activist emailing Twitter 1.0 to get @AlexBerenson banned. She sounded like a teenager, talking about 'like, misinformation' without being able to provide a single example.
You often have articles talking about misinfo without specifying any, and your writers are not educated enough, and are too leftist, to credibly and professionally approach the topic of misinfo. It's the same dysfunction in all other leftist media, a product of leftist culture.
VandeHei lives inside a leftist bubble he helped create and then wonders why everyone outside of that bubble is laughing at him.
Not sure how you can say it's a few bad apples when nothing stopped anyone in the industry from publishing about Biden's obvious mental decline, yet almost none of them did. https://t.co/5PX06peAjO
— Boo (@IzaBooboo) April 9, 2025
While it is true that Alex Thompson of Axios was somewhat honest in his reporting about Biden's dementia, he was one of the only ones. Everyone else at Axios, including VandeHei, was fully complicit in the lie.
Sounds to me as if, by citing one example of one Axios reporter, he wants to separate Axios off from these “couple” of “bad apples” and defend its credibility, but I don’t trust their reporting at all. https://t.co/YZ6CxJyuXL
— Babsi Babs (@BabsiBabs351627) April 9, 2025
No one does. And no one ever WILL trust VandeHei if he is unwilling to issue a mea culpa about his role in the demise of the legacy media.
Most of the apples are bad. If he had been honest with this one admission, I could at least believe he was being serious and sincere. There’s no soft-pedaling what these journalists have done. They've earned our contempt.
— Chica'sBailBonds (@IrinaMoises) April 8, 2025
They have also earned our derision.
Failure to police your own has consequences.
— Lady Hecate (@hecate40) April 9, 2025
And we all know what they say about how consequences arrive. VERY uncomfortably.
LOL, Retard, it was your entire media propaganda machine, not "a few bad apples". Axios is a huge part of it.
— Ordnance Jay Packard Esq. (@OrdnancePackard) April 9, 2025
LMAO@JimVandeHei https://t.co/jMbwt7H8HE
GP "A couple of bad apples" in media meaning nearly every last person in media. https://t.co/AIxo4JjbXW
— The Gormogons (@Gormogons) April 8, 2025
"The 95% of journalists who are hyperpartisan frauds like me make the other 5% look bad."
— Mixy Pisa (@MixyPisa) April 8, 2025
-- Shorter Jim VandeHei https://t.co/jSicL3Y6RF
"a couple of bad apples..." Zero self-awareness with these people, absolutely none. https://t.co/uI84LYBRfV
— Kiss My Grits (@MaGavteLaNata) April 8, 2025
Their lack of ANY ability or willingness to point their fingers inward will never stop being hilarious.
And VandeHei has the nerve to think that people will believe he is one of the 'good guys.'
Jim realizes he's not a bystander in this, right? https://t.co/l4tj2dwZMv
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) April 9, 2025
As we noted above, he either does not realize it (which is funny), or he does realize it and is unwilling to admit it (which is even funnier).
As with the recent New York Times article, claiming that WE were misled about COVID, or the upcoming book from Jake Tapper (which he wrote with Axios's Thompson) regarding the cover-up of Biden's mental decline, the media wants to pretend that we did not watch them all try to push those lies, and a great many more, on the public for years, even decades.
Sorry, Jim VandeHei. You don't get off that easily.
The legacy media IS dead, and he is one of the prime reasons why.
And if he doesn't like it, he can eat an entire bushel of ... bad apples.
Help us continue exposing Democrats' plans to lead America down a dangerous path. Join Twitchy VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member